[UPDATE] PowerShell - Monitor and Report Active Directory Group Membership Change

UPDATE: The most recent update is available on Github

I found some time to update the script "Monitor Active Directory Membership changes". This is the version 1.6.

To summarize, this script allow you to monitor Active Directory groups membership changes. The script will send your a report via email only when a change occur. I explained in details in my last post how the script work.


So what are the main changes in this version ?

• SearchRoot you can now specify the Organization Unit path(s) where all your groups are located, the script will take care of the rest and watch them all. You also have the option to filter using the parameters SearchScope, GroupType, GroupScope.
• File you can now specify one or multiple files where the list of groups is saved. Distinguished Names, SID, GUID, GroupName, Domain\GroupName are accepted.

Previous post related to this script:
[2013/10] PowerShell - Monitor and Report Active Directory Group Membership Change
[2012/03] Powershell - Monitor Active Directory Groups membership change

Thank you: I want to thank those who sent me suggestions via email or posts comments, I'm very happy to see that this script is helping a lot of my fellow sysadmins.

PowerShell - Add AD Site Subnet

Last month I posted a script that report the Missing Subnets from the Active Directory. The script goes on each Domain Controllers and get the last x entries from the NETLOGON.log file.
Once this report is generated, you might want to check with your Telecom guy/team to get the correct network mask, correct site of each entries and fix this situation.

Reminder: Subnet objects (class subnet) define network subnets in Active Directory. A network subnet is a segment of a TCP/IP network to which a set of logical IP addresses is assigned. Subnets group computers in a way that identifies their physical proximity on the network. Subnet objects in Active Directory are used to map computers to sites.

Today I will show how to add those missing subnets in your Active Directory using PowerShell on Windows Server 2012 and Previous versions via ADSI.

PowerShell - Get-DomainComputer (ADSI)

The following function use ADSI to query Computer objects from the Active Directory. Optionally an alternate credentials and/or a different domain can be specified.

Once in a while, everyone "enjoy" doing Auditing at work...,ok maybe not everyone :-).... so last week, an colleague of mine needed to get the name of the Primary user of each workstations that connect to one of their critical application.

Lucky for me, first he had the list of workstations and second we have the name of the primary user information in the Active Directory located in the description property ! :-) (This is added when the computer is built and joined to the domain the first time).

So he asked me if I could help and get this information somehow. My answer was obviously ... PowerShell!
This could be done very easily using the ActiveDirectory Module but unfortunately RSAT (Remote Server Administrator Tools) feature was not installed on his computer. Why not use ADSI then ? :-)

PowerShell - Using ADSI with alternate Credentials

The following PowerShell code will show you how to run ADSI with alternate credentials to get information from the Active Directory.

I will query Group objects in this example, my filter is define by the following line: "(objectCategory=Group)"

PowerShell 4.0 is now available

PowerShell 4.0 has been released by Microsoft and  is now available to download and install with the Windows Management Framework 4.0 (WMF 4.0).

Windows PowerShell

Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals and power users control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows.

Windows PowerShell allows you to run scripts, functions, and modules of cmdlets. Cmdlets are simple verb-noun commands that help you automate management of roles and features that run on the Windows operating system.

After you install WMF 4.0, Windows PowerShell is upgraded to version 4.0.

DOWNLOAD HERE

PowerShell - Renaming a bunch of folders

In my previous post I talked about Organizing my script directory, naming convention, preferences and bottlenecks... Today let's reorganize some of those script folders.

Renaming a bunch of folders

At my work, all the scripts related to VMware are named ESX-<Category>-<Explicit Title>. And I use the same naming convention at home for my own scripts. So let's say I want to rename all those *ESX* folders by VMWARE instead.
Something like this: VMWARE-<Category>-<Explicit Title>

PowerShell - Organizing my Scripts

With time, the number of PowerShell scripts I write keeps growing and growing, and I feel it is getting more and more difficult to find what I have done in the past. I won't say that all my scripts are great! Especially when I look at the scripts I wrote back in 2010/2011 or even 2012. I'm really happy to see the evolution as I keep learning about PowerShell. And honestly ... I think it is really fun to update old scripts, and it is always a good topic for a new blog post.

Today I will talk about my scripts directory, how I maintain it, which naming convention I use, what are my bottlenecks, my preferences ...

PowerShell - Report the AD Missing Subnets from the NETLOGON.log

Today I will share with you a script that report the Missing Subnets detected in the NetLogon file(s) of your Active Directory Domain Controller(s).

Update: See my Github repository for the most recent version

Missing Subnets

When a computer is joined to a domain It knows for sure of which AD domain it is a member. However once the computer is joined to the domain, It may or may not know which AD site it belongs to. Even if it thinks it knows the AD site, it may not even be in the correct AD site (e.g. because it was moved, AD site was renamed, Subnet not declared, Subnet was removed from a site and add to another...etc.).