DSC persists the job details on disk in a specific location. This blog explains how to retrieve the contents at a later point.
This blog explains how to setup DSC so you can obtain results of a configuration run post a reboot. That is valuable when you want to capture the information post a reboot during a configuration run. However, there are cases when you may want to obtain the results that happened in the past or let the configuration run post a reboot (without a client connected) and obtain the results later.
DSC persists all of the log information as JSON files in its configuration status folder based on the job id. A job id is unique for a configuration run, consistency check, etc. You can look at all of the job ids from the configuration status object (returned by Get-DscConfigurationStatus cmdlet)
Get-DscConfigurationStatus | Get-Member
TypeName:
Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance#root/Microsoft/Windows/DesiredStateConfiguration/MSFT_DSCConfigurationStatus
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Clone Method System.Object ICloneable.Clone()
Dispose Method void Dispose(), void IDisposable.Dispose()
Equals Method bool Equals(System.Object obj)
GetCimSessionComputerName Method string GetCimSessionComputerName()
GetCimSessionInstanceId Method guid GetCimSessionInstanceId()
GetHashCode Method int GetHashCode()
GetObjectData Method void GetObjectData(System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info, System.Runtime.Serial...
GetType Method type GetType()
DurationInSeconds Property uint32 DurationInSeconds {get;}
Error Property string Error {get;}
HostName Property string HostName {get;}
IPV4Addresses Property string[] IPV4Addresses {get;}
IPV6Addresses Property string[] IPV6Addresses {get;}
JobID Property string JobID {get;}
LCMVersion Property string LCMVersion {get;}
Locale Property string Locale {get;}
MACAddresses Property string[] MACAddresses {get;}
MetaConfiguration Property CimInstance#Instance MetaConfiguration {get;}
MetaData Property string MetaData {get;}
Mode Property string Mode {get;}
NumberOfResources Property uint32 NumberOfResources {get;}
PSComputerName Property string PSComputerName {get;}
RebootRequested Property bool RebootRequested {get;}
ResourcesInDesiredState Property CimInstance#InstanceArray ResourcesInDesiredState {get;}
ResourcesNotInDesiredState Property CimInstance#InstanceArray ResourcesNotInDesiredState {get;}
StartDate Property CimInstance#DateTime StartDate {get;}
Status Property string Status {get;}
Type Property string Type {get;}
ToString ScriptMethod System.Object ToString();
Here is a way to look at all job ids
Get-DscConfigurationStatus -All | Format-Table Status, StartDate, Type, JobId -AutoSize
Status StartDate Type JobId
------ --------- ---- -----
Success 5/12/2016 6:35:05 AM Initial {535A36CD-1846-11E6-AD61-8C4019F5FC80}
Success 5/12/2016 6:34:47 AM Initial {4B1F0CB6-1846-11E6-AD61-8C4019F5FC80}
Once you obtain the job id of a specific job you are interested in, you can locate the json files corresponding to it from the configuration status folder
$jobid = '{535A36CD-1846-11E6-AD61-8C4019F5FC80}'
dir "$env:windir\system32\configuration\configurationstatus\$jobid*.json"
Directory: C:\Windows\system32\configuration\configurationstatus
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 5/12/2016 6:35 AM 2508 {535A36CD-1846-11E6-AD61-8C4019F5FC80}-0.details.json
0 indicates the initial run. The suffix gets incremented post every reboot (*1 after the first reboot and so on).
The json file has all the contents of the job logs
$Contents = Get-Content .\'{535A36CD-1846-11E6-AD61-8C4019F5FC80}-0.details.json' -Raw -Encoding Unicode
ConvertFrom-Json $contents
time type message
---- ---- -------
2016-05-12T06:35:05.455-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ Start Set ]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.503-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ Start Resource ] [[File]f]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.503-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ Start Test ] [[File]f]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.507-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: [[File]f] The destination object was found and no action is requ...
2016-05-12T06:35:05.507-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ End Test ] [[File]f] in 0.0040 seconds.
2016-05-12T06:35:05.507-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ Skip Set ] [[File]f]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.507-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ End Resource ] [[File]f]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.511-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ End Set ]
2016-05-12T06:35:05.511-7:00 verbose [NANA-TOUCH]: LCM: [ End Set ] in 0.0560 seconds.