Powershell Set-ADAccountPassword for each user in a list

Question

I have a function that generates a randomized password. I would ultimately like to import a list of usernames and then have that function run for each name while setting the password.

Function New-Password {
$Password = $null
Get-RandomCharacters
Scramble-String
Write-Host "$Password"
}

New-Password
$Password

How can I merge the $Password with

Set-ADAccountPassword -Reset -NewPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText "$Password" -Force)

Answer 1

You could add a switch to your function to convert it if necessary. Your full function would include something below with a reference to your other custom functions:

function Get-RandomCharacters {...}
function Scramble-String {...}

function New-Password {
  [CmdletBinding()]
  param(
    [switch]$converttoSS
  )

  $Password = $null
  $password = Get-RandomCharacters -length 10 -characters 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890!"§$%&/()=?}][{@#*+'
  #Write-Host ('{0}' -f $Password)
  if ($converttoSS.IsPresent) {
    $password = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force
    $password
  }
  else {
    $password
  }
}

Where New-Password -converttoSS should return System.Security.SecureString.

But I think there's an easier way to do this with the System.Web assembly.

Function New-Password {
  [CmdletBinding()]
  param(
    [switch]$converttoSS
  )
  $password = $null
  Add-Type -AssemblyName 'System.Web'
  $password = [System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword(20, 5)

  if ($converttoSS.IsPresent) {
    $newpass = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force
    Write-Warning ('The secure string is {0}' -f $password)
    $output = $newpass

  }
  else {
    Write-Warning ('The password is {0}' -f $password)
    $output = $password
  }

  return $output
}

Using this test data:

id,first_name,last_name,email,manager
1,Kelcy,Dannel,kdannel0@phoca.cz,Kelcy Dannel
2,Vivia,O'Kynsillaghe,vokynsillaghe1@sun.com,Vivia O'Kynsillaghe
3,Valerie,Cartmell,vcartmell2@histats.com,Valerie Cartmell
4,Hilary,Checo,hcheco3@msu.edu,Hilary Checo
5,Sonya,Isacsson,sisacsson4@eepurl.com,Sonya Isacsson

You could use a script similar to the one below. Note - Please make sure you test this before using it in production.

Function New-Password {...}

$users = Import-Csv "C:\Downloads\MOCK_DATA.csv"

Foreach ($u in $users) {
  $newpass = New-Password -converttoSS
  Get-ADUser -Identity $user.email | Set-ADAccountPassword -Reset -NewPassword $newpass
  Write-Verbose $newpass
}