After a relatively steep learning curve, I realized that PowerShell is cool and VERY powerful for some use cases.

Well, as a small side project, I started working on a Powershell module for Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) platform.

Why? Why not!?

Linode is already known as being VERY developer friendly, why not make it even more friendlier

General idea was to generate a module which will directly talk to the Linode API and eventually expose all platform features via some commandlet.

Besides that, I also wanted to implement some quality of life features which current Linode CLI doesn’t have.

Using the label/name of the resource in your commands.

With the current linode-cli, you need to use the resource ID in all commands which is a bit annoying for some use cases

With this module, you can use the resource label/name in your commands, and in the background the module will convert the label provided to a resource ID and use that to talk to the API.

Support for multiple Linode accounts and account switching.

I also implemented the possibility to have and switch between multiple different Linode “profiles”.

You can have a profile for your development Linode account, a profile for your test Linode account and switch between them using a single command.

Generate a random password when launching an instance

When you deploy instances with the linode-cli, you need to provide a password for the instance.

Since humans are lazy, we most probably end up using the same password over and over again. This feature will make sure that you always get a secure password generated for your Linode. Of course, you are still free to provide your own password if you like.

Check out the examples below to see how all of these things work.

How to start? It’s really easy! You will be up and running in less than 2 minutes!

Installation

To install the Linode PowerShell module, you need to clone the repository, position yourself into the module folder and import the module:

git clone https://github.com/slepix/LinodePowerShell.git
cd LinodePowerShell

Usage

Before you can use the module, you need to import it using the following command:

Import-Module -Name .\LinodePSModule.psd1

After the module has been imported, you need to configure it and add your Linode account.

Configuration

Configuration is really simple, all you need to do is run ‘Connect-LinodeAccount’ command and follow the configuration wizard.

Connect-LinodeAccount

You can run “Connect-LinodeAccount” command for each Linode account you want to add.

IMPORTANT!!!
When creating a new profile, you will be asked if you want to encrypt your Linode token or not. If you decide to encrypt the token, you won't be able to manually edit the profile file and edit the token. 

It is recommended that you use encrypted profile option and recreate a profile if you need to change the token.

User configuration is stored in “$HOME\.LinodePSModule\$name-profile.json“

Check in the examples below how you can switch between different Linode accounts.

NOTE:
You will need Linode API token with the READ/WRITE permissions for all resources in order to get the full functionality of this module.
However, you are free to limit the scope of the API token to suit your security and usage requirements.

Available commands

List of currently available commands can be viewed by running this command

(Get-Module LinodePSModule).ExportedCommands

Example commands

List all currently configured profiles

PS C:\> Get-LinodeProviderProfiles # returns a list of all configured profiles
development
test

Switch to a profile named “test”

PS C:\> Set-LinodeProviderProfile -profile test
Profile test loaded

Get a list of all regions, but only return label, id and status of each region

PS C:\> Get-LinodeRegions | Select label, id, status

label           id           status
-----           --           ------
Mumbai, IN      ap-west      ok
Toronto, CA     ca-central   ok
Sydney, AU      ap-southeast ok
Washington, DC  us-iad       ok
Chicago, IL     us-ord       ok
Paris, FR       fr-par       ok
Seattle, WA     us-sea       ok
Sao Paulo, BR   br-gru       ok
Amsterdam, NL   nl-ams       ok
Stockholm, SE   se-sto       ok
Madrid, ES      es-mad       ok
Chennai, IN     in-maa       ok
Osaka, JP       jp-osa       ok
Milan, IT       it-mil       ok
Miami, FL       us-mia       ok
Jakarta, ID     id-cgk       ok
Los Angeles, CA us-lax       ok
Dallas, TX      us-central   ok
Fremont, CA     us-west      ok
Atlanta, GA     us-southeast ok
Newark, NJ      us-east      ok
London, UK      eu-west      ok
Singapore, SG   ap-south     ok
Frankfurt, DE   eu-central   ok
Tokyo, JP       ap-northeast ok

Returns all properties of a single region

PS C:\> Get-LinodeRegion -region nl-ams # list only nl-ams region

id                     : nl-ams
label                  : Amsterdam, NL
country                : nl
capabilities           : {Linodes, Backups, NodeBalancers, Block Storage...}
status                 : ok
resolvers              : @{ipv4=172.233.33.36, 172.233.33.38, 172.233.33.35,     172.233.33.39, 172.233.33.34, 172.233.33.33, 172.233.33.31, 172.233.33.30, 172.233.33.37, 172.233.33.32;
                         ipv6=2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d10, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d89, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d79, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d96, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2da5,     
                         2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d34, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d68, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d17, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d45, 2600:3c0e::f03c:93ff:fe9d:2d5c}
placement_group_limits : @{maximum_pgs_per_customer=100; maximum_linodes_per_pg=5}
site_type              : core

Create a new Linode named “myInstance” with the instance type of “g6-nanode-1” in nl-ams region and a randomly generated password 25 characters long running Debian 11

PS C:\> New-LinodeInstance -label myInstance -region nl-ams -type g6-nanode-1 -image linode/debian11 -generatepassword -passwordlength 25


id               : 60827598
label            : myInstance
group            :
status           : provisioning
created          : 2024-06-30T01:23:46
updated          : 2024-06-30T01:23:46
type             : g6-nanode-1
ipv4             : {172.233.40.46}
ipv6             : 2600:3c0e::f03c:94ff:fe85:29cf/128
image            : linode/debian11
region           : nl-ams
specs            : @{disk=25600; memory=1024; vcpus=1; gpus=0; transfer=1000}
alerts           : @{cpu=90; network_in=10; network_out=10; transfer_quota=80; io=10000}
backups          : @{enabled=False; available=False; schedule=; last_successful=}
hypervisor       : kvm
watchdog_enabled : True
tags             : {}
host_uuid        : 5f337dda11805445fc391c91e6dcbf45c2a38a21
has_user_data    : False
placement_group  :
lke_cluster_id   :
root_password    : eJbd\OQC9ypSagfvTSG@XREV4

Delete a Linode instance

All destructive commands will force you to use “-confirm” flag in order to actually delete a resource.

PS C:\> Remove-LinodeInstance -label myInstance  
Please use the -confirm flag in order to delete an instance

PS C:\> Remove-LinodeInstance -label myInstance -confirm
Instance 60827598 deleted

Every other command

Even though each commandlet will ask you for parameters, you can also use ‘Get-Help’ commandlet in order to find out which parameters each command requires.

Example for “New-LinodeVPC” command:

PS /> Get-Help New-LinodeVPC

NAME
    New-LinodeVPC

SYNTAX
    New-LinodeVPC [[-description] <string>] [[-apiVersion] <string>] [[-label] <string>] [[-token] <string>] [[-region] <string>] [[-subnetlabel] <string>] [[-iprange] <string>] [<CommonParameters>]

ALIASES
    None

REMARKS
    None

Cool stuff and other quality of life improvements

Compared to Linode’s existing CLI, this module will allow you to specify a label for most of the resources you’re working with. In the background the module will convert the label to the ID of the resource for you.

Example of retrieving an instance details using linode-cli:

Example retrieving an instance details using Linode Powershell module:

PS C:\> Get-Linodeinstance -label blog.dummyserver.net

id               : 12374123
label            : blog.dummyserver.net
group            :
status           : running
created          : 2024-02-29T17:53:49
updated          : 2024-06-29T00:35:47
type             : g6-standard-2
ipv4             : {172.123.123.123}
ipv6             : 2600:4c0e::f04c:95ff:fe48:cda4/128
image            : linode/ubuntu22.04
region           : nl-ams
specs            : @{disk=81920; memory=4096; vcpus=2; gpus=0; transfer=4000}
alerts           : @{cpu=180; network_in=10; network_out=10; transfer_quota=80; io=10000}
backups          : @{enabled=True; available=True; schedule=; last_successful=2024-06-29T00:29:24}
hypervisor       : kvm
watchdog_enabled : True
tags             : {prod}
host_uuid        : 123f8e495e9d51c53df4fa074e5844bce944a068
has_user_data    : True
placement_group  :
lke_cluster_id   :

Development status as of 30.06.2024

Live status: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UCzCSL3fRUB6cJKZJBUFEq-hPzaxGcS7B37nP12Ee3I/edit?gid=1065465499#gid=1065465499

Development is focused on providing the most important features from the start, so that’s the reason you will see a lot of less important functionalities being implemented halfway or “almost there”.

This is a very active project and my expectation is that in the next few weeks there will be full coverage.

Status of implementation is as follows:

Roadmap

Since this is a “weekend” project, no dates will be listed here

Project is under very active development and I’m expecting to finish the first stage in the next few weeks

• Stage 1 < -WE ARE HERE (30.06.2024)
  • Full functionality coverage – 45% done
• Stage 2
  • Write Pester tests for all functionalities
• Stage 3
  • Build test and release pipelines
• Stage 4
  • Get a signing certificate & publish to NuGet gallery if project gets enough traction

Contributing

To report a bug or request a feature in the module, please open a GitHub Issue. Will be happy to check it out <3

Have fun with it, please provide feedback (especially around naming commandlets) and until next time

Alex!

The post Powershell module for Linode – Akamai Connected Cloud first appeared on Architect the cloud.