Table of Contents

• Package Management

Package Management

Package Management helps you create packages of automation resources and deploy them

A package consists of related

• runbooks
• modules
• variables
• credentials

Note: support for certificates & connections will be added soon.

Installation

From the Powershell Gallery

    Install-Module -Name AzureAutomationTools.PackageManagement

Requirements

Windows Powershell 5.1 (only tested with 5.1.14393.953)

Create a package

You can create a new package in the current folder.

    New-AatAutomationPackage -Name 'monkey'

This will create the following:

    .\monkey
    .\monkey\assets
    .\monkey\modules
    .\monkey\runbooks
    .\monkey\assets\assets.json    

The file assets.json contains

    {
        "Credentials": [],
        "Variables": []
    }

Sample files

Specifying the -IncludeSamples switch will create sample files in the package

    New-AatAutomationPackage -Name 'monkey' -IncludeSamples

will additionally create

    .\monkey\assets\sample-assets.json    

sample-assets.json will contains something similar to:

    {
        "Credentials": [
            {
                "Name": "ExampleCredential",
                "Username": "user@exmaple.com"
            }
        ],
        "Variables": [
            {
                "Name": "simple-plaintext-variable",
                "IsEncrypted": false,
                "Value": "lorem"
            },
            {
                "Name": "simple-encrypted-variable",
                "IsEncrypted": true,
                "Value": null
            },
            {
                "Name": "object-variable",
                "IsEncrypted": false,
                "Value": {
                    "ComplexProperty": {
                        "Ipsum": 1,
                        "Dolor": "monkey"
                    },
                    "SimpleProperty": "Lorem"
                }
            }
        ]
    }

Variables

You can add variables to an assets file manually but to avoid errors you can do the following

    Add-AatVariableDefinition -Name 'bert' -Value 'ernie'    

    {
        "Credentials": [],
        "Variables": [
            {
                "Name": "bert",
                "IsEncrypted": false,
                "Value": "ernie"
            }
        ]
    }

Credentials

Credentials must be added manually to an assets file.

    {
        "Credentials": [],
        "Variables": []
    }

e.g.

    {
        "Credentials": [
            {
                "Name" :  "ExampleCredential",
                "UserName" : "user@example.com"    
            }
        ],
        "Variables": []
    }

Test a package

You can test a package by executing:

    Test-AatAutomationPackage

which will give output similar to:

    Message                                           Severity
    -------                                           --------
    No module defintions found in  '.\monkey\modules' Warning
    No runbooks found in  '.\monkey\runbooks'         Warning

Publish a package

To publish all package in the current folder

    $Params = @{        
        ResourceGroupName = "rg";
        AutomationAccountName = "aa";
        DeployRunbooks = $true;
        DeployModules = $true;
        DeployVariables = $true;
        DeployCredentials = $true;
        NewCredentialsOnly = $true;
    }

    Publish-AatAutomationPackage @Params

To publish only the monkey package

    $Params = @{        
        ResourceGroupName = "rg";
        AutomationAccountName = "aa";
        DeployRunbooks = $true;
        DeployModules = $true;
        DeployVariables = $true;
        DeployCredentials = $true;
        NewCredentialsOnly = $true;
    }

    Publish-AatAutomationPackage @Params -PackageName 'monkey'