Month: April 2020

Posted in Active Directory, Patch Management, Windows

ACTIVE DIRECTORY RECYCLE BIN AND SERVER BACKUP

Posted on by Akhil

Enabling Active Directory Recycle bin

The Recycle Bin is an organizer where records and folders that one have deleted are put away. They have not been for all time expelled from your hard drive(s), they were just moved to this unique folder called Recycle Bin. In a similar manner, any firm would definitely show interest in having a recycle bin enabled for the Active Directory for various reasons.

  • Start > server manager > Tools > Active Directory Administrative Center > Open the Domain > In the Tasks click on Enable the Recycle bin...> OK as shown in the figure.

Active Directory server Backup

  • Start > Server Manager > Tools > Windows Server Backup > Local Backup > In the Actions menu select Backup once.. > Follow the onscreen commands > Select Full server backup (Recommended) / Custom backup > Local Drives are the preferred storage type > Select the supported hard drive for the backup destination.

A system hard drive is an unsupported volume for the server backup

It is a best practice to create a separate non sys-drive for in particular with the server backup.
Posted in Active Directory, Azure, Windows

CREATING BULK USERS IN ACTIVE DIRECTORY

Posted on by Akhil

Prerequisites :

  • A list of users in the format of .csv file as shown.
  • The user logon name or the SAM account name should be different for different users.
  • A desired OU as mentioned in the CSV file to be created in the Active Directory
  • Run > dsa.msc > Right click on the domain > New > Organizational Unit

Procedure :

The following powershell code is used to create the bulk users in the Active Directory.

Import-Module ActiveDirectory
$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString "123456aA#" -AsPlainText -Force
$filepath = Read-Host -Prompt "Please enter the path to your CSV file"
$users = Import-Csv $filepath
ForEach ($user in $users) {
    $name = $user.'Display Name'
    $fname = $user.'First Name'
    $lname = $user.'Last Name'
    $intials = $user.'Intials'
    $department = $user.'Department'
    $userlogonname = $user.'User Logon Name'
    $OUpath = $user.'Organizational Unit'
    $Sam = $user.'SamAccount Name'

New-ADUser -Name "$name" -GivenName "$fname" -SurName "$lname" -Initials $intials -Department "$department" -UserPrincipalName "$userlogonname" -SamAccountName "$Sam" -Path $OUpath -AccountPassword $securePassword -ChangePasswordAtLogon $True -Enabled $True

}

  • Mention the Path of the CSV file and click ENTER, which results in the creation of the users according to the CSV file.
  • For the Verification, check the mentioned Organizational Unit in the Active Directory for the Users.

Modification of any attributes of the users in bulk

The following powershell code can be used for the modification of the user attributes in bulk, for example to change the SamAccount Name and Company of the Users in Bulk using CSV file.

Import-Module ActiveDirectory $filepath = Read-Host -Prompt "Please enter the path to your CSV file" $users = Import-Csv $filepath ForEach ($user in $users) {Get-ADUser -Filter "UserPrincipalName -eq '$($user."User Logon Name")'" | Set-ADUser -SamAccountName ($user."SamAccount Name") -Company ($user."Company")}

And the sample format of the CSV file for the modification process can be as followed

Secondary Domain Controller (ADC)

Any Administrative operation can be performed in any of the domain controllers, but it is preferred to make action in the secondary domain controller