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Working with Azure Active Directory Graph Api from Powershell

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Hello Everyone,

In this blog post I'm going to show a simple way to work with Azure Active Directory Graph Api directly from Powershell.

Basically in order to access this API we first need to be authenticated with ADAL (Active Directory Authentication Library), this authentication will is done trough a JSON formatted token that is then passed as a parameter in the header for the Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet.

This blog post assumes you already have Azure Powershell 1.0 or greater module installed in your computer, if not, you can install it from https://aka.ms/webpi-azps.

We don’t intend here to build a full featured script but at least provide a function to get the Authentication Token and show a few examples using Graph Api calls. For a similar article but based on REST API, Azure Management and a Sample Script to identify page blob status (like if a VHD is attached or not to a VM), please refer to Working with Azure REST APIs from Powershell – Getting page and block blob information from ARM based storage account sample script blog post.

To get started, open a Powershell command prompt and type (or paste) the following code, this will create a function in your session that will be able to return the Authentication token:

 

To use this function just type:

 $token = GetAuthToken -TenantName "<your Azure AD tenant>.onmicrosoft.com"

 

For example:

 $token = GetAuthToken -TenantName "pmcazureme1.onmicrosoft.com"

image

 

Getting back to the example, lets define some variables so we can avoid lots of typing:

 # Defining Azure AD tenant name, this is the name of your Azure Active Directory (do not use the verified domain name)
 $tenant = ”pmcazureme1.onmicrosoft.com” 
  
 # Getting the authorization token
 $token = GetAuthToken -TenantName $tenant
  
 # Building Rest Api header with authorization token
 $authHeader = @{
    'Content-Type'='application\json'
    'Authorization'=$token.CreateAuthorizationHeader()
 }
  

 

With these variables and results obtained from GetAuthToken function we built the foundation to start executing calls to Graph Api, this Api has the following format:

image

Each block of code now will perform a different task using Graph Api:

Getting tenant information

 $resource = "tenantDetails"
 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6"
 $tenantInfo = (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri –Headers $authHeader –Method Get –Verbose).value

Result

image

 

Getting a list of all users

 $resource = "users"
 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6"
 $users = (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri –Headers $authHeader –Method Get –Verbose).value

Result

image

 

Getting a list of users that Display Name starts with letter T by using OData filtering

 $resource = "users"
 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6`&`$filter=startswith(displayName,'T')"
 $users = (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri –Headers $authHeader –Method Get –Verbose).value

Result

image

 

Getting a list of groups

 $resource = "groups"
  
 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6"
 $groups = (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri –Headers $authHeader –Method Get –Verbose).value

Result

image

 

So far we only did read operations, what about creating a real user on Azure AD by using the graph API?

First, lets define our user properties in a Powershell hash table, in this way we can easily convert it to JSON format and send as the body content of the Graph Api Post method.

 $newuser = @{
                 "accountEnabled"=$true;
                 "userPrincipalName"="pmc@pmcazureme1.onmicrosoft.com";
                 "displayName"="Paulo Marques";
                 "passwordProfile"=@{
                                     "password"="adHDla@#sdj";`
                                    "forceChangePasswordNextLogin"=$true
                                 };
                 "mailNickname"="pmc"
             }

To see your hash table, just type $newuser and press enter:

image

Last step before jumping in the Invoke-RestMethod is converting this hash table into a JSON structure, type the following line and press enter:

 $newuserJsonDef = $newuser | ConvertTo-Json

To see the newly converted object, just type $newuserJsonDef and press enter:

image

Lets build again our $uri variable:

 $resource = "users"
 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6"

Run the Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet to get your user created on Azure Active Directory, notice the new parameters and values highlighted:

 $result = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Headers $authHeader -Method Post -Body $newuserJsonDef -ContentType "application/json"

Check the result by querying your new user:

 $uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/users`?api-version=1.6`&`$filter=mailNickname eq 'pmc'"
 (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri –Headers $authHeader –Method Get –Verbose).value

image

 

For more information about Graph Api, please refer to the following articles:

Operations overview | Graph API concepts
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/ad/graph/howto/azure-ad-graph-api-operations-overview

Azure AD Graph API reference
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/ad/graph/api/api-catalog

Versioning | Graph API concepts
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/ad/graph/howto/azure-ad-graph-api-versioning

Supported queries, filters, and paging options | Graph API concepts
https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/ad/graph/howto/azure-ad-graph-api-supported-queries-filters-and-paging-options

 

That’s it for this blog post, see you later!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2016
    Minor uri variable correction:$uri = "https://graph.windows.net/$tenant/$($resource)?api-version=1.6"
    • Anonymous
      August 02, 2016
      Hi UNIFYBob,The way the example also works, the issue that I was seeing is that when I pasted the code from Word it changed some of the characters and that's why a direct copy and paste on PowerShell command prompt window was not working, I changed all the examples with your recommendation because it looks nicer that the original one and I also changed the way the examples are included in this post to follow all other subsequent posts that I had.Thanks for your comment.RegardsPaulo
  • Anonymous
    August 16, 2016
    Is there any way to automate the authentication process in a manner similar to the Connect-MsolService -Credential option?For example, if creds are stored in a variable $cred, then the following will authenticate without any prompts:Connect-MsolService -Credential $credCheers, Ian
    • Anonymous
      September 08, 2016
      Yes. You can visit my blog for that variation. I will post that this week sometime. Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2016
    At the start of your post you probably should tell users to create an app in Azure AD first, from which they'll get the client id and redirect URI that you use in the GetAuthToken method.
    • Anonymous
      November 01, 2016
      Hi Irwin, the application ID in this case is PowerShell so this is not needed, it is already built in on Azure AD.
  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2016
    How do i download the DLLs referenced?
    • Anonymous
      January 06, 2017
      Hi Max,This DLL is part of the Azure PowerShell module which is the only requirement for this to work, as I mentioned in the blog, you can install it from https://aka.ms/webpi-azps URL.RegardsPaulo
  • Anonymous
    February 22, 2017
    the function requires to authenticate with an user action.$authContext.AcquireToken($resourceAppIdURI,$clientId,$redirectUri, "auto")Is there a way to use a encrypted password xml file that I can use the function within script that runs on a schedule ?$CredPath = "$home\Desktop\mycred.xml"Get-Credential | Export-Clixml -Path $CredPath
  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2017
    I am getting an error any ideas?Invoke-RestMethod : The 'Content-Type' header must be modified using the appropriate property or method.PS C:\ps> $authHeaderName Value---- -----Authorization Bearer ########Content-Type application\json
    • Anonymous
      May 11, 2017
      Hi Flaphead, can you add all the command lines you're using until you get the error?