/n software has a PowerShell snapin (a set of cmdlets) called NetCmdlets that I’ve been meaning to check out for some time but never got around to it.  Well, today I needed to do some FTP stuff in PowerShell and I didn’t feel like messing with Sapien’s free FTP COM object as it seemed a bit clunky.  I’ve had this NetCmdlets license offer sitting on my desk for a few months so I went ahead and took the plunge. 

I don’t have much to say about them yet except to say it looks really comprehensive.  They charge $99, but you sysadmins out there might want to justify purchasing it if you are getting into using PowerShell to manage your systems.  One really cool thing about these is that it’s all about manipulating many standards-based protocols.  That means cross-platform support.  Oh, and it does XMPP too, niiiice.  (Cross-posting to Planet Jabber… )

Here’s a blurb from their website and the readme:

The /n software NetCmdlets extend the features of Microsoft Windows PowerShell with a broad range of network management and messaging capabilities. The current release contains more than 30 Cmdlets providing access to network and host protocols such as SNMP, LDAP, DNS, Syslog, HTTP, WebDav, FTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, Rexec/RShell, Telnet, and more.

Networking Tools for IT Professionals

The current package contains the following Cmdlets:

• [get/set]-snmp : Command-line SNMP Management capabilities.  Manage network devices directly from PowerShell.
• [get/send]-trap : Monitor and send SNMP Traps.
• [invoke]-ssh : Secure Shell enabled remote access Cmdlet
• [invoke]-rexec : Remote execution via Rexec
• [invoke]-rshell : Remote execution via Rshell
• [get/set]-ftp : FTP file transfer capabilities with advanced proxy and firewall support.
• [get/set]-ldap : Access Active Directory or OpenLDAP servers through LDAP directory access
• [get/send]-udp : Send and receive UDP datagrams. Send Wake On LAN requests.
• [get/send]-nntp : Command-line newsgroup browsing.  Monitor newsgroup postings and post messages to newgroup servers directly from PowerShell.
• [get/send]-syslog : Syslog server and client for LAN event monitoring and reporting.
• [get/set]-tftp : TFTP file transfer Cmdlet.
• [convert]-data : Encoding and decoding utilities including Base64, SHA1, MD5, BinHex, and more.
• [read/write]-zip : Compressions and decompression Cmdlet supporting Zip, Tar, GZip, and Jar.
• [get/set]-webdav : WebDav client Cmdlet.
• [get]-http : Web client Cmdlet with advanced proxy and firewall capabilities.
• [get]-packet : Monitor network interface traffic.
• [get]-time : Access network time servers and synchronize machine clocks.
• [get]-rss : RSS client Cmdlet enables retrieval of RSS Syndicated content.
• [get]-whois : Domain name Whois lookup.
• [send]-im : Send Jabber(XMPP) Instant messages.
• [send]-sms : Send SMS(SMPP) instant messages
• [send]-ping : Network ping capability to monitor device availability.
• [get]-trace : Traceroute Cmdlet for determining the path of network packets between hosts.
• [get/set]-ras : Cmdlets for RAS connectivity.
• [send]-email : Send HTML emails with file attachments, supports SSL.
• [get/set]-imap : Retrieve and manage messages, mailboxes and users in an IMAP server.
• [get]-pop : Retrieve and manage messages in a POP server.

Happy PowerShelling!  (And don’t forget to check out the podcast I co-host, PowerScripting Podcast.)