In this tutorial, we’ll guide you through the process of automating service restarts on multiple servers using PowerShell. This efficient solution is ideal for system administrators looking to streamline maintenance processes or troubleshoot issues that necessitate restarting services across multiple servers. By leveraging PowerShell’s Invoke-Command cmdlet, we’ll demonstrate a concise script to restart services simultaneously on various remote hosts. This guide ensures not only effectiveness but also security by requiring administrative access and PowerShell remoting on the target servers.

Prerequisites:

• Administrative access to target servers.
• Enabled PowerShell remoting on remote servers.
• Identification of the specific service to restart.

PowerShell Script to Restart Services on Multiple Hosts

Script:

# Define target servers
$computers = "Hostname1", "Hostname2", "Hostname3"

# Script block for restarting SQL Server Agent service
$scriptBlock = { Restart-Service *SQLSERVERAGENT* }

# Execute script block on remote servers
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computers -ScriptBlock $scriptBlock

Tips:

1. Test Before Deployment: Always test the script on a single server before deploying it to multiple hosts.
2. Exercise Caution: Modifying services remotely can potentially disrupt your network; verify the impact beforehand.
3. Customization: Tailor the script by adding error handling, logging, or extra parameters to the Restart-Service cmdlet.
4. Adaptability: Use this script as a base; modify it to restart other services or perform various tasks on remote servers as needed.