PowerShell - search AD for Computer Object in List

Question

I am trying to ascertain if server accounts in a text file exist in AD, but I only get the result - "server does not exists in AD" even for servers that do exist.

Please help me figure out what I have missed:

**foreach ($server in (Get-Content C:\Scripts\servers.txt)) {
  try{
    $test = Get-ADComputer -Identity $server -ErrorAction Stop
    if($test){
      Write-Output "Server object $server exists in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
    }
  }catch{
    Write-Output "Server object $server does not exist in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
  }
}**

Answer 1

What's in your servers.txt file? If you're using the "-Identity" parameter in the Get-ADComputer that parameter only accepts a distinguishedName, a GUID, a SID, or a sAMAccount as a value. If your file contains only the names of computers you'll have to use -Filter instead of -Identity.

Assuming you have just computer names in that file, your script should look something like this:

foreach ($server in (Get-Content C:\Scripts\servers.txt)) {
    $test = Get-ADComputer -Filter { Name -eq $server }
    if ($test) {
        Write-Output "Server object $server exists in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
    }
    else {
        Write-Output "Server object $server does not exist in AD" | Out-File C:\Scripts\AD_result.txt -Append
    }
}

When you use a filter there should never be an exception, so there's need/benefit to using a Try/Catch. Instead, just test the result to see if anything was returned.

Answer 2

Hi，

What are the ’server accounts‘ in the text file？You can check the value of $server in the foreach loop.

Best Regards,
Ian Xue

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