pradeep-papnai 8:10 pm on April 27, 2018  

Retrieve Active Directory object properties using VBScript.

In many circumstance, you may need to isolate application and Active directory issues that may popup because of bad network OR configuration of environment. In one of last challenge to isolate application performance issues with network while retrieving AD object I used following VBScript rather than custom application.

Create a text file eg. RetrieveProxy.vbs in your desired location (mine is c:\tools). Paste following code into notepad.

This will retrieve ‘user1’ proxy address from Active directory.

StartTime=Now
REM wscript.echo Starttime
Set objUser=GetObject("LDAP://192.168.2.100/CN=user1,OU=Myusers,DC=domain,DC=local")
ProxyAddress=objUser.proxyAddresses
EndTime=Now
TimeTaken=DateDiff("s",StartTime,EndTime)
wscript.echo("Proxy Address: "&ProxyAddress", Bind took "&TimeTaken&" Seconds, From "&StartTime&" To "EndTime)

You can run either using command line.

commandout.jpg

Or by simply double clicking on “RetriveProxy.vbs”.

window1out.jpg

In above script,

  • You can modify the property name you wish to retrieve from AD. I have used “proxyAddress” you can have “whenCreated”, “whenChanged” OR any other available object properties.
  • You can change IP OR FQDN of Domain controller. It can be without IP/FQDN as well, Eg. “LDAP:// CN=user1,OU=Myusers,DC=domain,DC=local”, in that case it will connect nearest available domain controller.
  • Adding variable ‘StartTime’ OR ‘EndTime’ is completely optional, I have used it so I can see time taken during retrieval so that I can compare it other application doing similar stuff. If it take longer time then expected then definitely some of n/w resources are at fault somewhere.

Following is the modified version so it can run against all objects of an OU (Organizational unit).

StartTime=Now
REM wscript.echo Starttime
Set objUsers=GetObject("LDAP://192.168.2.100/OU=MyUsers,DC=domain,DC=local")
objUsers.Filter = Array("User")
Dim AllUsersProxy
For Each obj In objUsers
   AllUsersProxy=AllUsersProxy&obj.cn&"  "&obj.proxyAddresses&vbnewline
Next
EndTime=Now
TimeTaken=DateDiff("s",StartTime,EndTime)
wscript.echo("Proxy Addresses: "&vbnewline&AllUsersProxy&"Bind took "&TimeTaken&" Seconds, From " &StartTime&" To "&EndTime)

Please note, this script retrieve two properties and output will be new line for each objects.

commandout3

windowout2.jpg