Get-SecurityPrincipal

This cmdlet is available in on-premises Exchange and in the cloud-based service. Some parameters and settings may be exclusive to one environment or the other.

Use the Get-SecurityPrincipal cmdlet to return a list of security principals. Security principals are entities, such as users or security groups, which can be assigned permissions and user rights.

For information about the parameter sets in the Syntax section below, see Exchange cmdlet syntax.

Syntax

Get-SecurityPrincipal
   [[-Identity] <ExtendedSecurityPrincipalIdParameter>]
   [-DomainController <Fqdn>]
   [-Filter <String>]
   [-IncludeDomainLocalFrom <SmtpDomain>]
   [-OrganizationalUnit <ExtendedOrganizationalUnitIdParameter>]
   [-ResultSize <Unlimited>]
   [-RoleGroupAssignable]
   [-Types <MultiValuedProperty>]
   [<CommonParameters>]

Description

The Get-SecurityPrincipal cmdlet is used by the Exchange admin center to populate fields that display recipient information.

You need to be assigned permissions before you can run this cmdlet. Although this topic lists all parameters for the cmdlet, you may not have access to some parameters if they're not included in the permissions assigned to you. To find the permissions required to run any cmdlet or parameter in your organization, see Find the permissions required to run any Exchange cmdlet.

Examples

Example 1

Get-SecurityPrincipal -OrganizationalUnit OU=People,DC=Contoso,DC=com

This example retrieves security principals from the People OU.

Example 2

Get-SecurityPrincipal -Filter "Department -eq 'Legal'"

This example retrieves security principals from the Legal department by using the Filter parameter. Only security principals matching the filter condition are retrieved.

Example 3

Get-SecurityPrincipal -Identity Administrator

This example retrieves a single security principal explicitly specified by using the Identity parameter.

Example 4

Get-SecurityPrincipal -Types WellKnownSecurityPrincipal | Format-Table Name,SID -AutoSize

This example retrieves well-known security principals and displays only the Name and SID properties in the results.

Parameters

-DomainController

This parameter is available only in on-premises Exchange.

The DomainController parameter specifies the domain controller that's used by this cmdlet to read data from or write data to Active Directory. You identify the domain controller by its fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For example, dc01.contoso.com.

Type:Fqdn
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019

-Filter

The Filter parameter uses OPATH syntax to filter the results by the specified properties and values. The search criteria uses the syntax "Property -ComparisonOperator 'Value'".

  • Enclose the whole OPATH filter in double quotation marks " ". If the filter contains system values (for example, $true, $false, or $null), use single quotation marks ' ' instead. Although this parameter is a string (not a system block), you can also use braces { }, but only if the filter doesn't contain variables.
  • Property is a filterable property. For more information about the filterable properties in Exchange server and Exchange Online, see Filterable properties for the Filter parameter.
  • ComparisonOperator is an OPATH comparison operator (for example -eq for equals and -like for string comparison). For more information about comparison operators, see about_Comparison_Operators.
  • Value is the property value to search for. Enclose text values and variables in single quotation marks ('Value' or '$Variable'). If a variable value contains single quotation marks, you need to identify (escape) the single quotation marks to expand the variable correctly. For example, instead of '$User', use '$($User -Replace "'","''")'. Don't enclose integers or system values in quotation marks (for example, use 500, $true, $false, or $null instead).

You can chain multiple search criteria together using the logical operators -and and -or. For example, "Criteria1 -and Criteria2" or "(Criteria1 -and Criteria2) -or Criteria3".

For detailed information about OPATH filters in Exchange, see Additional OPATH syntax information.

Type:String
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

-Identity

The Identity parameter specifies the security principal. When the security principal is explicitly specified by using this parameter, no additional security principals are returned.

Type:ExtendedSecurityPrincipalIdParameter
Position:1
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:True
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

-IncludeDomainLocalFrom

This parameter is available only in on-premises Exchange.

The IncludeDomainLocalFrom parameter specifies whether to return domain local groups from the FQDN of the specified Active Directory domain (for example, contoso.com) in the results.

Don't use this parameter with the Filter or Identity parameters.

Type:SmtpDomain
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019

-OrganizationalUnit

The OrganizationalUnit parameter filters the results based on the object's location in Active Directory. Only objects that exist in the specified location are returned. Valid input for this parameter is an organizational unit (OU) or domain that's returned by the Get-OrganizationalUnit cmdlet. You can use any value that uniquely identifies the OU or domain. For example:

  • Name
  • Canonical name
  • Distinguished name (DN)
  • GUID
Type:ExtendedOrganizationalUnitIdParameter
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

-ResultSize

The ResultSize parameter specifies the maximum number of results to return. If you want to return all requests that match the query, use unlimited for the value of this parameter. The default value is 1000.

Type:Unlimited
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

-RoleGroupAssignable

The RoleGroupAssignable switch filters security principals by returning only objects that can be assigned to an RBAC role group. You don't need to specify a value with this switch.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

-Types

The Types parameter filters the results by object type. Valid values are:

  • Computer
  • GlobalSecurityGroup
  • Group
  • UniversalSecurityGroup
  • User
  • WellknownSecurityPrincipal

You can specify multiple values separated by commas.

Type:MultiValuedProperty
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False
Applies to:Exchange Server 2010, Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, Exchange Server 2019, Exchange Online, Security & Compliance, Exchange Online Protection

Inputs

Input types

To see the input types that this cmdlet accepts, see Cmdlet Input and Output Types. If the Input Type field for a cmdlet is blank, the cmdlet doesn't accept input data.

Outputs

Output types

To see the return types, which are also known as output types, that this cmdlet accepts, see Cmdlet Input and Output Types. If the Output Type field is blank, the cmdlet doesn't return data.