ActiveRoles Management Shell 1.1 Beta Posted

Today we posted the beta of our ActiveRoles Management Shell 1.1 Beta Posted to http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx.

Details to follow...

Bob

Creating Test AD User Accounts with PowerShell

On my Friend Austin Osuide's blog you will find detailed directions for creating a PowerShell (PoSH) Script that will create 500 test user accounts in Active Directory using the ActiveRoles PowerShell CMDLETS for AD.

http://winserverteam.org.uk/blogs/austin/archive/2007/10/22/creating-test-ad-users-with-powershell.aspx

Cheers Austin!

Bob

RC1 ActiveRoles Managment Console for AD

We just shipped RC1 of our Active Directory (and ADAM) managment commands for PowerShell. Congratulations to our awsome dev team... See below for details of what we provide for free by simply downloading our CMDLETs from http://www.quest.com/activeroles-server/arms.aspx.

CMDLETS at a Glance
Windows Server 2008 CMDLETS 1-4
General Object Management CMDLETS 5-11
Group Management CMDLETS 12-17
Computer Management CMDLET 18
User Management CMDLETS 19-24

CMDLETS Description

***Manage Windows 2008 Password Policy
1. Add-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo
Add PSO links on a Password Settings object. Windows Server 2008 is required.

2. Get-QADPasswordSettingsObject
Retrieve Password Settings objects that match the specified conditions. Windows Server 2008 is required.

3. New-QADPasswordSettingsObject
Create a new Password Settings object (PSO). Windows Server 2008 is required.

4. Remove-QADPasswordSettingsObjectAppliesTo
Remove PSO links on a Password Settings object. Windows Server 2008 is required.

*** Object Management
5. Move-QADObject
Move the specified object to a different location (container) in Active Directory.

6. Remove-QADObject
Delete the specified objects in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

7. Rename-QADObject
Change the name of the specified object in Active Directory.

8. Get-QADObject
Retrieve all directory objects in a domain or container that match the specified conditions. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

9. New-QADObject
Create a new object of in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

10. Set-QADObject
Modify attributes of an object in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

11. Convert-QADAttributeValue
Convert attribute values of a directory object to the specified .NET type.

***Group Management
12. Set-QADGroup
Modify attributes of a group in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

13. Add-QADGroupMember
Add one or more objects to a group in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

14. Get-QADGroup
Retrieve all groups in a domain or container that match the specified conditions. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

15. Get-QADGroupMember
Retrieve the members of a group in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

16. New-QADGroup
Create a new group in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

17. Remove-QADGroupMember
Remove one or more members from a group in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

***Computer Management
18. Get-QADComputer
Retrieve all computer objects in a domain or container that match the specified conditions.
(This command looks lonely...)

*** Users Management
19. Get-QADUser
Retrieve all users in a domain or container that match the specified conditions. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

20. Enable-QADUser
Enable a user account in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

21. Disable-QADUser
Disable a user account in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

22. Unlock-QADUser
Unlock a user account in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

23. New-QADUser
Create a new user account in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

24. Set-QADUser
Modify attributes of a user account in Active Directory. Supported are both Active Directory Doman Services (AD DS) and Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS).

***Other
25. Get-QADPSSnapinSettings
View default settings that apply to all cmdlets of this PowerShell snap-in.

26. Set-QADPSSnapinSettings
Modify default settings that apply to all cmdlets of this PowerShell snap-in.

27. Connect-QADService
Connect to the ActiveRoles Server Administration Service via the ActiveRoles Server ADSI Provider, or to a certain Active Directory domain controller or a certain server running an Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) instance via the regular LDAP ADSI Provider.

28. Disconnect-QADService
Close the connection, if any exists. A connection could be established by using the Connect-QADService cmdlet.

AD CMDLETS RC1 to be released

It is almost here.... ActiveRoles Management Shell RC1

We are in the final phases of preparation for shipping our Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of the ActiveRoles Management Shell for AD (a.k.a. AD Management Commands for PowerShell).

As I've mentioned in the past, I am extremely proud of our work in this area and that our work on PowerShell was mentioned by Microsoft as one of the major reasons why Quest was selected as Microsoft ISV of the Year.

One of the things that I am most proud of is the fact that we are providing the AD Management CMDLETs free to anyone who cares to use them. If your company is one of the many that owns ActiveRoles Server then you can also use the commands and make them subject to Roles, Rules and Approvals with the -proxy switch.

When we actually post the PowerShell CMDs you can download them from http://www.quest.com/activeroles-server/arms.aspx.

If you have questions about how they work you can go to http://activeroles.inside.quest.com/index.jspa.

If you are really hot on PowerShell and you don't know about the free UI we also provide you can go to PowerGUI.org, get our UI and transform the way you work with PowerShell overnight.

Bob

PowerGUI 1.0.11 "Notepad for PowerShell"

PowerGUI 1.0.11 is out and can be freely downloaded from PowerGUI downloads page.

Dmitry's team has been very-very busy listening to users about how PowerGUI could be improved and they have really created an awsome release.

Great Job!

Bob

Demonstration Videos

This week we launched a series of demo videos on how the ActiveRoles Managment Shell for AD can be used to improve AD Managment. The ActiveRoles Managment Shell is Quests set of free PowerShell CMDLETS that enable PowerShell to manage Active Directory and ADAM (now called AD LDS).

If you didn't know about these CMDLETs you should know that they are provided free to anyone who needs them and spends the time to download them. Alternativly customers of ActiveRoles Server can use them in conjuction with ActiveRoles Server to take advantage of Rules and Workflow provided by ActiveRoles Server.

http://www.quest.com/activeroles-server/arms.aspx

Bob

Quest provides ANR search capabilities for PowerShell

Active Directory provides a search mechanism call ANR (Ambiguous Name Resolution) that will automatically search accross multiple attributes in AD. This is really helpful if know only someones last name (surname) or logon (samAccountName) and you want to search AD using one of those strings. While ANR serachs are a little slower than searching by a single attribute, performanes is still pretty good. I did two searchs using my last name against the Quest corporate AD and ANR took only slighlty longer than searching using wildcard alone.

Using the ANR search switch with the Quest Get-QADUser CMDLETS is simple:
Get-QADUser -anr Bobel

To search by Surname without using ANR is also pretty simple using wildecards
Get-QADUser -name *Bobel

Default attributes covered in an ANR search:

• GivenName
• Surname
• displayName
• LegacyExchangeDN
• msExchMailNickname
• RDN
• physicalDeliveryOfficeName
• proxyAddress
• sAMAccountName

To download the Quest AD CMDLETS for free go to http://www.quest.com/activeroles-server/arms.aspx.
To read more about ANR search in general see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/243299

4th Beta of Quest Active Directory CMDLETS for PowerShell released

About a week ago we shipped the 4th beta of the Quest AD CMDLETS for PowerShell. There are several new and cool features in this release and we are getting closer to being feature complete for our first GA release later this year.

Be sure to un-install any previous versions of the AD CMDLETS before you install 1.0.4

New CMDLETS:
Disable-QADUser (same as right clicking on a user and choosing disable)
Enable-QADUser
Move-QADObject (Move an AD object between OUs)
Set-QADUser (Set attributes of a user object)
Unlock-QADUser (Set the User Account Control to unlock a user account)

To get the cmdlets go to http://www.quest.com/activeroles-server/arms.aspx

Bob