How to Create New Active Directory Users with PowerShell

How to Create New Active Directory Users with PowerShell

Oct 9, 2021 | active directory, active directory services, windows server

Source Website is https://blog.netwrix.com/2018/06/07/how-to-create-new-active-directory-users-with-powershell/

The easiest way to create a new user in an Active Directory domain is using the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in. However, what if you need to create multiple user accounts in bulk, or ADUC is not available for some reason? In this article, we explain several ways to create Active Directory user accounts with PowerShell using the New-ADUser cmdlet.Handpicked related content:

Create New User Accounts using the New-ADUser Cmdlet

So what is the PowerShell cmdlet used to create user objects? It’s the New-ADUser cmdlet, which is included in the Active Directory PowerShell module built into Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2/2012 and above. Therefore, the first thing we need to do is enable the AD module:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

Now let’s take a closer look at cmdlet New-ADUser. We can get its full syntax by running the following command:

Get-Command New-ADUser –Syntax
Create New User Accounts in Active Directory using the New-ADUser Cmdlet

When you know the syntax, it’s easy to add users to Active Directory:

New-ADUser B.Johnson

Now let’s check whether the user was added successfully by listing all Active Directory users using the following script:

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties samAccountName | select samAccountName
Create New User Accounts using the New-ADUser Cmdlet Check

There it is, the last one in the list!Handpicked related content:

Create a New Active Directory User Account with Password

Accounts are created with the following default properties:

  • Account is created in the “Users” container.
  • Account is disabled.
  • Account is a member of Domain Users group.
  • No password is set.
  • User must reset the password at the first logon.

Therefore, to make a new account that’s actually usable, we need to enable it using the Enable-ADAccount cmdlet and give it a password using the Set-ADAccountPassword cmdlet.

So let’s create a new account with the following attributes:

  • Name – Jack Robinson
  • Given Name – Jack
  • Surname – Robinson
  • Account Name – J.Robinson
  • User Principal Name – J.Robinson@enterprise.com
  • Path address – “OU=Managers,DC=enterprise,DC=com”
  • Password Input
  • Status – Enabled

Here’s the script we’ll use:

New-ADUser -Name "Jack Robinson" -GivenName "Jack" -Surname "Robinson" -SamAccountName "J.Robinson" -UserPrincipalName "J.Robinson@enterprise.com" -Path "OU=Managers,DC=enterprise,DC=com" -AccountPassword(Read-Host -AsSecureString "Input Password") -Enabled $true

The Read-Host parameter will ask you to input new password. Note that the password should meet the length, complexity and history requirements of your domain security policy.

Now let’s take a look at the results by running the following cmdlet:

Get-ADUser J.Robinson -Properties CanonicalName, Enabled, GivenName, Surname, Name, UserPrincipalName, samAccountName, whenCreated, PasswordLastSet  | Select CanonicalName, Enabled, GivenName, Surname, Name, UserPrincipalName, samAccountName, whenCreated, PasswordLastSet
Create a New Active Directory User Account with Password

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Create AD Users in Bulk with a PowerShell Script

Now, let’s make our task a little bit harder and create ten similar Active Directory accounts in bulk, for example, for our company’s IT class, and set a default password (P@ssw0rd) for each of them. To send the default password in a protected state, we must use the ConvertTo-SecureString parameter. Here’s the script to use:

$path="OU=IT,DC=enterprise,DC=com"
$username="ITclassuser"
$count=1..10
foreach ($i in $count)
{ New-AdUser -Name $username$i -Path $path -Enabled $True -ChangePasswordAtLogon $true  `

-AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString "P@ssw0rd" -AsPlainText -force) -passThru }
Create Active Directory Users in Bulk with a PowerShell Script

Now let’s make our script more flexible by adding the Read-Host parameter, which will ask for the name and number of users:

$path="OU=IT,DC=enterprise,DC=com"
$username=Read-Host "Enter name"
$n=Read-Host "Enter Number"
$count=1..$n
foreach ($i in $count)
{ New-AdUser -Name $username$i -Path $path -Enabled $True -ChangePasswordAtLogon $true  `

-AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString "P@ssw0rd" -AsPlainText -force) -passThru }
Create Active Directory Users in Bulk with a PowerShell Script

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Import AD Users from a CSV File

Another option for creating users in AD is to import them from a CSV file. This option is great when you have a list of users with predefined personal details such as:

  • FirstName
  • LastName
  • Username
  • Department
  • Password
  • OU

The CSV file must be in UTF8 encoding and contain contact data that looks like this:

Import Active Directory Users from a CSV File

The following script will create enabled user objects for any users in the CSV that don’t already have accounts in AD. The “Reset password at the next logon” option will be enabled for the new accounts, so you can use your default password:

#Enter a path to your import CSV file
$ADUsers = Import-csv C:\scripts\newusers.csv

foreach ($User in $ADUsers)
{

       $Username    = $User.username
       $Password    = $User.password
       $Firstname   = $User.firstname
       $Lastname    = $User.lastname
    $Department = $User.department
       $OU           = $User.ou

       #Check if the user account already exists in AD
       if (Get-ADUser -F {SamAccountName -eq $Username})
       {
               #If user does exist, output a warning message
               Write-Warning "A user account $Username has already exist in Active Directory."
       }
       else
       {
              #If a user does not exist then create a new user account
          
        #Account will be created in the OU listed in the $OU variable in the CSV file; don’t forget to change the domain name in the"-UserPrincipalName" variable
              New-ADUser `
            -SamAccountName $Username `
            -UserPrincipalName "$Username@yourdomain.com" `
            -Name "$Firstname $Lastname" `
            -GivenName $Firstname `
            -Surname $Lastname `
            -Enabled $True `
            -ChangePasswordAtLogon $True `
            -DisplayName "$Lastname, $Firstname" `
            -Department $Department `
            -Path $OU `
            -AccountPassword (convertto-securestring $Password -AsPlainText -Force)

       }
}

After script execution, we have two new users, Edward Franklin and Bill Jackson, in our Active Directory domain:

Import Active Directory Users from a CSV File after script execution

Let’s take a look at their details by running Get-ADUser cmdlet again:

Get-ADUser E.Franklin -Properties CanonicalName, Enabled, GivenName, Surname, Name, UserPrincipalName, samAccountName, whenCreated, PasswordLastSet  | Select CanonicalName, Enabled, GivenName, Surname, Name, UserPrincipalName, samAccountName, whenCreated, PasswordLastSet

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Conclusion

Now you know how to create users in Active Directory using PowerShell scripts. Try performing some account creations, bulk account creations and CSV imports yourself on local or remote systems. Remember, the ADUC MMC snap-in is great for creating a few users with extended attributes, but PowerShell is much better for importing a large number of user accounts in bulk.

How to Create New Active Directory Users with PowerShell

Create Bulk Organizational Units (OU) in Active Directory with PowerShell

Oct 9, 2021 | active directory, managing your server, windows server

Source Link is here: https://activedirectorypro.com/create-bulk-organizational-units-ou-in-active-directory-with-powershell/

September 22, 2021 by Robert Allen

In this guide, I’m going to show you how to create bulk OUs in Active Directory using PowerShell. 

Maybe you are migrating to a new domain, server, merging with another company, or creating a lab environment. Whatever the case PowerShell can be used to quickly create a bunch of OUs and save you time. 

Let’s get started. 

The New-ADOrganizationalUnit command

The New-ADOrganizationalUnit cmdlet creates an Active Directory organizational unit (OU). 

Here is an example:

The command below will create the OU “ADPRO Users” under the path DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com

New-ADOrganizationalUnit -Name "ADPRO Users" -Path "DC=ad,DC=activedirectorypro,DC=com"

Before I run the command here is a screenshot of Active Directory, you can see ADPRO Users do not exist. 

Now Open PowerShell ISE and run the command. 

Refresh AD and the OU is now there. 

That was an example of creating a single OU with PowerShell. Now let’s look at how to create a bunch of OUs. 

Step 1: Create a CSV file with a name and path header. 

Step 2: Add the OU names under the name column and the path to where you want them created in AD. 

In the above screenshot, I’m going to create several OUs (Marketing, HR, IT, and so on) in the ADPro Users OU. 

The path is the distinguishedName of the OU. To find this go to the OU, right-click, select properties, then select the attribute editor. 

Step 3: Save the CSV

You can save it anywhere you want. 

Step 4:  Copy and Pase the script below into PowerShell ISE

# This script is used for creating bulk organizational units.

# Import active directory module for running AD cmdlets
Import-Module activedirectory

#Store the data from the CSV in the $ADOU variable. 
$ADOU = Import-csv C:\it\ou.csv

#Loop through each row containing user details in the CSV file
foreach ($ou in $ADou)
{
#Read data from each field in each row and assign the data to a variable as below

$name = $ou.name
$path = $ou.path

#Account will be created in the OU provided by the $OU variable read from the CSV file
New-ADOrganizationalUnit `
-Name $name `
-path $path `

}

Modify line #7 and update the path to your CSV. I called my CSV ou.csv and saved it to the c:\it folder so my line 7 looks like this. 

Step 5. Run the script

Click the “run script” button to run the script. 

Refresh AD and you should see the newly created OUs. 

Conclusion

In this guide, I showed you how to create a single OU and how to create bulk OUs by using the New-ADOrganizationalUnit cmdlet. I use this script to quickly rebuild my lab environment. I do a lot of testing in Active Directory so I often need to rebuild it from scratch to test new builds of the ad pro toolkit. This script helps to simplify the rebuild process of AD.