Skip to main content

"samba-tool" to Manage a Linux based Active Directory

A linux based Active Directory server can be managed from a Windows client using the Remote System Administration Tool very easily, and it is the convenient way for system administrators with only Microsoft Windows background. But for administrators who love to use the command line, "samba-tool" is a great command line tool to manage Active Directory configured on a Linux Box. Throughout this post and on my future posts I will be showing hands-on examples about using the "samba-tool" command.


User Management using samba-tool

Create a new user using samba-tool

Syntax: samba-tool user create <username> [<password>] [options]

samba-tool user create user1 password --given-name=firstname --surname=surname

The above command will create a new user with the name as user1 and password will be password, you can type your desired password. The options --given-name and --surname are to assign user first name and surname.


To make the user change password at first login add the option --must-change-at-next-login when creating the user


By default samba-tool creates the new user under the Users Organisational Unit, to create the user under a different OU use the option --userou='ou=OUNAME'



Set or reset password of a user

Syntax: samba-tool user setpassword (<username>|--filter <filter>) [options]

samba-tool user setpassword user1
or
samba-tool user setpassword --filter=samaccountname=user1

Both the above commands can be used to set or change password of a user


To force the user change password at next logon add option --must-change-at-next-login

samba-tool user setpassword user1 --must-change-at-next-login
or
samba-tool user setpassword --filter=samaccountname=user1 --must-change-at-next-login


To get detailed help and all the available options to create and manage users run this command
samba-tool user -h

Group Management using samba-tool

Create a new group

Syntax: samba-tool group add groupname [options]

samba-tool group add sales


The command above creates a new group named sales, because there is no options applied the group is created under the default organisational unit Users.

Change the group's OU and other parameters such group type and scope

samba-tool group add sales --groupou='ou=restrict' --group-type=Security --group-scope=Global


The above command creates a group sales under OU "restrict" with group type as security and group scope as global.

Add members to a group

Syntax: samba-tool group addmembers <groupname> <listofmembers> [options]

samba-tool group addmembers sales user1,user2,user3


Remove members from a group

Syntax: samba-tool group removemembers <groupname> <listofmembers> [options]

samba-tool group removemembers sales user2,user3


The above command removes the user2 and user3 from the group sales

List members of a group

Syntax: samba-tool group listmembers <groupname> [options]

samba-tool group listmembers sales


To get detailed help and all the available options to create and manage groups run this command:
samba-tool group -h


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Managing a Linux based Domain Controller from a Windows Machine

On my last post I had demonstrated how to setup a Linux machine as Active Directory Domain Controller. On this post I will help you managing a Linux based domain controller from a Windows client machine. Most of the Active Directory administration tasks such as user & group creation, dns management cab be done using Samba server provided tool "samba-tool" , but for system administrators who has no experience working in a linux environment it can be a difficult task, even for experienced linux administrators it can be a bit time consuming to use "samba-tool" command for managing every active directory task. The Microsoft Remote System Administration Tool is a very nice software to manage a Linux based domain controller. Next I will help you downloading, installing and managing a Linux based domain controller from Windows client machine. I will be using a 64 bit Windows 7 pc for this example. RSAT Download Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/det...