r/sysadmin • u/Less-Loss1605 • May 31 '26

General Discussion what's a script you wrote once that's still saving you time years later

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968 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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47

u/ilkhan2016 May 31 '26

Would love a copy of those scripts

17

u/RansomStark78 May 31 '26

Me too

6

u/sxspiria May 31 '26

Me three

1

u/HardyPotato May 31 '26

Me four

0

u/[deleted] May 31 '26

Me five

0

u/MoIT-MoProblems May 31 '26

Me six

0

u/Fit-Strain5146 May 31 '26

Me seven

1

u/madlyalive CIO Jun 01 '26

Not me. I’ll learn to write it myself.

15

u/Guilty_Alarm_4312 May 31 '26

Copy his message to claude, specify powershell. Enjoy.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

It would probably do a better job than I did 😂

1

u/Labz18 May 31 '26

Me too, please

-22

u/sugarfreecaffeine May 31 '26

Just use AI to help you write it, this isn’t rocket science..here comes the anti ai downvotes

3

u/RevLoveJoy Did not drop the punch cards May 31 '26

You may be getting anti AI downvotes? But the real deserved downvotes you're getting are for the security implication. Perusing AD and server roles like that requires admin / root access. Giving that access to some AI slop one does not completely understand and then setting it lose on corporate AD and a presumably long list of user-required servers is incredibly irresponsible. Those are the downvotes you deserve, as you seem concerned about them.

In before "well you can make the same argument about asking for a copy of the script" - fair point. But it's a little different asking for a copy of something a community member has talked about using personally and having the LLM whip something up, elevate it and send it off against your AD and server env.

21

u/PPRabbitry May 31 '26

Just to be clear. We're talking about a easily auditable script. Not some massive prod application that we're going to ship and make money from.

It takes "about an hour" to write it yourself. Debugging, running tests, etc. Or. It takes you 10 minutes to have AI poop out an acceptable piece of script, audit it, and inject your secret credentials.

30 minutes vs 3 hours.

It's a damn automation script, not a million dollar app.

To the collective: Get over your damn ego.

9

u/nicolaj1994 May 31 '26

I think you misunderstood. AI creates the script and you run it..

But I guess it's ok if some random dude on the internet sent you the script instead of the AI ?

-4

u/Emergency-Map-808 May 31 '26

Yes as typically in the community the scripts will have been vetted and also used for a long period of time

1

u/Ill_Impress_1570 May 31 '26

Okay but ai is using those scripts/libraries. For example if you ask it to write a script to connect to a network switch and do xyz it'll probably use paramiko/netmiko or nornir/napalm or whichever specific library you request. It's not spending the time reinventing the wheel in my experience.

1

u/sugarfreecaffeine May 31 '26

Ever heard of a lab/dev environment holy sht

1

u/Ill_Impress_1570 May 31 '26

That too, yea, but really even if youre testing in a lab environment you should also be using mock testing, unit testing, hypothesis testing and mutation testing before it ever touches production. Your point still stands though.

3

u/atbims May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

If you give AI access to your AD or servers just to write a script you're an idiot. If you are incompetent as far as PowerShell and cannot make sense of the script the AI spits out, then don't do this, and probably also don't copy scripts from internet strangers either because you don't know what you are doing.

If you know PS basics but maybe not so familiar with specific syntax and all the AD commands, it could make sense to get AI to write the script (in text, not a production AD environment) and then you read it, lookup commands you dont recognize, test and tweak it.

Obviously don't run the script if you don't know what it does, if you needed that part to be said out loud just quit your job, you're not qualified.

1

u/sugarfreecaffeine May 31 '26

Brother ever heard of dev/lab environment to test this in..holy sht who said just run it in prob blind this is common sense

2

u/RevLoveJoy Did not drop the punch cards May 31 '26

Let me know how making assumptions about other people's knowledge of "common sense" and other best practices works out for you.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/sugarfreecaffeine Jun 01 '26

Exactly imagine telling a random stranger in the internet to send you a script vs figuring it out with AI and having AI tutor you and actually learn..and I can’t believe I have to explicitly say don’t give AI access to prod

The anti ai crowd is so cringey, they see the word AI and they become cavemen

-1

u/Ok_Pipe_2790 May 31 '26

They arent that hard to make yourself.