Verifying user accounts exist in AD

PowerShell Help
1

Hi guys,

Another one that’s caught me out - fairly simple goal - I have a list of usernames, that I would like to verify through powershell, whether the account exists.

I’m not able to get it to work as intended though. The script runs without error but is obviously not reporting the right data. Not sure why, as I’ve used if statements many many times before, and never had such a problem. Maybe I’m missing some syntax or operators.

Here’s my code:

$Users = import-csv "homedrives-jan15.csv"
$OutFile = "homedrive-audit.csv"
$Header = "username,account status"
Add-Content -Path $OutFile -Value $Header
foreach [$User in $Users] 
{
$GetUser = Get-AdUser -Filter {sAMAccountName -eq '$[$User.Username]'}
if [$GetUser -eq $null] 
	{
	$Status = "User Not Found"
	Write-Host "$[$User.Username] account not found"
	}
	Else 
	{
	$Status = "User Exists"
	Write-Host "$[$User.Username] exists"
	}	
$OutData = $User.Username + "," + $Status
Add-Content -Path $OutFile -Value $OutData
}

My issue is that both the terminal output AND the CSV output are all showing account not found for everything, which I know is obviously wrong. No matter what logic I use to verify the account, the script will only ever use the first if statement output, and completely ignore the Else statement.

Anyone spot what I’m doing wrong here?

Thanks!

2

I think you might be better off using -Identity instead of -Filter, since you know the samAccountName. That should return an error if it’s not found, which you should be able to trap (setting -ErrorAction to Stop and using a Try/Catch construct). Testing for $null isn’t really a great error-handling scenario.

Now… I’m not sure if this is maybe something just from the Web software here… but you’re consistently using [brackets] instead of (parentheses). In every instance, in what you posted above, that’s incorrect. But I’m not sure if that’s just an artifact of the web here, so it might not be the cause of your problem. I’d think that would have bombed with syntax errors if it was the real problem.

3

Hi Don. Yep I am using parenthesis, but the code tags are changing them to square brackets on here. Bit odd, since bracket types in code are v. important!

I don’t really need to catch errors, and I was trying to avoid over-complicating the script. I used the filter command with the express intention of it not outputting an error, which means the $null value can be used to determine if it found an account. If I use -Identity, then I get errors and it messes with the if/else qualifiers.

Having said that, it behaves the same way regardless at the moment! I have tried it both ways. The only method I have not attempted is a try/catch construct.

4

Interestingly, I tried this on a single line:

if [[get-aduser -filter {SamAccountName -eq 'foxr735'}] -eq $null] {write-host "Nope"} else {write-host "Yep"}

This works fine. If I give it a duff username, it outputs a ‘Nope’, and a working one outputs a ‘Yep’ :slight_smile:

Don’t understand why this isnt working on the import.

5

You’re using single quotes, which does not expand strings.

Try changing

'$($User.Username)'

to

"$($User.Username)"
6

What’s in the homedrives-jan15.csv file. EX: SamAccountName (wperez) or is it Name (Perez, Wilfredo)

7

In response to Tim;

I’ll give that a try. I can never remember the difference between single and double quotes! That does actually make sense now I think about it, as it’s showing the failed/null result for all accounts.

Wilfredo; the CSV contains a list of AD user names (SAMAccountName format) with the heading of ‘Username’.

EDIT:
The quotations are not the issue unfortunately! I’m getting the same problems.

8

Ok, I now have great success!

It was an issue with the stringed variable I was trying to pass through, just not one of a quotation mark nature.

I changed the following:

$GetUser = Get-AdUser -Filter {sAMAccountName -eq '$[$User.Username]'}

to…

$UserAccount = $User.Username
$GetUser = Get-AdUser -Filter {sAMAccountName -eq $UserAccount}

And it ran first time without complaint and worked exactly as intended.

Thanks for the assistance guys.