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One very cool thing in the last Windows Management Framework V5 Preview release is the new module OneGet which allow us to manage a list of software repositories, search/acquire/install/uninstall package(s).

This has been present in the Linux world for a very long time, for example with APT-GET (Debian). This new feature is basically a global silent installer for applications and tools. We should also be able to do configuration tasks and anything that you can do with PowerShell. The power you hold with a module like OneGet is only limited by your imagination! :-)

Note that this is a preview, there is no documentation yet, the features and behavior are likely to change before the final release.

OneGet Module ?

OneGet is a new way to discover and install software packages from around the web. With OneGet, you can:

    * Manage a list of software repositories in which packages can be searched, acquired, and installed * Search and filter your repositories to find the packages you need * Seamlessly install and uninstall packages from one or more repositories with a single PowerShell command

Cmdlets

Here is a list of the Cmdlets coming with this new module

Get-Command -Module OneGet
CommandType     Name                                               Source
-----------     ----                                               ------
Cmdlet          Add-PackageSource                                  OneGet
Cmdlet          Find-Package                                       OneGet
Cmdlet          Get-Package                                        OneGet
Cmdlet          Get-PackageSource                                  OneGet
Cmdlet          Install-Package                                    OneGet
Cmdlet          Remove-PackageSource                               OneGet
Cmdlet          Uninstall-Package                                  OneGet

For now, there is not much information in the help but the naming convention is explicit and we can easily understand the role of each of those:

Cmdlet Definition
Add-PackageSource Add a new Software Repository
Find-Package Search a package from one or more repositories
Get-Package Get the package installed locally
Get-PackageSource Get the Software Repositories
Install-Package Install a Package
Remove-PackageSource Remove a Package Source
Uninstall-Package Uninstall a Package
No help or examples for now (Find-Package Cmdlet)

Additional Cmdlet Get-PackageProvider ?

Note that we can also expect a new cmdlet called Get-PackageProvider</b>in the final version from what we see in the manifest.

Workflow

From my understanding this is how the OneGet module interact with the package manager like Chocolatey.

  • Load OneGet module in PowerShell. OneGet is the common interface for interacting with any Package Manager (Plugins).

  • Then use a Provider for each Package Manager that plugs into OneGet. (Providers do all of the actual work, fetching content from the repositories and doing the actual installation.)

  • The package manager will then query its software repository to retrieve the package. In this example Chocolatey use it’s own set of Cmdlets (see below in this post)

  • The package manager then download a configuration file OR get the URI where it will find the instruction to install the package. In the case of Chocolatey, a configuration file is downloaded from the repository and saved locally in C:\Chocolatey\lib<APPNAME>\Tools,

  • The Provider will then execute the configuration file and download the actual software (+ its dependencies) from a repository, and obviously install it…. silently :-)

Chocolatey Cmdlets If we look at the files in the module directory, Chocolatey comes with its own set of Cmdlets. (Available on the Chocolatey GitHub repo) C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\OneGet

Chocolatey Provider Cmdlets Helpers (Helpers.psm1)
Chocolatey Cmdlets (Chocolatey.psd1)

Using the module

Get the packages already installed

Since I’ve been using chocolatey for a while, Using Get-Package</b>, OneGet is able to retrieve the all the package I installed on this PC.

Find and install a new package

Now if I want to install a package, that’s very easy: Install-Package</b> We first search for the package

# We first query our provider for a package called putty
Find-Package -Name putty | fl *
# Then we install the package
Find-Package -Name putty | Install-Package -Verbose

PowerShell is download the configuration file the repository and execute it Then Posh/OneGet is downloading the package (note the package it's not actually located on the chocolatey website)

The file are download and unzipped inC:\Chocolatey\lib directory by default.

ChocolateyInstall.ps1 content:

Install-ChocolateyZipPackage 'putty' 'http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.zip'  "$(Split-Path -parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition)"

Also note there is some interesting parameters in the Install-Package cmdlet:

    * InstallationOptions [hashtable] * InstallArguments [String]

Find and install one/multiple package(s) using Out-GridView

+Jeffrey Snoveralso shared a very smart line on twitter on how to use a small “GUI” to Select one or multiple packages you want to install:

# Using Out-GridView -PassThru to select the Packages
Find-Package | Out-Gridview -PassThru | Install-Package -Verbose

The other cool thing with Out-GridView is that you can also filter on multiple property

Uninstalling a package

# Get the package putty installed locally
Get-Package putty
# Get and Uninstall putty
Get-Package putty | Uninstall-Package -Verbose

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