testing for stuff
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Ian Kelly
Jul 27, 2022, 12:53:02 PM7/27/22
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Hi, I'm trying to use GAM to get output so I can check things.
For example, check if a user exists before I go ahead and run the create user command.
I know it passes back an error, however, in my script I can handle it by not attempting to create a new user if I check if it exists.
so, in powershell $check = gam whatis us...@mydomain.com
nothing gets passed back in to the variable. is there a mechanism for this you know?
Many thanks
Ross Scroggs
Jul 27, 2022, 2:29:18 PM7/27/22
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Ian,
This works for me:
User does not exist:
PS C:\Users\Administrator> $cmdOutput = gam whatis non...@domain.com
Email Address: non...@domain.com, Does not exist
PS C:\Users\Administrator> echo $cmdOutput
PS C:\Users\Administrator>
User exists:
PS C:\Users\Administrator> $cmdOutput = gam whatis us...@domain.com
PS C:\Users\Administrator> echo $cmdOutput
User: us...@domain.com
Settings:
...
Ross
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Ross Scroggs
Maj Marshall Giguere
Jul 27, 2022, 2:48:12 PM7/27/22
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I am far from being a PowerShell expert, bash is my thing.
if ( !$? ) {
# something bad happened
}
Truthiness with return codes can be a slippery little critter in any shell, so you could check the builtin PWRSH var $LASTEXITCODE to see what the command returned as an exit code. GAM seems to return exit code 59 for a failure of "whatis" and 20 for success. Your mileage may vary.
Maj Marshall E Giguere
NH Wing Director of IT
Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary
Volunteers serving America's communities, saving lives, and shaping futures.
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Chris River
Jul 27, 2022, 3:07:45 PM7/27/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
You could just check for null; for example, if (-not $check) { gam create user ... } else { whatever you want to do with found user }
If you do want to capture the error message in the variable, you can redirect the stderr stream to the stdout stream by appending "2>&1" at the end, like this: $check = gam whatis us...@mydomain.com 2>&1
It might be more efficient to just run "gam create user ..." instead of checking first; the command will fail for email addresses that are already in use. Or, print all users first, then do a lookup and only create those that don't exist. For example: $test = gam print users; if (-not $test.contains('us...@mydomain.com')) { gam create user ... }
Mikhail Sutormin
Jul 28, 2022, 12:23:26 AM7/28/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
This is how I do it.
if (([string] (& $gam info user $user noaliases nolicenses 2>&1)) -match 'Does not exist') {
write-host 'New user' $user 'does not exist in Gmail yet.'
}
Code
$gam info user $user noaliases nolicenses
returns the following
User: us...@domain.com, Does not exist
so you just check for "Does not exist" string in the output.
In other cases, sometimes you can use formatjson switch to get output in JSON which can easily be converter to a standard PS object
Outputs that look like a .csv can also be converted to PS object on the fly, for example:
$csv = & $gam user $user print drivefileacls DOCUMENT_ID | ConvertFrom-Csv
Ian Kelly
Jul 28, 2022, 5:56:29 AM7/28/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
Thank you all, some really interesting solutions here.
@Marsh because the command returns something in either case, I think it will always evaluate to true (correct me if I'm wrong)
@Marsh because the command returns something in either case, I think it will always evaluate to true (correct me if I'm wrong)
I'm new to my organisation, so I'm refactoring the new user process, which is very delicate in various ways, so if I run the script and the user has worked for us before as a contractor, they may still have an account, so I want it to catch this and tell me gracefully, rather than just giving me an error at the end. also I could potentially change group memberships in a later iteration of the script. It's morphing into an procedural program, but ultimately, I'd like to make it OO, but I am new to it.
@Mikhail
I've played with your solution, you have $gam meaning you're using a variable for the command? also when I substitute it for the command and add a non existent email, I get this error, so it doesn't say does not exist. FYI
I've played with your solution, you have $gam meaning you're using a variable for the command? also when I substitute it for the command and add a non existent email, I get this error, so it doesn't say does not exist. FYI
gam :
At line:1 char:1
+ gam info user nota...@mydomain.com
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:String) [], RemoteException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError
ERROR: 404: Resource Not Found: userKey - userNotFound
Ross Scroggs
Jul 28, 2022, 11:01:28 AM7/28/22
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Ian,
In Advanced GAM, the whatis command sets the return code:
ENTITY_IS_A_USER_RC = 20
ENTITY_IS_A_USER_ALIAS_RC = 21
ENTITY_IS_A_GROUP_RC = 22
ENTITY_IS_A_GROUP_ALIAS_RC = 23
ENTITY_IS_AN_UNMANAGED_ACCOUNT_RC = 24
ENTITY_IS_UKNOWN_RC = 59
Ross
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Ross Scroggs
Maj Marshall Giguere
Jul 28, 2022, 12:31:09 PM7/28/22
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Ian
When I tested using an non-existent account PWRSH returned "False"
Maj Marshall E Giguere
NH Wing Director of IT
Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary
Volunteers serving America's communities, saving lives, and shaping futures.
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Maj Marshall Giguere
Jul 28, 2022, 12:58:10 PM7/28/22
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Ian;
Interestingly I did not test what happens with a successful query and since GAM always returns some value other than "0" pwrsh reports "False" even on success. The $LASTEXITCODE value returned for success/exists is 20. My bad, I should have checked both cases.
Something to keep in mind with shells and exit codes, and this goes all the way back to Ritchie & Kernighan in the 1970's UNIX implementation. Any exit code "0" (zero) is considered success and other exit code is considered (false) and pwrsh appears to be no exception. Yes, this is the complete opposite of how we normally think about true vs false in programming languages, i.e. zero == false, anything else == true.
Maj Marshall E Giguere
NH Wing Director of IT
Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary
Volunteers serving America's communities, saving lives, and shaping futures.
Ian Kelly
Jul 28, 2022, 5:27:19 PM7/28/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
Ha, great thank you Marsh, et al :)
I found that searching for a user that doesn't exist throws and error, and this is possibly a bit of a hammer to crack a nut, as the exception seems to be a bit generic, however. I used a try catch to catch the powershell error
```function New-GoogleUser {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$fullname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$firstname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$lastname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$password,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$email
)
$result = $null
try {
gam info user $email
}
catch[System.Management.Automation.RemoteException]{
write-host "the user may already exist in google..."
$result = $false
return $result
}
finally{
$Error.Clear()
}
gam create user ($fullname.Split(" ") -join ".") firstname $firstname lastname $lastname password $password.Password
}```
```function New-GoogleUser {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$fullname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$firstname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$lastname,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$password,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()][string]$email
)
$result = $null
try {
gam info user $email
}
catch[System.Management.Automation.RemoteException]{
write-host "the user may already exist in google..."
$result = $false
return $result
}
finally{
$Error.Clear()
}
gam create user ($fullname.Split(" ") -join ".") firstname $firstname lastname $lastname password $password.Password
}```
Mikhail Sutormin
Jul 28, 2022, 6:54:31 PM7/28/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
Hi Ian,
Yes, I usually declare gam as a variable so I could easily reuse the same code on my service machines without needing to add gam to system variables.
I also think we are using different flavours of gam, hence the difference in output. I use Ross's GAM. So:
$gam = 'C:\GAMADV-XTD3\gam.exe'
& $gam info user US...@DOMAIN.COM 2>&1
returns
User: US...@DOMAIN.COM, Does not exist
For classic GAM you could try the following check:
& $gam info user US...@DOMAIN.COM 2>&1)) -match 'Error: 404'
Another alternative mentioned above is to fetch all users first and check locally
$users = & $gam print users | convertfrom-csv
$users.primaryEmail -icontains "US...@DOMAIN.COM"
That returns True is user exists and False if it doesn't. Makes it faster if you create a big chunk of users.
Ross Scroggs
Jul 28, 2022, 7:04:07 PM7/28/22
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Ian,
As you're using Advanced GAM, the whatis command sets the return code:
ENTITY_IS_A_USER_RC = 20
ENTITY_IS_A_USER_ALIAS_RC = 21
ENTITY_IS_A_GROUP_RC = 22
ENTITY_IS_A_GROUP_ALIAS_RC = 23
ENTITY_IS_AN_UNMANAGED_ACCOUNT_RC = 24
ENTITY_IS_UKNOWN_RC = 59
If you get a 59, the email address is not used.
Ross
Ross
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Ross Scroggs
Ian Kelly
Aug 1, 2022, 6:04:12 AM8/1/22
to GAM for Google Workspace
Thanks for your help, so using the $LASTEXITCODE is very useful.
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