Feature Request: Compare Active Directory Groups

[WindowsStar]

I would like to request a feature. I would be extremely helpful if BC could compare Active Directory Group Members and be able to compare/move/copy/delete users from those groups. Thank you.

[Aaron]

Hello,

BC4 does not support this as a Profile type. BC4 generally works within a file structure; are you familiar with other 3rd party programs that allow member management?

[WindowsStar]

Thanks for the reply. My thoughts were to expand what BC4 can do. If LDAP support was added this would give BC4 the ability to compare AD Groups. We use \\servername1.example.com\sharename and \\servername2.example.com\sharename all the time. If ldap://ds.example.com:389/dc=example,dc=com were added it would be amazing. And truthfully we already have a license for BC4.

What software suggestion do you have for AD Group Compare?

[Aaron]

Sorry, I was hoping you'd have some examples yourself so we could see what kind of feature set you are looking for and how they tackle it. I'm unfamiliar with this workflow or alternate tools to perform this kind of task. It's pretty far outside of our current wheelhouse.

[WindowsStar]

There is a free Microsoft Software called AD Explorer. It accesses and reads Active Directory and gives you access to everything. Very powerful but very very clunky software. This does not have compare aspect but it may give you an idea on how to access AD if this is something you would like to learn about and possibly add in the future. I don't think there are any tools that compare AD Groups (besides Microsoft Tools, VBScript/PowerShell etc.) so that would be a powerful tool. To be able to compare/move/copy/delete would be amazing. If it had the option of connecting to 2 different domains like my server compare example above that would make migrating from one domain to another an admins dream. (SystemTools Hyena is another AD tool for ideas) Thanks for your time.

AD Explorer: http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals
or https://live.sysinternals.com/

[Aaron]

It sounds a bit outside our scope, but I'll add it to our Customer Wishlist for a developer to investigate the possibility.

[WindowsStar]

Thank you. I appreciate adding it to a Wishlist and consideration. I know it may not be able to be added, but I do thank you for at least looking at it. Great software. I use it daily.

[WindowsStar]

I would like to ask if this could be added again. We are in the process of moving from a 2008 R2 Domain to a 2016 Domain. It would be extremely nice to compare "ldap:\\server1.domain2008.local" with "ldap:\\server1.domain2016.local". I cannot find any software that does this. This would give your software a feature that no one has (or I could not find a software that compares LDAP in a GUI). Closest I have found is this software "LDAP Admin" @ (http://www.ldapadmin.org) which will let me connect to both domains as TABs but then you have to click back and forth to see if all the information is on both domains. Very difficult.

[Aaron]

Thanks for the idea. Supporting an LDAP profile type is something on our wishlist, but is a very large project and not one we'll be able to tackle anytime soon.

For a workaround, I would suggest investigating if the software you've found has any means of Exporting a report or listing (especially if it can be done in a sortable Table format like CSV or Tab delimited). These exports could then be compared within BC4's Text Compare or Table Compare.