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Friday, October 28, 2005

AD Infastructure exploring with MSH

while working in AD with MSH, I noticed the new (.NET 2.0) namesspace :

System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory

there are some very Handy classes there, that make working with AD,(especialy the infrastructure part) a lot easier.
Some Examples below (but do a get-member on the Object, there are a lot more handy properties and methods here !!)

gr /\/\o\/\/

#Get ADSI connection to the CurrentDomain
$dom = [System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.Domain]::getcurrentdomain()

#get some info

$dom.Forest.name
$dom.DomainMode

#get domain password policy

$dom.GetDirectoryEntry().pwdHistoryLength

#Get trust relations

$dom.GetAllTrustRelationships()  fl

#find a domaincontroller and connect to it 
$dc = $dom.finddomaincontroller()

# Get the Forrest
$for = [System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.Forest]::GetCurrentForest()

#Find ONE GC
$gc = $for.FindGlobalCatalog()

#find all GC in yourSite
$for.FindAllGlobalCatalogs("YourSite")

# without using a DomainObject.
$dt = [System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.DirectoryContexttype]"domain"
$c = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.DirectoryContext($dt)
$dc::findone($c)

posted by /\/\o\/\/

Comments:

Anonymous

I found these very useful. Thankyou.
I used [reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("system.directoryservices.activedirectory") to load into Monad as these classes aren't loaded by default. I can't figure out how load without using the loadwithpartialname() option. As this is being deprecated I wondered if you knew how to do this.

Thanks

# posted by

Anonymous : 12:25 PM

/\/\o\/\/

I still use the LoadWithPartialName,
for ease, but you can find more info about doing it the right way here :

http://www.leeholmes.com/blog/HowDoIEasilyLoadAssembliesWhenLoadWithPartialNameHasBeenDeprecated.aspx

gr /\/\o\/\/

PS system.directoryservices should be imported standard

# posted by

/\/\o\/\/ : 2:04 PM

/\/\o\/\/

I tested it a bit,
the system.directoryservices.activedirectory
namespace is in the same assembly as system.directory services.

and this is allready imported so You dont need to load it, the [reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname does also not work

try this to list the loaded assemblies

("system.directoryservices.activedirectory")
[system.threading.thread]::getdomain().GetAssemblies()

but you should be able to use this without loading any extra assemblies.

gr /\/\o\/\/

# posted by

/\/\o\/\/ : 2:23 PM

Anonymous

Thanks for the info

# posted by

Anonymous : 2:01 PM