Remove-PSSession

PowerShell Cmdlet Deep Dive: Remove-PSSession

Welcome back to Wahmans Powershell blog! Today, we’re going to take a closer look at the Remove-PSSession cmdlet. This handy tool is used to close one or more PowerShell sessions (also known as PSSessions). These sessions are often used when running commands on remote systems using PowerShell remoting.

Using Remove-PSSession helps you to clean up and manage the footprint of your PowerShell remoting sessions, ensuring you’re not leaving sessions open unnecessarily. Let’s dive into some examples, ranging from beginner to advanced usage.

Example 1: Closing a Single PSSession

If you have a single remote session you want to close, use the following technique:

$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName "Server01"
# Do something with the session...
Remove-PSSession -Session $session

This creates a remote session to Server01 and then removes it when you’re done.

Example 2: Closing Multiple PSSessions

You can store multiple sessions in a variable and remove them all at once:

$sessions = New-PSSession -ComputerName "Server01", "Server02", "Server03"
# Perform tasks on all sessions...
Remove-PSSession -Session $sessions

This is ideal when managing groups of remote computers.

Example 3: Remove All Sessions in a Script Scope

Need to do a bit of cleanup? You can list and remove all active PSSessions:

$allSessions = Get-PSSession
Remove-PSSession -Session $allSessions

This ensures that no PSSessions are left hanging, which is especially useful in automated scripts or scheduled tasks.

Example 4: Selective Removal Based on Computer Name

Want to close only sessions to a specific server? Use Where-Object to filter:

Get-PSSession | Where-Object { $_.ComputerName -eq "Server01" } | Remove-PSSession

This line will specifically close any sessions to Server01 without affecting others.

Managing PSSessions responsibly is a good scripting habit. It avoids resource leaks and ensures your remote management tasks are efficient and effective.

Happy scripting, and I will see you in the next post!