adcli

Active Directory domain client tool

TLDR

Join a domain

$ sudo adcli join [domain.com]

Join with specific credentials

$ sudo adcli join -U [administrator] [domain.com]

Info about a domain

$ adcli info [domain.com]

Test connection to domain controller

$ adcli testjoin

SYNOPSIS

adcli command [options] [domain]

adcli is a command-line tool for performing actions on an Active Directory domain. It can join Linux machines to AD domains, manage computer accounts, and query domain information without requiring Samba.The tool uses standard Kerberos and LDAP protocols to communicate with domain controllers, making it lightweight and suitable for automated deployments.

PARAMETERS

join

Join the local machine to the domain

preset-computer

Pre-create a computer account in the domain

reset-computer

Reset the computer account password

delete-computer

Delete a computer account from the domain

update

Update machine account attributes

testjoin

Test if machine is joined to domain

info

Display discovered information about a domain or domain controller

-U user, --login-user user

User account used to authenticate when creating the computer account

-D domain, --domain domain

Domain to connect to

-R realm, --domain-realm realm

Kerberos realm for the domain, if it differs from the domain name

-S server, --domain-server server

Connect to a specific domain controller

-O ou, --domain-ou ou

Distinguished name of the organizational unit for the computer account

-N name, --computer-name name

Short (sAMAccountName) name for the computer account

-H fqdn, --host-fqdn fqdn

Override the fully qualified domain name of the local machine

--stdin-password

Read the password from stdin instead of prompting

-v, --verbose

Print verbose, debug-level progress information

INSTALL

sudo apt install adcli

sudo dnf install adcli

yay -S adcli

sudo zypper install adcli

nix profile install nixpkgs#adcli

CAVEATS

Requires appropriate permissions in AD to create computer accounts. Firewall rules must allow LDAP (389) and Kerberos (88) traffic. For full AD integration, combine with SSSD for user authentication. adcli is normally invoked indirectly by realm (realmd), which calls it to perform the actual join.

HISTORY

adcli was developed by Stef Walter at Red Hat, first released around 2012. It was created to provide a lightweight alternative to Samba for AD domain joining, suitable for modern Linux enterprise deployments.

RESOURCES

Source code · Documentation