Hi - can anyone point me in the right direction for a problem I'm having?

I want to script opening websites then return a value depending on what happens.  Sort of like - site opens = 0 anything else = 1.

Something like this - I know this won't work but it shows my thinking

$ie = new-object -comobject "InternetExplorer.Application"
$ie.visible = $false

if (!( $ie.navigate("http://www.mysite.com"))) 
   { 
      $response = 0 
   }
else 
   { 
      $response = 1 
   }

Thanks in advance.

Rob

Instead of using a COM object, why not use native .NET Framework objects. For instance, you could use the following:

$webRequest = [net.WebRequest]::Create("http://www.mysite.com")
$response = $webRequest.GetResponse()

This returns a HttpWebResponse object to the $response variable, and then you can check if the site loads by looking at the StatusCode property. This maps to the HttpWebResponse.StatusCode enumeration which gives you a lot of flexibility to see what happened when you requested the site.

You can then check like this...

if ($response.statuscode -eq 200)
{
$siteLoaded = $true
}
else
{
$siteLoaded = $false
}

That's fantastic, and simple! Brilliant, thanks for that.

Rob

This works for all sites outside my intranet...

Do you have any ideas on why? Proxy settings etc?

You can use the system.net.webproxy class.

$proxy = new-object net.webproxy
$proxy.address = 'http://proxysrv.domain.com:80'
$webRequest = [net.webrequest]::Create("http://www.mysite.com")
$webRequest.Proxy = $proxy
$response = $webRequest.GetResponse()

See if that helps you get to what you want. Just substitute your proxy address for 'proxysrv.domain.com'

$proxy.credentials = new-object system.net.networkcredential("Domain\username","password")

add a line like this after you create the $proxy object and before you make the .GetResponse() call.

Timing out now!

Exception calling "GetResponse" with "0" argument(s): "The operation has timed out"

At line:5 char:36

+ $response = $webRequest.GetResponse <<<< ()

+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException

Yeah, everything routes through a proxy and the site requires authentication. We also require exceptions for internal resources - my site being one.

I would have thought they were picked up by .Net, or do they too have to be manually loaded?

Thanks again.

Sorry to ask this again, but just trying to be clear on what we are troubleshooting.

Does the proxy require authentication?

Does the site require authentication?

There are two different ways to supply credentials for the site and the proxy.  The one I gave you authenticates you to the proxy server.  You may still need to provide authentication to the site itself.

After you create the webrequest object, you can use the UseDefaultCredential property to use the credentials that Powershell is running in (according to the MSDN information). 

$webRequest.UseDefaultCredentials = $true

See if that helps any.

yes, both require authentication...

I've added the UseDefaultCredentials property and we have a winner!

Thanks for your time, I greatly appreciate it.

Rob

Glad to help and glad it worked for you.

I ran into this problem lately too, here is the advanced function I wrote to solve this problem.

Note: Usually if your testing for something you wanting to get a true/false response. I made this command to mimic Test-Path.

Ussage:

Test-WebPath cnn.com -Timeout 10

or

if(Test-WebPath('website.com/blah/')){Do Stuff}



Function Global:Test-WebPath
{


<#
.Synopsis

.Description

.Parameter $Path

.Example
PS> Test-WebPath -Path cnn.com

.Example
PS> Test-WebPath -Url yahoo.com -Timeout 6
.Example
PS> if(Test-WebPath('website.com/blah/')){Do Stuff}

.Link
about_functions
about_functions_advanced
about_functions_advanced_methods
about_functions_advanced_parameters

.Notes
NAME: Test-WebPath
AUTHOR: PowershellJedi
LASTEDIT: 10/28/2010 10:19:14 PM
#Requires -Version 2.0
#>



[CmdletBinding()]
param(
[Parameter(Position=0, Mandatory=$true, ValueFromPipeline=$true)]
[Alias('Url')]
[string]$Path,
[Parameter(Position=1)]
[int]$Timeout = 6
)


Process
{
$ErrorActionPreference="SilentlyContinue"

if(!($Path.StartsWith('http://'))){[string]$Path = 'http://' + $Path}

#-------
if($Timeout){
if($Timeout.Length -le 3){
[string]$Timeout = $Timeout
[string]$Timeout = $Timeout + '000'
[int]$Timeout = $Timeout
}# if
}# if
#-------


[System.Net.HttpWebRequest] $request = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest] [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($Path)
$request.Timeout = $Timeout
$Response = $request.GetResponse()

if($Response){$true}else{$false}

$request.Abort()

Remove-Variable -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Name Path
Remove-Variable -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Name Response
Remove-Variable -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Name request
Remove-Variable -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Name Timeout

}# Process



}# Test-WebPath

Jedi, it's a bit outta my depth, but I can see what is fundamentally going on. It's a nice solution to the problem, thank you. Rob

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