Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory

By Steve | October 23, 2016

Tip: You can extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory.

For example, someone sent you one report with DN only and you need to extract the CN.

$distinguishedName = 'CN=SMITH John,OU=Managers,OU=EMEA,DC=contoso,DC=com'

# Solution 1
$distinguishedName -replace "(CN=)(.*?),.*",'$2'

# Solution 2
($distinguishedName -split ',*..=')[1]

$distinguishedName = 'CN=SMITH John,OU=Managers,OU=EMEA,DC=contoso,DC=com'

# Solution 1

$distinguishedName -replace "(CN=)(.*?),.*",'$2'

# Solution 2

($distinguishedName -split ',*..=')[1]

extract-the-cn-from-dn-powershell

3 thoughts on “Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory”

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Pingback: Powershell Tip #124: Extract the OU (Organizational Unit) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory | Powershell Guru
_nd345 April 12, 2018

+1, thanks, i like solution #2 for its logic

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3 thoughts on “Powershell Tip #123: Extract the CN (Common Name) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory”

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