README.md

Microsoft/tzutil

Introduction

The Microsoft/tzutil resource is a sample resources which allows you to manage time zone settings on Windows machines using DSC v3. This resource demonstrates that a resource may be made with a native binary that does not understand or outputs JSON. The JSON is merely made by wraping the command's input and output in PowerShell's ConvertFrom-Json and ConvertTo-Json.

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Note:
This methodology is not extremely extensible and should be avoided for most dsc resources. This example exists as a simple way to understand how the *.dsc.resource.json manifest interacts with a binary to create a dsc resource. DSC Resources should be either a native binary which understands and outputs json or a common tool which has a -input json or -output json flag (or something similar).

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Prerequisites

Before using the Microsoft/tzutil file, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

• DSC version 3 or later
• Windows Desktop or Server

Usage

To use the Microsoft/tzutil resource, follow these steps:

1. Download the Microsoft/tzutil file from the official repository and save in the resource path for DSCv3

2. Create a yaml config called tzutil.dsc.config.yaml for the resource:

   $schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShell/DSC/main/schemas/2023/10/config/document.json
    resources:
    - name: Desired TimeZone
    type: Microsoft/tzutil
    properties:
        timezone: UTC
        dstoff: false

3. Call the resource by piping the content to dsc:

   cat .\tzutil.dsc.config.yaml | dsc config set

   See the results:

   results:
   - name: Desired TimeZone
   type: Microsoft/tzutil
   result:
      beforeState:
         timezone: Pacific Standard Time
         dstoff: false
      afterState:
         timezone: UTC
         dstoff: false
      changedProperties:
      - timezone
   messages: []
   hadErrors: false