PowerShell – Find nested Active Directory members of a group

Alex Ø. T. Hansen

08/06/2017

PowerShell – Find nested Active Directory members of a group

Lately I found out that the following doesn’t always work, I had problem with returning all users in a group.

Get-ADGroupMember -Recursive

1	Get-ADGroupMember -Recursive

So I have created a small PowerShell function that basically does the same thing. Use it free of charge!

Function Get-ADNestedGroups
{
    [cmdletbinding()]

    Param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, HelpMessage="Please provide a valid identity.")]$Identity
    )

    #Get all groups/users of the root group.
    $Members = Get-ADGroupMember -Identity $Identity;

    #Foreach member in the group.
    Foreach($Member in $Members)
    {
        #If the member is a group.
        If($Member.ObjectClass -eq "group")
        {
            #Run the function again against the group.
            $Users += Get-ADNestedGroups -Identity $Member.distinguishedName;
        }
        Else
        {
            #Add the user to the object array.
            $Users += @($Member);
        }
    }

    #Return the users
    Return ,$Users;
}

$Users = Get-ADNestedGroups -Identity "Domain Users";

Function Get-ADNestedGroups

{

[cmdletbinding()]

Param

(

[Parameter(Mandatory=$true, HelpMessage="Please provide a valid identity.")]$Identity

)

#Get all groups/users of the root group.

$Members = Get-ADGroupMember -Identity $Identity;

#Foreach member in the group.

Foreach($Member in $Members)

{

#If the member is a group.

If($Member.ObjectClass -eq "group")

{

#Run the function again against the group.

$Users += Get-ADNestedGroups -Identity $Member.distinguishedName;

}

Else

{

#Add the user to the object array.

$Users += @($Member);

}

#Return the users

Return ,$Users;

}

$Users = Get-ADNestedGroups -Identity "Domain Users";

About Alex Ø. T. Hansen

Experienced advanced operations engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Windows Server, Azure, Ethical Hacking, Office 365, Exchange, Jenkins, SCCM, Octopus Deploy and PowerShell to name a few. Strong engineering professional with a big passion for knowledge.

PowerShell – Find nested Active Directory members of a group

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