In most cases, the current working location is a directory on a drive supplied by the built-in FileSystem provider but it doesn't have to be.
Using the Get-PSProvider Cmdlet, you can see a list of all installed PowerShell Providers (PSProviders) on your system.
PS C:\>Get-PSProvider
Name Capabilities Drives
---- ------------ ------
WSMan Credentials {}
Alias ShouldProcess {Alias}
Environment ShouldProcess {Env}
FileSystem Filter, ShouldProcess {C, D, E, A...}
Function ShouldProcess {Function}
Registry ShouldProcess, Transactions {HKLM, HKCU}
Variable ShouldProcess {Variable}
Certificate ShouldProcess {cert}
iControlProvider Credentials {}
And you can then use the Get-PSDrive to get a listing of all the virtual drives that you can set locations on.
PS C:\> Get-PSDrive
Name Provider Root CurrentLocation
---- -------- ---- ---------------
A FileSystem A:\
Alias Alias
C FileSystem C:\
cert Certificate \
D FileSystem D:\
E FileSystem E:\
Env Environment
F FileSystem F:\
foo iControlPr... theboss LTM
Function Function
G FileSystem G:\
H FileSystem H:\
HKCU Registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKLM Registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
I FileSystem I:\
K FileSystem K:\
L FileSystem L:\
V FileSystem V:\
Variable Variable
You'll notice that there are pre-configured PSDrives for all the physical and virtual drives on your system including network shares. There are also Alias, Certificate, Environment, Function, Registry, and Variable drives created with the built-in providers.
So, what's up with that "foo" drive in there?
PowerShell allows you to extend the PSProvider model by creating your own to do whatever you wish. By supporting the correct interfaces and building a Cmdlet, you can create a provider to do some fun things. I wrote a provider a while back when I was building my iControl PowerShell Cmdlet that allows you to treat your BIG-IP Network Configuration like a local storage system. Here's a little example of how you use the Location Cmdlet's to navigate through the Network Configuration with a properly configured iControlProvider:
PS C:\> Set-Location foo:\
PS foo:\> Get-ChildItem
GTM
LTM
Management
Networking
System
PS foo:\> Set-Location LTM
PS foo:\LTM> Get-ChildItem
Nodes
Pools
Rules
VirtualServers
PS foo:\LTM> Push-Location Pools
PS foo:\LTM\Pools> Get-ChildItem | select Name, Availability, Enabled
Name Availability Enabled
---- ------------ -------
xpbert-http AVAILABILITY_STATUS_GREEN ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
xpbert-ssh AVAILABILITY_STATUS_GREEN ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
pool_2 AVAILABILITY_STATUS_RED ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
pool_1 AVAILABILITY_STATUS_GREEN ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
catbert-ssh AVAILABILITY_STATUS_RED ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
catbert-http AVAILABILITY_STATUS_RED ENABLED_STATUS_ENABLED
PS foo:\LTM\Pools> Pop-Location
PS foo:\LTM>
The Location Cmdlets
The built-in Cmdlet's that you can use to navigate through provider stores are the following:
Get-Location - Gets information about the current working location
Set-Location - Sets the current working location to a specified location.
Push-Location - Adds the current location to the top of a list of locations ("stack").
Pop-Location - Changes the current location to the location most recently pushed onto the stack. You can pop the location from the default stack or from a stack that you create by using Push-Location.
In the good old days of "pushd" and "popd", you were limited to a single "stack", but no longer! Each of these Cmdlet's allow for the use of user specified stacks allowing you to build your own arsenal of previous storage location history.