SharePoint tracking in Active-Directory

 If you are a control freak as myself you need to know where your SharePoint boxes lives then there is actually a feature included to do just that. By creating a default container in Active Directory all installations will add a URL to the Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service for that installation to Active Directory. There is just three easy steps and some PowerShell to do it.

Steps:

  • Launch ADSI Edit or your favourite tool for manipulating Active Directory. Find the System container
  • Create a Container called Microsoft SharePoint Products under that node
  • Modify security on the created container, give SP_Admin and/or SP_Farm Create serviceConnectionPoint permissions
    If anyone can install SharePoint and you wish to track them also instead use Authenticated_Users as permission

All new installations will now create a entry in the created Container. Old installations needs to be added manually by running the following PowerShell command:

Set-SPFarmConfig -ServiceConnectionPointBindingInformation (Get-SPTopologyServiceApplication | select URI)

 If you would like to add more URLs to the Active Directory Container like Central Admin or other important URLs then run

Set-SPFarmConfig -ServiceConnectionPointBindingInformation <WHAT-EVER-URI-YOU-LIKE>

That means that you could track both theApplication Discovery and Load Balancer Service (default) and others of your choosing.