SharePoint 2013: Search Service Application and Common PowerShell Commands

• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
• Returns all Search service application instances in farm
• Useful for quickly getting the SSA name
• If only one SSA, returns SSA object that can be used directly in another command. For example: Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication).
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource
• To get a listing of all content sources:
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) | ft -auto
• To get an instance of a specific content source:
• $SSACS1= Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) -Identity 1
• $SSACS1= Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) -Identity "Local SharePoint sites"
• To get the crawl status of all content sources:
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) | ft name,crawlstatus -auto
• To get the crawl status of a particular content source;
• (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) -Identity 1).CrawlStatus
• To stop the crawl of a particular content source:
• (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) -Identity 1).StopCrawl
• Note: this doesn't "force" the crawl process to stop, by, say, terminating it abruptly.  On the contrary, if you run this command, and then quickly navigate to the Central Administration > Search Administration > Manage Content Sources page, you'll see the status change from Crawling Full (or Crawling Incremental) to Stopping and then eventually becoming Idle.
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus
• Returns status of all SSA components.  Basically, shows in text what you see when you navigate to the Search Administration page in Central Administration.
• If you have just one SSA in the farm, use like so:
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) | ft -auto
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchStatus -SearchApplication (Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication) | ft name,state,level,details -auto
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceInstance
• Used without any arguments, returns listing of all servers running a Search service instance - Osearch15, not foundation.

References

• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication
• Get-SPEnterpriseSearchCrawlContentSource
• Force stop and then start a full crawl search in SharePoint 2013
• Use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to administer and configure search in SharePoint 2013