Bob's Identity Management Blog » AD CMDLETS

AD CMDLETS Version 1.4 (Early look)

Bob — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:23:30 +0000

In late June or early July, a new version of the Active Directory PowerShell CMDLETS will be released. I wanted to give everyone a teaser about the new features to be added.

Here you go!

-        Certificate management
-        Support for cross-domain group membership
-        inactive accounts enumeration
-        single command to search in multiple containers
-        progress indication
-        proxy addresses management

Stay tuned and I will blog with more details around each feature over the next several weeks.

Quest AD PowerShell CMDLET BETA

Bob — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:00:03 +0000

I have had a lot of questions about when the next version of the ActiveRoles Management Shell for AD (a.k.a. Quest AD CMDLETs) would be released. I don’t have an exact date, but I wanted everyone to know that we are working on our next release and should have a beta in the next 60 days or so.

The focus of the next version will certainly have a security centric theme around certificate management as this seems to be an area that has not been effectively covered by anyone in PowerShell up to this point. I won’t go into details in this post, but I will provide another update next week with more details – so stay tuned!

New: ActiveRoles AD CMDLETS v1.3

Bob — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:07:52 +0000

Along with the release of ActiveRoles Server 6.5 we have also updated the Active Directory PowerShell CMDLETS. This release will continue to work with the supported versions of Active Directory as it has in the past. When you are using PowerShell with ActiveRoles Server it is only compatible with ActiveRoles Server version 6.5 and no other.

Two things of which you should be aware regarding AD CMDLETS & ActiveRoles Server:

1) If you try to install the 1.3 version of the cmdlets on a server running any version other than 6.5 you will get an error that warns you of the incompatibility.

2) If you try using the 1.3 version of the cmdlets to connect to a server running any version other than ActiveRoles Server 6.5 you will recieve an error.

To download the new version go to: http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

AD CMDLETS 1.3 BETA

Bob — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:54:20 +0000

While I’ve been here in Berlin at the Quest TEC conference, I have received several questions about when the next version of the Quest AD CMDLETS will be available. Version 1.3 is in the works and we should have a public preview version in the next month or so – so stay tuned.

European ActiveRoles User Group meeting

Bob — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:39:10 +0000

In the morning tomorrow I depart for Berlin Germany to attend the Quest European TEC conference. While there we are holding our first ever EMEA ActiveRoles Server User Group meeting where we will be talking about the next release and some future product directions.

The User Group will be held at the tail end of the TEC conference and participants don’t need to sign up for TEC to attend. There is still room if you are going to be in Berlin next week and would like to attend. For details see my previous post User Group TEC Berlin.

Want to find your largeest AD groups?

Bob — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:11:35 +0000

Dmitry Sotnikov wrote a great article on how to locate large groups in Active Directory using PowerShell. In the example script he shows how you can use the free ActiveRoles AD CMDLETS to locate the largest groups in Active Directory.

Read Dmitry’s Blog Here

4 PowerShell CMDLETS to Simplify ActiveRoles Approval

Bob — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:01:58 +0000

Versions 6.0.x and 6.1 of ActiveRoles Server are approval aware, but working with approval tasks can be tricky. One of the most frequent requests was to perform custom reporting or automation of approval workflow; unfortunately this did not ship with ActiveRoles itself.

In June we released an updated version of the ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory (a.k.a. The PowerShell AD CMDLETS). In that release we also included several new commands that can be used with ActiveRoles Server to help manage and automate the ActiveRoles approval workflow. The following four PowerShell CMDLETS require a connection to the ActiveRoles Server Administration Service, so the Proxy parameter must be used to establish a connection.

Get-QARSOperation – Retrieve operation records from ActiveRoles Server. Each operation record represents a certain change request, whether pending or completed, in ActiveRoles Server.
Get-QARSApprovalTask – Retrieve approval task records from ActiveRoles Server. Each approval task record represents a task, whether pending or completed, to approve or reject a certain change request in ActiveRoles Server.
Approve-QARSApprovalTask – Apply the Approve resolution on approval tasks for which you are assigned to the Approver role in ActiveRoles Server.
Reject-QARSApprovalTask – Apply the Reject resolution ActiveRoles Server.

To download the latest version of these CMDLETS go to the ActiveRoles download page located at http://www.quest.com/common/registration.aspx?requestdefid=7910.

Auditing the PowerShell AD CMDLETS!

Bob — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:07:24 +0000

Dmitry Sotnikov’s blog has a great entry on how you can use ActiveRoles Server to audit changes made to Active Directory that are being done with PowerShell.

http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/audit-powershell-changes-in-ad/

Wondering when AD CMDLETS 1.2.2 will ship?

Bob — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:56:38 +0000

We are getting very-very close to shipping version 1.2.2 of the Active Directory CMDLETS. This release will improve compatiblity with Quest’s PowerGUI graphical interface for PowerShell. Check back between now and friday for an announcment about our release.

My Interview on the PowerScripting PodCast

Bob — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:13:44 +0000

I had the great opportunity last week to participate in the PowerScripting pod cast. Jonathan Walz & Hal Rottenberg host the show and made talking about the projects I have been involved with at Quest and outside of Quest – both easy an fun. Primarily I was on the show to talk about the ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory (A.K.A The PowerShell AD CMDLETS) but we also talked about a number of other subjects. If you want to know more about PowerShell or if you want to learn how PowerShell is being used in the IT industry these pod casts are certainly a great place to start. In any case check it out…

http://powerscripting.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/episode-67-bob-bobel-from-quest-software/

AD CMDLETS 1.2 now available

Bob — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:35:32 +0000

I am delighted to announce that as of 1pm EST, ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory version 1.2 will be available for download in either 32 or 64 bit editions.

Download the latest version here:
http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

I am especially excited about the Restore-QADDeletedObject command that undelete objects in Active Directory by restoring tombstones back into normal objects. This cmdlet requires an Active Directory domain controller running Windows Server 2003 or later but will certainly be a useful tool to solve some of the basic woops, or oh-no scenarios. Even cooler is that you can now use Get-QADObject to see those tombstoned objects and pipe that to the restore cmdlet so bringing back objects is really simple.

For ActiveRoles customers the new *-QARSApprovalTask will allow you to approve or reject operations where a approval is required right from within PowerShell.

Enjoy!

AD CMDLETS version 1.2 went gold Friday

Bob — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:50:09 +0000

On Friday I had a nice little gift from my development team in my inbox; the RTM bits for version 1.2 of our PowerShell AD CMDLETS. Don’t get too excited it will take a little while for us to make them generally available, but you won’t have to long to wait. BTW, if you happen to be going to TEC (The Expert’s Conference) this week and you say the words “Pirate Chicken” to me, I’ll see that you get a copy sooner.

Here is a sneak peak at the cmdlets we added in 1.2:

• Get-QADMemberOf - Retrieve group memberships of a particular object in Active Directory. Supported are both Active
Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

• Get-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo - Retrieve Password Settings objects that match the specified conditions. Active Directory version of Windows Server 2008 or later is required.

• Restore-QADDeletedObject – Undelete objects in Active Directory by restoring tombstones back into normal objects. This cmdlet requires an Active Directory domain controller running Windows Server 2003 or later.

• Get-QARSOperation – Retrieve operation records from ActiveRoles Server. Each operation record represents a certain change request, whether pending or completed, in ActiveRoles Server.

• Get-QARSApprovalTask – Retrieve approval task records from ActiveRoles Server. Each approval task record represents a task,whether pending or completed, to approve or reject a certain change request in ActiveRoles Server.

• Approve-QARSApprovalTask – Apply the Approve resolution on approval tasks for which you are assigned to the Approver role in
ActiveRoles Server.

• Reject-QARSApprovalTask – Apply the Reject resolution on approval tasks for which you are assigned to the Approver role in ActiveRoles Server.