AD FS 2.0 Administration with Windows PowerShell

Applies To: Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0

Active Directory® Federation Services 2.0 is a component of Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 that supports identity federation and Web single sign-on (SSO) for Web-browser-based applications. In addition to graphical user interface (GUI) tools, such as the AD FS 2.0 Management snap-in for Microsoft Management Console (MMC), you can use the Windows PowerShell™ cmdlets that are included with AD FS 2.0 as an optional toolset to configure and administer your Windows-based federated identity solution.

This guide provides information for getting started with AD FS 2.0 and Windows PowerShell. It also provides an overview of the cmdlets that are available, as well as common concepts and sample commands for working with AD FS 2.0 cmdlets. This tutorial will help you gain an understanding of how to perform AD FS 2.0 management tasks in the Windows PowerShell command window or how to automate these tasks using Windows PowerShell script or batch files. All tasks that are demonstrated in this guide are tasks that you might otherwise perform with the AD FS 2.0 Management snap-in.

About this guide

This guide introduces the Windows PowerShell cmdlets that are specific to AD FS 2.0. It explains how to use some of these cmdlets to configure and administer AD FS 2.0, and it attempts to help information technology (IT) professionals and server administrators who are minimally experienced with Windows PowerShell to be productive in using these cmdlets to complete their work.

This document does not provide overview or introductory information about AD FS 2.0 or Windows PowerShell. To use this document, you should have enough experience with AD FS 2.0 that you can configure and administer it using the GUI tools. Some basic experience running Windows PowerShell cmdlets is also recommended. For general information about AD FS 2.0, see the AD FS 2.0 Technical Library (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=148919). For information about Windows PowerShell, see Scripting with Windows PowerShell (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93317).

In this guide

AD FS 2.0 for Windows PowerShell Basics

AD FS 2.0 for Windows PowerShell Cmdlets Overview

AD FS 2.0 for Windows PowerShell Common Concepts

AD FS 2.0 for Windows PowerShell Examples