Updating the active directory group membership using the instance of PowerShell.

[Nikul Vyas]

I am building an application that interacts with Active Directory using System.Management.Automation (Not using Directory Services because currently new to that library and learning it). To update the group membership of for a group in the active directory I am creating a JSON object on my view and invoking a function to pass the object & the URI from front end to back end via a function in my controller.


The basic idea is to allow removal of AD group members in bulk by passing the JSON object as a parameter to the shell script which will be executed in an instance of PowerShell created in the function. I am using .ajax call to invoke the controller function and passing the JSON object that I generated as an argument along with the current URI. The shell.commands.AddParameter() function accepts argument in only string format. So, I typecasted it with ToString() and converting it to JSON in the PowerShell script. I am passing the URL from code behind as the URL is subject to change. I am not getting any errors However, I am also not able to see any update in membership in the AD. Json Object is getting generated from HTML Table.

My shell script

param($objMemberUpdate, $uri)
$body = $objMemberUpdate | ConvertTo-JSON
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri -Method Post -Body $objMemberUpdate

My Controller Function in ASP MVC to Invoke PowerShell Instance and executing Shell Script file from specified location.

public string UpdateMemberList(JsonResult objMemberUpdate)
{
var uri = HttpContext.Request.Url.AbsoluteUri;
var shell = PowerShell.Create();
shell.Commands.AddCommand(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "Shell\\Set-ADGroupMembership.ps1").AddParameter(objMemberUpdate.ToString(), uri);
var results = shell.Invoke();
shell.Dispose();
return results.ToString();
}

The Ajax Call that I am calling on a button click on my HTML page.

//Make Array Object to pass in the API For Membership Update
$("#btnUpdate").click(function () {
var RemoveMembers = [];
var RemoveAfter = [];
var MemberUpdate = {};
var GroupGUID = "";
$("table [id*=ddlReqdAdjustment]").each(function () {
if ($(this).val() != "Keep") {
GroupGUID = $(this).parent().parent().children().eq(4)[0].innerText;
var date = $(this).parent().parent().children().eq(8)[0].firstElementChild.value;
var ObjectGUID = $(this).parent().parent().children().eq(3)[0].innerText + "@@" + $('#ddlDirectory').val();

if ($(this).val() == "Remove") {
var format = ObjectGUID;
RemoveMembers.push(format);
} else {
var format = date + "|" + ObjectGUID;
RemoveAfter.push(format);
}
}
});
MemberUpdate = {
"Directory": $('#ddlDirectory').val(),
"Group": GroupGUID,
"Remove": RemoveMembers,
"RemoveAfter": RemoveAfter,
"ResultFormat": "json",
"OnBehalfOf": "11112201"
};
console.log(MemberUpdate);
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "/Group/UpdateMemberList",
data: { objMemberUpdate: MemberUpdate },
success: function (response) {
alert(response.message);
}
});

The selected member in the table is supposed to get removed from the Group whose GroupGUID (ObjectGUID attribute in AD) is mentioned from the AD. However, from the C# function I m getting parse error.

System.Management.Automation.ParseException
HResult=0x80131501
Message=System error.
Source=<Cannot evaluate the exception source>
StackTrace:
<Cannot evaluate the exception stack trace>

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