How to get all groups that a user is a member of?

Question

PowerShell\'s Get-ADGroupMember cmdlet returns members of a specific group. Is there a cmdlet or property to get all the groups that a particular user is a member of?

Answer 1

I wrote a PowerShell function called Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembershipRecursive. It accepts the DSN of a user, computer, group, or service account. It retrieves an initial list of groups from the account's memberOf attribute, then recursively checks those group's memberships. Abbreviated code is below. Full source code with comments can be found here.

function Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembershipRecursive( ) {

    Param(
        [string] $dsn,
        [array]$groups = @()
    )

    $obj = Get-ADObject $dsn -Properties memberOf

    foreach( $groupDsn in $obj.memberOf ) {

        $tmpGrp = Get-ADObject $groupDsn -Properties memberOf

        if( ($groups | where { $_.DistinguishedName -eq $groupDsn }).Count -eq 0 ) {
            $groups +=  $tmpGrp           
            $groups = Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembershipRecursive $groupDsn $groups
        }
    }

    return $groups
}

# Simple Example of how to use the function
$username = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter a username"
$groups   = Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembershipRecursive (Get-ADUser $username).DistinguishedName
$groups | Sort-Object -Property name | Format-Table