How to list logons on a specific computer?

Question

I have to write a simple script which lists all users logon at every computer in a specific OU.

I have tried the function Get-UserLogon -OU '[distinguished name]' (see here) but it doesn't return any stdout.

Any alternatives?

Answer 1

I tried to simply debug the Get-UserLogon function.

This function tries to connect to every computer listed in the OU and then it query to them the users logon list. As expected, most of these computers refuse the connection (maybe they are shutted down or simply offline).

Is there another way to retrieve such information? Does domain controller store logons in a such centralized fashion?

Answer 2

There is an alternative method that does not iterate all computers in the domain, but it relies on all users have their Home directories redirected to a network share.

If that is the case in your domain, try:

# the UNC \\Server\Share name of the network share where all user homedirectories are
$usersHomePath = '\\HomesServer\HomesShare$' 

# split this UNC path to get the server name and share name in separate variables
$server, $share = $usersHomePath.TrimStart("\") -split '\\'


# get an array of SamAccountNames for all users in the OU
$users = (Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase '[distinguished name]').SamAccountName

$result = Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_ServerConnection -ComputerName $server | 
            Where-Object { $_.ShareName -eq $share -and $users -contains $_.UserName } |
            Select-Object @{Name = "SamAccountName"; Expression = { $_.UserName }}, 
                          @{Name = "ComputerName"; Expression = {(([System.Net.Dns]::GetHostEntry($_.ComputerName).HostName) -split "\.")[0]}}

#output in console
$result

# output to Csv
$result | Export-Csv -Path 'UsersOnComputers.csv' -NoTypeInformation

Answer 3

Have you tried this to give you users last logon time and date:

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "ou=users,dc=contoso,dc=local" -ResultPageSize 0 -Prop CN,lastLogonTimestamp | Select CN,@{n="lastLogonDate";e={[datetime]::FromFileTime($_.lastLogonTimestamp)}} | Export-CSV -NoType last.csv

ref: https://expert-advice.org/active-directory/powershell-script-to-get-lastlogon-timestamp-for-specific-ou-and-export-to-csv-file/

Answer 4

I found such kind of possible solution here (read at the bottom of the thread), but I am not familiar at all with VBscript and I would like to implement this code in PowerShell.