PowerShell DSC log amount issue on operating system drive

Overview

When using PowerShell DSC on a configured system in some (seldom) cases it can lead to log amount issues in a specific folder. The following folder grows (over time) so several GB size holding hundreds and thousands of JSON log files as visible in the following screenshot:

Also sometimes it looks like this:

Problem

The problem is (but must not be) related to DSC configuration issues as far as it could be analyzed. The log folder „ConfigurationStatus“ is filled with sometimes up to 7 Megabyte sized JSON files. This log folder (based on our analysis) is used for sending reports to report server but is not cleaned up automatically.

Impact

Some PowerShell DSC managed systems need extensive disk space due to log directory grown to 40 Gigabyte plus. This causes an alert in disk space / availability monitoring and could in some cases lead to non working windows operating systems.

Microsoft Ticket

For solving this a Microsoft ticket was openend – Ticket ID 2110180010001282. The result was the same as mentioned above. The behavior is „by design“. The PowerShell DSC parameter (in concrete LCM configuration parameter) „StatusRetentionTimeInDays“ is NOT the parameter for cleaning up this folder.

(Workaround) solution

The solution is more or less simple and also confirmed in a Microsoft case.

Just clean up this folder and delete the content which is not needed for DSC to work properly. Start an administrative PowerShell Session and use for example the following PowerShell commandlet:

Remove-Item -Path "C:\Windows\System32\Configuration\ConfigurationStatus\*.*" -Force

More enhanced solutions can check this folder regularly and delete in case some thresholds are hit.

The following script can be used, necessary authorizations provided, to check the folder size remotely:

# Get-DSCConfigurationFolderSizeT0.ps1

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Gets the folder size of the folder C:\Windows\System32\Configuration\ConfigurationStatus for all computers in the specified OU
.DESCRIPTION
Gets the folder size of the folder C:\Windows\System32\Configuration\ConfigurationStatus for all computers in the specified OU
#>

#Requires -Version 3.0

[CmdletBinding()]
Param
( 
)

#$computers = Get-ADComputer -SearchBase "OU=T0 Servers,OU=T0 Devices,OU=Tier 0,OU=Administration,DC=contoso,DC=com" -Filter {name -like "wsus01"}
$computers = Get-ADComputer -SearchBase "OU=T0 Servers,OU=T0 Devices,OU=Tier 0,OU=Administration,DC=contoso,DC=com" -Filter *

foreach ($computer in $Computers.name) {
try {
$MySession = New-PSSession -ComputerName $computer -ErrorAction Stop
Write-Host "$($computer)"
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {(gci C:\Windows\System32\Configuration\ConfigurationStatus | measure Length -s).sum / 1Gb} -Session $MySession -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch {
Write-Host $_
Remove-PSSession -Session $MySession
}

Write-Host "Closing Session"
Remove-PSSession -Session $MySession
Get-PSSession
}

References

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/dsc/managing-nodes/metaConfig?view=dsc-1.1&viewFallbackFrom=powershell-7.3

https://forums.powershell.org/t/configurationstatus-folder-filling-up/14982

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/dsc/troubleshooting/troubleshooting?view=dsc-1.1