Automation to monitor NextLabs policies deployed to all SharePoint servers

After we have deployed NextLabs SharePoint entitlement management solution, we have come up a automation process to update the SharePoint entitlement policy daily. However, we found sometimes the updated policies are not deployed to ALL SharePoint WFEs. As a result, some servers might have the old policies. We have worked with NextLabs to provide a API so we could very the deployed policies are the updated ones. However, there is no such API at this time. 

In this article, I will provide a workaround to check the policy file on ALL SharePoint WFEs. If any file not updated during last 12 hours, the process will send out email to notify administrator.

This is  just a quick workaround and you may modify for your own purpose.

#**************************************************************************************
# References and Snapins
#**************************************************************************************
$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null) {
  Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
#**************************************************************************************


#************************************************
#  Variables that you need to change
#************************************************

$policyPath = “C:\Program Files\NextLabs\Policy Controller\bundle.bin”
$timespan = new-timespan -days 0 -hours 12 -minutes 0

$emailFrom = "NextLabsMonitor@mycompany.com"   
$smtpserver="smtphost.mycompany.com"

$emailTo = "admin@mycompany.com"
$subject="NextLabs policy check "  + [System.DateTime]::Now.ToLocalTime() 
$message = "NextLabs policy checking results "  + [System.DateTime]::Now.ToLocalTime() 
$policyoutofdate = $false


#*********************************************
# Get all WFE servers
#********************************************    
$appServers = get-spserver | ? { $_.Role -eq "Application" }
    
foreach($server in $appServers)
{
    if($server.Status -eq "Online")
    {
        $ServiceName = “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application”
        $ServiceRef = Get-SPServiceInstance -server $server | where-object {$_.TypeName -eq $ServiceName}
        if($ServiceRef.Status -eq "Online") # This is WFE server that has NextLabs policies
        {
            $currentHostName = gc env:computername;
            $serverName = $server.DisplayName

            if($server.DisplayName.ToLower() -ne $currentHostName)
            {
                 $policyPath = "\\" + $server.DisplayName + "\" +  $policyPath.Replace(':','$');
            }

             if(Test-Path  $policyPath)
             {
                    # Check time
                    # Get-Item “C:\Program Files\NextLabs\Policy Controller\bundle.bin” | Format-List 

                    $lastWrite = (get-item $policyPath).LastWriteTime
                    if (((get-date) - $lastWrite) -gt $timespan) {
                        $policyoutofdate = $true
                        Write-Host "Policy might be out of date on server $serverName." -ForegroundColor Red
                        $message = $message + "`n" + "`n" + "`n" + "Policy might be out of date on server $serverName." + "`n"
                    } else {
                        # newer
                        Write-Host "Policy is fine on server $serverName." -ForegroundColor Green

                    }
                    #Write-Host "Checked the policy file"
              }
              else
              {
                    $message = $message + "WARNING: The NextLabs policy file does not exists on server $server" + "`n"
                    Write-Host "WARNING: The NextLabs policy file does not exists on server $server" -foreground yellow;
              }
        }
    }
    else
    {
            Write-Host -foregroundcolor Yellow "WARNING: Server $server is Offline. Skipping checking the NextLabs policy";
    }
}

$message = $message + "`n"
$smtp=new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer)

if($policyoutofdate)
{
    $smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $subject, $message)
}