Active Roles 7 Web site status with PowerShell.

Question

I have been looking for a way to monitor the Active Roles website with PowerShell. I have been stuck when pulling in a page request via Invoke-WebRequest and System.Net.WebClient. 
 Example 1: $ARSURL= " https://ars.org" $Creds = Get-Credential Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $URL -Credential $Creds And I get the following error: "Invoke-WebRequest : Server Error 401 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials." 
 
 Example 2: $webclient = new-object System.Net.WebClient $webclient.Credentials = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential($username, $password, $domain) $webpage = $webclient.DownloadString($url) And I get the following error: Exception calling "DownloadString" with "1" argument(s): "The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized." 
 
 Any idea on how I can connect to the ARS website via PowerShell?

dyannic · Accepted Answer

Well - I responded to a question about ARS 7 without thinking - I'm not there yet. This answer applies to ARS 6.9 ... May also apply to Version 7 - if the about page can be called directly. Otherwise, your mileage will vary. 
 If you're still with me ... I've played around with this a bit too There is more to explore ... but here is one style of accomplishing the task. 
 For me - A quick way to check the basic availability of an ARS web site, would be to pull the about page and display the logged on user ID, ARS service and web version + the page status. 
 We maintain 4 separate ARS groups of servers, and I cycle the $ARSURL below between the three ARS web servers to check that the site is up, and that it is currently pointed to the proper ARS service host partner.

$ARSURL= " myhost.myplace.com/.../About.ASPX 
 $page = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $ARSURL - UseDefaultCredentials 
 ($page.allelements | where {$_.tagname -eq "TBODY"}).innertext

Returns:

Current user: DOMAIN\USERID 
 Role: ActiveRoles Administrator 
 Web Interface version: 6.9.0.5483 
 Administration Service: myhostinGA.myplace.com 
 Administration Service version: 6.9.0.5483 
 OK 
 OK

Alternatively - if you're looking at something to script for automating in a status report - I'd go with the simple $page.StatusCode - or $page.StatusDescription 
 the HTHML code for a good result is 200 ... I've only seen two codes- it's available or it's not. If it's not the 'code' returned is 500. If the page is building/busy - you'll get a long wait and a 'timeout'

$ARSURL= " myhost.myplace.com/.../About.ASPX 
 $page = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $ARSURL - UseDefaultCredentials 
 $page.StatusDescription

Returns

OK