COMP 2071 INTRO

1
COMP 2071 INTRO

• This course is primarily about Scripting, and
  will encompass both Windows and Linux. Scripts
  will allow you, as a system administrator, to
  automate or semi-automate many administrative
  tasks.
• There is no textbook for the first part of the
  course - buy a 3-ring binder, and print out any
  documents referenced from the web and add them to
  your binder.
• Your resources for this course will be weekly
  PowerPoint slide presentations, Word documents
  written to support this course, web resources and
  URLs provided to you and finally, anything you
  can find on the web, and in books and other
  places.
• Each week, these slides and documents will be
  placed on the I-drive in the folder
  Comp2071\Class Notes

2
Background - 1

• Operating systems (OSs) consist of a kernel or
  core set of operating routines which access the
  hard drives and peripherals, and manage the file
  system.
• To use this kernel, each OS is accessed by a
  shell which allows a user to use the kernel
  routines. Each shell has some form of
  scripting capabilities that is, you can put a
  set of shell commands together in one file, and
  run or execute the entire set of shell commands
  rather than having to run each one individually
  and manually.
• Much of this began with UNIX. UNIX has more than
  one shell. Each shell is more suited to some
  tasks than to others. Usually, you can launch
  one shell from another.

3
Background - 2

• Common UNIX shells include the C shell, Bourne
  Shell and the Korn shell. There are others, and
  all are similar, having a core set of commands in
  common. Linux has similar shells.
• DOS was modeled on UNIX (and on CP/M) and has
  batch file capabilities this is DOSs script
  language. Most of these batch files will still
  operate under Windows 2000 and XP, when run under
  the Windows command line prompt.
• As to script languages, UNIXs Cscript was
  followed by Perl and Tcl, which are now much
  better-known and more widely used.
• Some DOS Batch File Examples

4
Windows Script Host - 1

• WSH uses the same scripting engines used by IE
  to execute client-side scripts, and by IIS to
  execute ASP (Active Server Page) server-side
  scripts. WSH provides a local environment in
  which to execute these WSH scripts.
• WSH Scripting Technology provides access to
• Scripting environment and Object model
• VBScript and JScript engines
• COM (Component Object Model)
• Windows Script Components (previously known as
  Server Scriptlets), generally to provide COM
  objects in script code
• WSH provides 2 scripting utilities
• CScript the command-line utility, via the
  command prompt window
• WScript the Windows interface version of the
  utility

5
Windows Script Host - 2
Windows Script Host Object Model
-gt WSH Object Model
6
Windows Script Host - 3

• Wscript is the most important object.
• Its properties
• Application returns IDispatch interface for WSH
  script host
• Arguments returns a collection containing
  parameters for the script
• FullName returns full path to host executable,
  cscript.exe or wscript.exe
• Name friendly name of WSH
• Path directory containing WSH
• ScriptFullName full path to currently-running
  script
• ScriptName what it says! (name of
  currently-running script)
• Version version of WSH
• Its methods (more about these next week)
• CreateObject, DisconnectObject, GetObject, Echo,
  Quit

7
Windows Script Host - 4

• The next set of objects after Wscript include
• WshShell
• WshNetwork
• WshCollection
• You have already seen some uses of WshShell one
  of the most important uses of it is to use its
  objects WshSpecialFolders and WshEnvironment (see
  code examples)
• Many things about the Network you are on can be
  known through use of the WshNetwork object (see
  code example)
• Finally, we will do more with the WshCollection
  object and with the Dictionary object next week

8
Windows Script Host - 5

• Scripting Runtime Library
• One of the most important objects you will use in
  scripting is the FileSystemObject.
• Technically-speaking, it is not part of the WSH
  script model.
• Rather, like a number of other objects, it is
  part of an encapsulated scripting runtime library
  or SRL which makes its objects available to
  JScript and VBScript.
• As a result, we can use these objects just the
  same way as the WSH objects - their syntax is
  either the same or similar
• You will see some of these objects in week2.