PowerShell Scripting to Replicate Active Directory Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for Active Directory offer live access to Active Directory data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for Active Directory and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate Active Directory data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing Active Directory data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

To establish a connection, set the following properties:

• Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
• Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

• BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

  Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

Collecting Active Directory Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module ActiveDirectoryCmdlets

2. Connect to Active Directory:

   $activedirectory = Connect-AD -User $User -Password $Password -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-AD -Connection $activedirectory -Table "User"

   You can also use the Invoke-AD cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

   $data = Invoke-AD -Connection $activedirectory -Query 'SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = @CN' -Params @{'@CN'='Administrator'}

4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

   $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting Active Directory Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MySQLCmdlets

2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

   $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Loop through the Active Directory data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the Active Directory resource (User) and to exist in the database.

   $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "User" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your Active Directory data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with Active Directory data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

• Once you have connected to Active Directory and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

  Select-AD -Connection $activedirectory -Table "User" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "User" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

• If you wish to replicate the Active Directory data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-AD cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

  $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}