Poking TCP Ports from Windows PowerShell

[ShaneNewman]

A vendor is requesting that we Poke several TCP ports and send specific text to capture application status. "Poke 8080, send http GET for / and Poke TCP 5222 and send string 'test123'".

I know how to use powershell to initiate a telnet connection to the ports and monitor port status that way:

$Port = 8080,5222,5223
foreach ($P in $Port) {
$Socket = New-Object Net.Sockets.TcpClient
$Computer = "LocalHost"
$RunTime = get-date

# Suppress error messages
$ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'

# Try to connect
$Socket.Connect($Computer, $P)

# Determine if we are connected.
if ($Socket.Connected) {
 "$RunTime Port $P is open"
  $Socket.Close()   
  }
  else {
  "$RunTime Port $P is closed" 
  }
  }
  $Socket = $null

How can I modify this code to also pass a text string or command?

[halr9000 · Accepted solution]

I would suggesting thinking one layer higher. Test the service, not the TCP protocol. 5222 is WS-Man, aka PowerShell remoting. There's a cmdlet for that, and yes, you can invoke it from Splunk. Check out:

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849873.aspx
• http://apps.splunk.com/app/1477/
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849901.aspx

HTH

[halr9000]

I'd post this to serverfault, TechNet forums, /r/powershell, or the like. That said...

[ShaneNewman]

I found that and tried it to no avail. I was hoping that someone on the forum had tried to do something similar and found a way to do it from Splunk or had created app with a built-in modular input. Judging by the lack of responses I feel like that is not really the case...

[grijhwani]

Not really a Splunk question. Wouldn't you reach a more informed audience on a more Windows-specific support forum?

That said, I just did a Google search for "powershell sockets", and amongst the first hits was this: Scripting Network / TCP Connections in PowerShell