Powershell Tip #124: Extract the OU (Organizational Unit) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory

By Steve | October 23, 2016

Tip: You can extract the OU (Organizational Unit) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory.

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

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

# Solution 1
[regex]::match($distinguishedName,'(?=OU)(.*\n?)(?<=.)').Value

# Solution 2
$distinguishedName.Substring($distinguishedName.IndexOf('OU='))

# Solution 3
(([ADSI]"LDAP://$distinguishedName").parent).Substring(7)

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

# Solution 1

[regex]::match($distinguishedName,'(?=OU)(.*\n?)(?<=.)').Value

# Solution 2

$distinguishedName.Substring($distinguishedName.IndexOf('OU='))

# Solution 3

(([ADSI]"LDAP://$distinguishedName").parent).Substring(7)

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2 thoughts on “Powershell Tip #124: Extract the OU (Organizational Unit) from DN (Distinguished Name) in Active Directory”

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Matt Brown November 20, 2018

Nice,
I recommend the regex with the following upgrade that will work regardless of if the object is in an OU or Container
[regex]::match($distinguishedName,'(?=OU|DC|CN)(.*\n?)(?<=.)').Value

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