Can a Linux server query local users and groups on a Windows machine?

Question

I'm trying to find out if a Linux server can ask a Windows machine for information about it's local users and groups. LDAP is out (from what I've read) because LDAP only works against ActiveDirectory groups, but not against local groups on a specific Windows machine.

I know how to write code to have a Windows machine get the groups from another Windows machine. I'm trying to avoid having to set up a Windows machine with a web service so that my Linux server can call it and get the information their the Windows server (which is just acting as a proxy).

Answer 1

You could use WMI (Windows take on SNMP and it's quite good really). There is a linux version of the wmic command line utility in Windows: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jaunty/en/man1/wmic.1.html

You could do something liek this to enumerate the users on $SERVER:

wmic -U $DOMAIN/$USER%$PASSWORD //$SERVER “Select * from Win32_UserAccount”

Other things you may want to query are Win32_Group and Win32_GroupUser. Google "win32 wmi classes" for more.