Finding inactive machines using Active Directory

In a large organization,
it can be difficult to find active and inactive machines as well as machines
that are not used anymore. This article provides a basic guideline to query the
Active Directory and ping all the machines on the network, in order to find all
active and inactive machines on the network.

Step 1

Create a folder c:\pingall
and create c:\pingall\container.txt (shown below), which will hold all the
containers. Please change the information according to your Active Directory
containers.

Container.txt

ou=Servers,ou=XYZ,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=XYZ,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=ABC,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=DEVELOPMENT,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=JAX,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=NYC,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=ABC,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=UTH,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=HQL,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=FM,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=CAL,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Servers,ou=MRS,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=XYZ,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=DEVELOPMENT,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=JAX,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=NYC,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=ABC,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=UTH,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=HQL,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=FM,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=CAL,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

ou=Workstations,ou=MRS,ou=CHI,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,

  dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

Step2

Create a file,
c:\Pingall\PingAll.vbs, then copy and paste the below VBScript into it.

‘Objective: Query Active Directory and ping all the machines

‘Created by :MAK

‘Date: July 15, 2004

OutputFile=”C:\PingAll\pingSuccessful.txt”

Set oFSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)

Set oFile = oFSO.CreateTextFile(OutputFile, True)

OutputFile2=”C:\PingAll\pingFailed.txt”

Set oFSO2 = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)

Set oFile2 = oFSO.CreateTextFile(OutputFile2, True)
Set iFSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FilesyStemObject”)

InputFile=”c:\pingall\container.txt”
Set ifile = iFSO.OpenTextFile(inputfile)  
Do until ifile.AtEndOfLine

strComputerContainer = ifile.ReadLine
‘Remove the Following lines between start and end

‘if you dont want timestamp and container names

‘start

oFile.WriteLine now()

oFile.WriteLine(“Container: ” & strComputerContainer)

oFile.WriteLine(“—————————————————“)

oFile2.WriteLine now()

oFile2.WriteLine(“Container: ” & strComputerContainer)

oFile2.WriteLine(“—————————————————“)

‘end
Set objContainer = GetObject(“LDAP://” & strComputerContainer)

objContainer.Filter = Array(“Computer”)
‘ Change the value of OutputFile (if you wish)
Set StdOut = WScript.StdOut

Set objShell = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
On Error Resume Next
For Each objComputer In objContainer

‘  WScript.Echo strComputer

  strComputer = Split(objComputer.Name, “=”)(1)

  Set objScriptExec = objShell.Exec(“ping -n 2 -w 1000 ” & strComputer)

  strPingResults = LCase(objScriptExec.StdOut.ReadAll)
 If InStr(strPingResults, “reply from”) Then

‘   StdOut.WriteLine “ERROR: ” & strComputer & ” [Ping SuccessFul]”

   oFile.WriteLine(strComputer )

 Else

‘   StdOut.WriteLine “ERROR: ” & strComputer & ” [Ping failed]”

   oFile2.WriteLine(strComputer )

 End If

Next
Loop
MsgBox “Processing Done ”

Step 3:

Execute the vbscript using
cscript as shown in figure 1.1.

(figure
1.1)

cd\
cd\Pingall
Cscript pingall.vbs

This will create pingSuccessful.txt
and pingFailed.txt under the same folder, as shown in figure 1.2

(figure
1.2)

The pingSuccessful.txt
file holds all of the pingable machine names while pingFailed.txt contains all
of the non-pingable machine names.

The PingSuccessful.txt
will resemble:

07/16/2004 12:38:34 PM

ou=Servers,ou=XYZ,ou=YourGroup,ou=USCOMP,dc=Americas,dc=win,dc=yourcompany,dc=com

—————————————————

SUSSERVER

MYServerDEVS001

MYServerDEVS002

MYServerDEVS003

MYServerDEVS004

MYServerDEVS005

MYServerDEVS006

MYServerDEVS009

MYServerDEVS010

MYServerDEVS011

MYServerDEVS012

MYServerDEVS013

MYServerDEVS015

MYServerDEVS016

MYServerDEVS018

MYServerDEVS019

MYServerDEVS020

MYServerDEVS021

Step 4:

Soon after the VBScript
pings all of the machines, it will display a message as shown in figure 1.3

(figure 1.3)

Step 5:

Create a database, tables
and import both of the text files as shown:

use Master

go

create database PingAll

go

use PingAll

go

create table PingTable

  (id int identity(1,1),

  machinename varchar(200),

  pingstatus varchar(10),

  datestamp datetime default getdate())

go

create table #pingtable (machinename varchar(200))

go

BULK INSERT #pingtable FROM ‘c:\pingall\pingSuccessful.txt’   WITH       (ROWTERMINATOR = ‘\n’)

go

delete from #pingtable  where machinename like ‘container:%’ or machinename like ‘——-%’

go

delete from #pingtable  where isdate(machinename) =1

go

insert into pingtable (machinename,pingstatus) select machinename,’success’ from #pingtable

go

truncate table #pingtable

go

BULK INSERT #pingtable FROM ‘c:\pingall\pingfailed.txt’   WITH       (ROWTERMINATOR = ‘\n’)

go

–select * from #pingtable

delete from #pingtable  where machinename like ‘container:%’ or machinename like ‘——-%’

go

delete from #pingtable  where isdate(machinename) =1

go

insert into pingtable (machinename,pingstatus) select machinename,’Failed’ from #pingtable

go

truncate table #pingtable

go

drop table #pingtable

Step 6:

Query the table.

Select * from pintable

Results:

Conclusion:

This
article examined how to find active and inactive machines over a network using
Active Directory as the source. Scheduling the above VBScript to run every day
and querying the pingtable as shown below will do the trick.

select machinename,Count(*) as Days from pingtable where pingstatus =’Failed’

group by machinename having count(*)>30

The result will provide
the machine names that are not active for more than 30 days. Either these machines
are no longer in the network or they have been shutdown for more than 30 days.
Active Directory can now be cleaned up based on the results.

Download the scripts.

»


See All Articles by Columnist MAK