GPO linked OU count should be retrievable
AD-GPOL-06InfoActive DirectoryGroup Policy
Part of Active Directory · Active Directory · Group Policy · All checks
Invoke-Maester -TestId AD-GPOL-06Overview
Section titled “Overview”Understanding the distribution of GPO links across Organizational Units is important for several security reasons:
- Policy Coverage: Identifies OUs that may lack necessary security policies
- Compliance Assessment: Helps ensure all organizational units receive appropriate policy coverage
- Security Gaps: OUs without GPO links may rely solely on domain-level policies, potentially missing OU-specific security controls
- Policy Management: Provides visibility into how broadly GPOs are deployed across the directory structure
Control Type
Section titled “Control Type”Operational
Security Recommendation
Section titled “Security Recommendation”Review OUs without GPO links to ensure:
- They inherit appropriate policies from parent containers
- They don’t require OU-specific security policies
- Critical security settings are not being missed
- Consider creating OU-specific policies for organizational units with unique security requirements
How the Test Works
Section titled “How the Test Works”This test retrieves all Organizational Units from Active Directory and counts:
- Total number of OUs in the domain
- Number of OUs with GPO links (gPLink attribute is populated)
- Number of OUs without GPO links
The gPLink attribute is checked to determine if any GPOs are linked to each OU.
Related Tests
Section titled “Related Tests”Test-MtAdGpoLinkedCount- Counts distinct GPOs with linksTest-MtAdGpoUnlinkedTargetCount- Counts targets without GPO linksTest-MtAdComputerOUCount- Counts distinct OUs containing computers
Details
Section titled “Details”Every attribute of this check
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Test ID | AD-GPOL-06 |
| Severity | Info |
| Suite | Active Directory |
| Product | Active Directory |
| Feature | Group Policy |
| Area | Infrastructure hardening |
| Resource type | OrganizationalUnit |
| MITRE ATT&CK | None |
| PowerShell test | Test-MtAdGpoLinkedOUCount |
| Services | ActiveDirectory |
| Permissions | ActiveDirectory:Ldap:groupPolicyContainer.gPCFileSysPath:ReadProperty, ActiveDirectory:File:SYSVOL:Read |
Source
Section titled “Source”- Test:
tests/ad/gpo/Test.AD-GPOL-06.ps1 - Documentation:
tests/ad/gpo/Test.AD-GPOL-06.md