Querying the Active Directory with Powershell

Once upon a time in daily business there is only two things you have: A powershell and no internet / no media to install a appropriate module to query the Active Directory.

Thank you god it`s LDAP-time.

First we need to connect to the Active Directory. This is done via a DirectorySearcherObject (we want to search/query something).

# get the object
$searchObject = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher;
# where do we want to go today
$LDAPSearchRoot="LDAP://MYDOMAIN.LOCAL:3268";
$searchObject.SearchRoot $LDAPSearchRoot;

# search for a user object using a filter. In this case we`re using wildcards '*'.
# The filter matches 'pete', 'peter', and so on.
$mySearcher.Filter = "(& (objectClass=user) (samAccountName=*pete*))";

# search all the subtrees (deepsearch)
$mySearcher.SearchScope = "sub";
$mySearcher.PageSize = 10;

# these are the attributes where are looking for
# for a more complete list look at http://www.selfadsi.de/user-attributes.htm
$myAttributes = ("givenName", "sn", "displayName", "userPrincipalName", "samAccountName", "distinguishedname", "userAccountControl");
$mySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.AddRange($myAttributes);

# get the results
$mySearcher.FindAll();

A better solution is, of course, to put the code in a function so that it can be reused in a module or simply in other parts of the code.

I`ve done it this way:

function Get-AdUsers
{
   [CmdletBinding()]
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
        [string] $Username,
        # LDAPSearchRoot can be set on top of your module or
        # it can be overridden by passing it to this function
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
        [string] $LDAPSearchRoot = $LDAPSearchRoot
    )

    $users = @();

    $mySearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
    $mySearcher.SearchRoot = $LDAPSearchRoot
    $mySearcher.Filter = "(& (objectClass=user) (samAccountName=*$Username*))"
    $mySearcher.SearchScope = "sub"
    $mySearcher.PageSize = 10
 
    $myAttributes = ("givenName", "sn", "displayName", "userPrincipalName", "samAccountName", "distinguishedname", "userAccountControl")
    $mySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.AddRange($myAttributes)
 
    $finds = $mySearcher.FindAll()
 
    # for a complete documentation of possible flags see:
    # http://www.selfadsi.de/ads-attributes/user-userAccountControl.htm
    [Flags()]
    Enum uac
    {
        Active = 512
        Deactivate = 514
        PasswordNeverExpires = 65536
    }
     
    foreach ($i in $finds) {
        $user = New-Object PsObject;
       
        $i.Properties | % {        
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "DisplayName" -Value $_.displayname.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", ""); 
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "SamAccountName" -Value $_.samaccountname.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", "");
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "SurName" -Value $_.sn.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", "");
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "GivenName" -Value $_.givenname.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", "");
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "UserPrincipalName" -Value $_.userprincipalname.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", "");
            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "DistinguishedName" -Value $_.distinguishedname.Replace("{", "").Replace("}", "");

            [uac]$accountControl = ($_.useraccountcontrol) # see enum values

            $user | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name  "UserAccountControl" -Value  $accountControl;
        }
        $users += $user;
    }

    return $users;
}

The function is then called up as follows:

Get-AdUsers -Username AnyUsername -LDAPSearchRoot "LDAP://MYDOMAIN.LOCAL:3268"

Über den Autor