Applies to: Exchange Server 2013
Topic Last Modified: 2012-10-01
You can assign an Exchange Management Shell cmdlet or Cmd.exe command to an administrator-defined and easy-to-remember alias in Microsoft Exchange Server 2013. Such aliases can be handy when you frequently use certain cmdlets and want to reduce the typing that you must do.
When an alias is called from the command line, the rules that apply to the cmdlet that is represented by the alias are enforced exactly as when the cmdlet is called. You must supply any required parameters and their values exactly as if you had called the cmdlet name.
Contents
Importing and exporting aliases
Built-in aliases
Many cmdlets that are used regularly have default, or built-in, aliases assigned to them. These built-in aliases help reduce the typing that you have to do when you administer Exchange 2013 by using the Shell.
For example, the Get-ChildItem cmdlet resembles
the MS-DOS Dir command. Because you are familiar with
the Dir command, you might want to use the
Dir alias when you use the Shell instead of typing
Get-ChildItem every time that you want to view the contents
of a directory. The output from the Get-ChildItem cmdlet and
the Dir alias is the same and can be used
interchangeably.
You can view a list of built-in aliases by running the Get-Alias cmdlet in the Shell.
For more information about aliases, run the following command in the Shell.
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Get-Help About_Alias |
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Creating custom aliases
In addition to the default, or built-in, aliases, you
can define and use custom aliases instead of the names of cmdlets
that you frequently use. You can use the Set-Alias cmdlet to
associate cmdlets to familiar command names that have the
equivalent functionality in Cmd.exe. You can assign multiple
aliases to a single command. However, each alias can only be
assigned to a single command. For example, you can have three
aliases Alias1, Alias2, and
Alias3 that are assigned to the New-Mailbox
cmdlet. You could then use any of the three aliases to run the
New-Mailbox cmdlet. However, each alias that you create can
only be assigned to the New-Mailbox cmdlet. You can't, for
example, assign Alias1 to both the New-Mailbox
cmdlet and the Get-Mailbox cmdlet.
To create a new alias-cmdlet pairing, run the Set-Alias cmdlet and supply the name of the alias, together with the name of the cmdlet that you want to call when the alias is entered.
The following table shows several examples of how to create a new alias.
Examples of custom aliases
| Alias description | Alias command | ||||
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Retrieve the contents of a file |
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Retrieve the listing of a directory |
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Remove a file |
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Set pad as an alias for Microsoft WordPad |
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Display the list of all defined aliases |
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Removing an alias
To remove an alias, delete the alias from the alias
drive. For example, an administrator creates the Ls
alias by using the following command.
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Set-Alias Ls Get-ChildItem |
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Later the administrator decides that the
Ls alias is no longer needed and uses the following
command to remove the Ls alias.
| Copy Code |
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|---|---|
Remove-Item Alias Ls |
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Importing and exporting aliases
The Export-Alias cmdlet writes the current alias list to a file in comma-separated values (CSV) format. You can include the name of the file and its path in the command line. If the path doesn't exist, the cmdlet will create the path for you.
The Import-Alias cmdlet reads a text file that has CSV values and brings the list into the Shell as an object. By using the Export-Alias cmdlet and Import-Alias cmdlet, you can export a list of aliases from the Shell on one computer and import them to the Shell on another computer. Because existing predefined aliases exist on both computers, all alias name conflicts will be ignored and not imported.
Alias persistence
Aliases that are created from the command line by using
the Set-Alias cmdlet during a Shell session can be used when
the session is active. After the session is closed, the alias
definition is lost. To make a user-defined alias persistent and
available every time that a new Shell session is opened, you must
add the alias definition to your Shell profile. You can modify your
Shell profile by running the command Notepad $Profile.
If the profile directory doesn't exist, you might have to create it
first. To find out the path of your profile, run the command
$Profile.
Alias limitations
Although aliases can be defined for cmdlets and used instead of cmdlet names, you can't include parameters in the definition of the aliases that you define. You must provide parameters as needed when the alias is called, exactly as you would if you called the cmdlet.