Nick
Getchell

I'm a Senior DevOps Engineer overseeing releases, developer experience, and cloud infrastructure. I have 20+ years of running web apps and systems administration both during my personal time and in my career.

I write about my hobbies, including technology, movies, books, and music.

Topics

Engineering

37 posts

2026

Testing Ansible Roles with Molecule on Digital Ocean DropletsFor years, I’ve been using Ansible to configure my homelab, blog, and workstations.Engineering › Configuration Management

2024

Fun with CertificatesDisect certificates for fun and profit.Engineering › Cybersecurity
First Impressions of JetTrying out the rust successor of ansibleEngineering › Configuration Management

2023

Using Ansible via GitHub Actions and TailscaleUse Tailscale and GitHub Actions run your ansible playbooks against nodes on your tailnet.Engineering › Configuration Management
My Favorite SSH TricksExplore the ssh_config to make yourself more productiveEngineering › Systems Administration
Monitoring Cron and Scheduled Tasks With Healthchecks.ioKeeping an eye on web servers that stop serving pages or hard drive that fill up are monitoring basics.Engineering › Monitoring & Observability

2019

Expiring Group MembershipsTake advantage of the new AD feature of expiring group membershipsEngineering › Systems Administration
Logging PowerShell ScriptsAs you progress from running commands at the console, to scripting tedious work, to automating entire processes you…Engineering › Systems Administration

2018

Get-Command -Syntax vs Get-HelpWait, is Get-Help or Get-Command right?Engineering › Systems Administration
Random Man Page in PowerShellPowerShell is a programming language and console application that comes with "batteries included".Engineering › Systems Administration
PSGitLab v3.0.1 ReleasedA ton of work went into the v3 version of PSGitLab, both on my part and that of the community.Engineering › Systems Administration
Import a Module from Other ComputersPowerShell comes with a simple way to install a module using PowerShellGet and the Find/Install Module cmdlets.Engineering › Systems Administration
Git Commit Messages and HooksMaintaining integrity in your code is hard.Engineering › Software Engineering
Poor Man’s GUIWrite a quick UI around your PowerShell functionEngineering › Systems Administration
Using ThreadJob for PerformanceParallelizing work in PowerShell has been a drag.Engineering › Systems Administration
Deploying PowerShell Down-levelThere have been many great features added to PowerShell throughout the years.Engineering › Systems Administration
PowerShell Core 6.0 ReleasedPowerShell Core 6.0 has been released thanks to the hard work of the PowerShell Team.Engineering › Systems Administration

2017

Generate Random PasswordsWhether you’re at a help desk resetting passwords or setting up service accounts, you always need to be able to…Engineering › Systems Administration
Adding Updates to a Wim FileEven with Microsoft releasing new Windows 10 builds on a twice-yearly basis, there is still a case to be made to…Engineering › Systems Administration

2016

Never Lose Your Work at the ConsoleIf you’re like me, every once in a while you have a dash of brilliance, write the perfect one-liner, but forget to…Engineering › Systems Administration
Tail a File in PowerShellIn my limited Linux administration experience I got used to dealing with text.Engineering › Systems Administration
Update-ModuleManifest is BackStarting with Windows Management Framework 5.1 PowerShell now comes with Update-ModuleManifest.Engineering › Systems Administration
How I Work: Pester TestingEver since the 2015 North America PowerShell Summit I’ve become addicted to Pester testing.Engineering › Systems Administration
Generic Pester TestsWriting good Pester Tests is hard.Engineering › Systems Administration
Export to ExcelIf you handle any sort of data in your job you’ve likely run into the common PowerShell cmdlets for dealing with data…Engineering › Systems Administration
Installing ModulesWhether you’re writing scripts, functions to automate a repetitive task, or building a whole toolkit you should be…Engineering › Systems Administration
Time Your Script with Timespan ObjectsSpeed and consistency are the two main reasons people automate tasks using PowerShell.Engineering › Systems Administration
Why Use Source ControlSource control, whether you’re writing one off scripts or automating intricate processes, is essential to your work.Engineering › Software Engineering
Turn Off PSReadlineBeginning with Windows Management Framework 5 Microsoft decided to ship Pester and PSReadline baked into the framework.Engineering › Systems Administration
PSPushoverI just recently published a module to the PowerShell Gallery called PSPushover and it couldn’t have been easier.Engineering › Systems Administration

2015

Pipelines and ObjectsTwo strong points of PowerShell are the ability to work with Pipelines and Objects.Engineering › Systems Administration
Formatting OutputFormatting output from cmdlets doesn’t have to be complicated.Engineering › Systems Administration
Introduction to CmdletsFor years Microsoft has played a trick on systems administrators.Engineering › Systems Administration
Introduction: PowerShell DirectPowerShell Direct is a new feature to Windows Management Framework version 5 that allows for Windows hosts to run…Engineering › Systems Administration
CredentialsHave you ever tried running a script only to find that your user account doesn’t have the proper rights?Engineering › Systems Administration
Beyond Syntax: Pester TestingA TechSession episode where we discussing going beyond the easy stuff in pester.Engineering › Systems Administration
PowerShellGet IntroductionWith PowerShell version 5 Microsoft released a way of installing modules using PowerShell.Engineering › Systems Administration