| description |
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Installation instructions for PowerShell Universal. |
The MSI install creates a PowerShell Universal service. By default, PowerShell Universal listens on port 5000. You can navigate to http://localhost:5000
MSI downloads are available on our download page.
System installs run as a Windows service. User installs run when the user logs in to the machine. The user install runs in the user's context.
The following table contains the parameters you can specify if running msiexec against our MSI install for automation purposes:
| Parameter | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
| INSTALLFOLDER | The installation folder for PowerShell Universal | %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Universal |
| TCPPORT | The TCP port the HTTP server will be listening on. | 5000 |
| REPOFOLDER | The repository folder to save the configuration files to. | %ProgramData%\UniversalAutomation\Repository |
| CONNECTIONSTRING | The SQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL connection string. | Data Source=%ProgramData%\UniversalAutomation\database.db |
| DATABASETYPE | SQL, SQLite, or PostgreSQL | SQLite |
| STARTSERVICE | Whether to start the service after install (0 or 1) | 1 |
| SERVICEACCOUNT | The service account to set for the Windows service. Use the format of domain\username. | None |
| SERVICEACCOUNTPASSWORD | The service account password to set for the Windows Service. The password will be masked with ***'s in the installer log. | None |
| TELEMETRY | Anonymous telemetry collection | 0 |
| ADDPSMODULEPATH | Adds the PowerShell Universal module directory to the PSModulePath environment variable. | 1 |
| STARTSERVICE | Whether to start the service after install. | 1 |
| INSTALLTYPE | Whether to perform a server or user install. | Server |
The example below shows how to run msiexec.exe to install PowerShell Universal and provide parameters to the installer:
{% code overflow="wrap" %}
Start-Process msiexec.exe -ArgumentList "/I C:\Users\adamr\Downloads\PowerShellUniversal.4.2.7.msi /q /norestart /L*V `"C:\users\adamr\desktop\msi.log.txt`" STARTSERVICE=0 SERVICEACCOUNT=contoso\service_account SERVICEACCOUNTPASSWORD=ThisPasswordWillBeReplacedWithAsterisksInTheMSILogs" -Wait -NoNewWindow{% endcode %}
You can also download the ZIP from our Downloads page if you would like to xcopy deploy the files on Windows or Linux.
You can start Universal by unzipping the contents, unblocking the files and then executing Universal.Server.exe.
Expand-Archive -Path .\Universal.zip -DestinationPath .\Universal
Get-ChildItem .\Universal -Recurse | Unblock-File
Start-Process .\Universal\Universal.Server.exe
You can use the following command line on Linux to install and start PowerShell Universal:
wget https://imsreleases.blob.core.windows.net/universal/production/5.2.1/Universal.linux-x64.5.2.1.zip
sudo apt install unzip
unzip Universal.linux-x64.5.2.1.zip -d PSU
chmod +x ./PSU/Universal.Server
./PSU/Universal.Server
You can use systemd to start PowerShell Universal as a service. The below script is an example of downloading a version of PowerShell Universal and installing it as a service:
# ----
# This script will install PowerShell Universal on Linux as a service
# This has been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 (ARM64) on a Raspberry Pi 4
# ----
# Dependencies:
# wget
# unzip
#
# Make sure they are installed
# ----
# These are used to derive the download URL
PSU_VERSION="5.0.0" # Change this to the current version
PSU_ARCH="arm64" # Change this to your desired architecture
PSU_FILE="Universal.linux-${PSU_ARCH}.${PSU_VERSION}.zip"
PSU_URL="https://imsreleases.blob.core.windows.net/universal/production/${PSU_VERSION}/${PSU_FILE}"
# These are used for installing PowerShell Universal
# If you'd like to use a different path, change this
PSU_PATH="/opt/psuniversal"
PSU_EXEC="${PSU_PATH}/Universal.Server"
# These are for installing it as a service
PSU_SERVICE="psuniversal"
PSU_USER="psuniversal"
# ----
# BEGIN
# ----
echo "Creating $PSU_PATH and granting access to $USER"
sudo mkdir $PSU_PATH
sudo setfacl -m "u:${USER}:rwx" $PSU_PATH
echo "Creating user $PSU_USER and making it the owner of $PSU_PATH"
sudo useradd $PSU_USER -m
sudo chown $PSU_USER -R $PSU_PATH
echo "Downloading PowerShell Universal $PSU_VERSION ($PSU_ARCH)"
wget -q $PSU_URL -O $PSU_FILE
echo "Extracting $PSU_FILE to $PSU_PATH"
unzip -o -qq $PSU_FILE -d $PSU_PATH
echo "Make $PSU_EXEC executable"
sudo chmod +x $PSU_EXEC
echo "Creating service configuration"
cat <<EOF > ~/$PSU_SERVICE.service
[Unit]
Description=PowerShell Universal
[Service]
ExecStart=$PSU_EXEC
SyslogIdentifier=psuniversal
User=$PSU_USER
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
echo "Creating and starting service"
sudo cp -f ~/$PSU_SERVICE.service /etc/systemd/system
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable $PSU_SERVICE
sudo systemctl start $PSU_SERVICE
sudo systemctl status $PSU_SERVICE --no-pager
# If you don't use UFW, you can comment this out
echo "Allow port 5000/tcp"
sudo ufw allow 5000/tcp
# ----
# END
# ----You can use the PowerShell Universal PowerShell module to install the Universal server. To install the module, use Install-Module.
Install-Module Universal
To install the Universal server, you can use Install-PSUServer.
Install-PSUServer -LatestVersion
Running this command on Windows creates and starts a Windows service on your machine. Running this command on Linux creates and starts a systemd service on your machine. Running this command on Mac OS downloads and extracts the PowerShell Universal server.
{% hint style="warning" %} Chocolatey packages for PowerShell Universal are usually available within a week of release but are not available the day of a release. {% endhint %}
You can install PowerShell Universal using the Chocolatey package. The package runs the MSI install. It installs Universal as a service and opens a web browser after the install.
You can login with the "admin" user and any password.
choco install powershelluniversal
See the Docker page.
Please visit the IIS hosting documentation for information on how to configure PowerShell Universal as an IIS website.
PowerShell Universal takes full advantage of PowerShell and the PowerShell SDK. It includes PowerShell scripts directly in the product. Consider configuring antivirus to allow execution of PowerShell scripts in PowerShell Universal.
The following directories contain examples from a standard Windows system of scripts and executable files that you may need to exclude from antivirus checks. Changing paths within appsettings.json or within the installer requires changing which directories are excluded.
| Path | Description |
|---|---|
| %ProgramData%\PowerShellUniversal | Contains log files and appsettings.json |
| %ProgramData%\UniversalAutomation | Contains PowerShell scripts and artifacts. Contains the single file database when not using SQL integration. |
| %ProgramFiles(x86)\Universal | Contains PowerShell Universal application executables, libraries and modules. |
It may be necessary to exclude certain executables that run PowerShell scripts. The below is a list of executables that run PowerShell from PowerShell Universal.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Universal.Server.exe | The PowerShell Universal core service. |
| Universal.Agent.exe | The PowerShell Universal agent environment executable. |
| pwsh.exe | PowerShell 7.x |
| PowerShell.exe | PowerShell 5.x |
You can use the $ENV:PSUDefaultAdminName and $ENV:PSUDefaultAdminPassword environment variables to change this behavior. These values are only used if no administrator account already exists. This is useful for cloud-based installations.
The PowerShell Universal Agent executes Event Hub actions. Install it depending on your environment:
The PowerShell Universal Agent MSI is on our download page. After installing the MSI, a PowerShell Universal Agent service runs on your machine. Configure it to connect to PowerShell Universal.
ZIP files for each platform we support are on our downloads page. Each ZIP contains a PowerShellUniversal.Agent.exe or PowerShellUniversal.Agent file that can start an agent. Run the process as a service for it to start whenever the machine reboots.
At this point, Universal is up and running. Visit http://localhost:5000 or your default port to navigate to the admin console. Log in with the default admin name and password or create a default admin account.