When a software developer introduces a Powershell module or snapin I’m always excited about it. So Citrix released a Powershell snapin for ShareFile. There are some good thing about it, some bad things and one ugly thing.

The bad

So Citrix says that the ShareFile module is without the guarantee that it’ll actually work. See it like a beta product. This directly indicates that you’ll find very few documentation about. But even more worrying is that you’re on your own because it is unsupported. Citrix released a Powershell version but at the same time there’s a C# and a Java module. They’ve build this on a REST API. This is beautiful because in a way you’re not really bound to the ShareFile modules. As long as you can talk to the REST API. The API is on version 3 so I think it’s pretty stable and should lose it “in development” state.  But the lack of good documentation and

The Ugly

Well first and foremost, an administrator can create a SFPS file. This file can be used to authenticate to the ShareFile REST API. So you can create a carefree file that could be used by a first in line administrator or a script. And so you don’t have to share the credentials.  By default there’s no expiration date. Meaning that if this file falls in the wrong hands, one can truly demolish your entire environment. A lazy administrator could potentially compromise his entire environment. Via Powershell you can actually get the files in the repository of a ShareFile User. This is a extreme risk of which many administrators are unaware.

The Good

Well there’s a lot good about this. In most cases if there’s a REST API, the GUI is build upon that. So anything you can do in the GUI, can be done using the API. This is an incredible feature set. You can completely manage your environment using the API. I created some scripts to manage the ShareFile API. Right now the community is rather small, but as soon as this grows I’m sure there’s going to be a large knowledge base where you can find help.

If you get the authentication right and the scripts ready I’m sure that this will ease the pressure of the back of the administrators. I’m quite positive anyway.