Create Active Directory User Objects using PowerShell

There are few ways to create user objects in Active Directory. If it’s using GUI, it can be done using Active Directory Administrative Center or Active Directory Users and Computers MMC. If it is using command line, it can be done using windows command-line or PowerShell. In this demo, I am going to show how we can create user object using PowerShell. 

In order to create user object in active directory we can use New-ADUser cmdlet in PowerShell. You can view the full syntax for the command along with the accepted data types using,

Get-Command New-ADUser -Syntax

In order to create a New User account using PowerShell the minimum value you need to pass is -Name. it will create a disabled user account and you still can define values for other attributes later. 

This is a sample which can use to create a user account,

New-ADUser -Name "Talib Idris" -GivenName "Talib" -Surname "Idris" -SamAccountName "tidris" -UserPrincipalName "tidris@rebeladmin.com" -Path "OU=Users,OU=Europe,DC=rebeladmin,DC=com" -AccountPassword(Read-Host -AsSecureString "Type Password for User") -Enabled $true

In the command,

Name – Defines the Full Name

Given Name – Defines the First Name

Surname – Defines the Surname

SamAccountName – Defines the User Name

UserPrincipalName – Defines the UPN for the user account

Path – Defines the OU path. The default location is “CN=Users,DC=rebeladmin,DC=com”

AccountPassword – This will allow user to input password for the user and system will convert it to the relevant data type

Enable – defines if the user account status is enabled or disabled. 

You can create a user account with minimum attributes such as Name and UPN. Then later can define a password and enable the account. User account cannot enable without a password. To define password can use Set-ADAccountPassword -Identity cmdlet and to enable account can use Enable-ADAccount -Identity cmdlet. 

 

Instead of executing multiple commands to create multiple user objects, we can create a CSV (comma-separated values) file which include data for attributes and use it to create accounts in one go. 

 

In demo I am using following CSV file. 

 

Import-Csv "C:\ADUsers.csv" | ForEach-Object {

$upn = $_.SamAccountName + “@rebeladmin.com” 

New-ADUser -Name $_.Name `

 -GivenName $_."GivenName" `

 -Surname $_."Surname" `

 -SamAccountName  $_."samAccountName" `

 -UserPrincipalName  $upn `

 -Path $_."Path" `

 -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString “Pa$$w0rd” -AsPlainText -force) -Enabled $true

}

 

In above script Import-Csv cmdlet used to import the CSV file created. I have defined parameter $upn = $_.SamAccountName + “@rebeladmin.com” to use for the  -UserPrincipalName value. In script, I have defined a common password for all the accounts using -AccountPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString “Pa$$w0rd” -AsPlainText -force) 

 

 

This marks the end of this blog post. Hope this was useful. If you have any questions feel free to contact me on rebeladm@live.com also follow me on twitter @rebeladm to get updates about new blog posts.