How to Compare Microsoft Entra Connect Configuration

There are two Microsoft Entra Connect servers in the organization. One of them is active, and the other is in staging mode. That’s because you should always have one active and not more. We like to compare if the configuration is the same. So we don’t get any issues if we have to enable the staging server in the future. In this article, you will learn how to compare Microsoft Entra Connect configuration between servers.

Microsoft Entra Connect Configuration Documenter

Microsoft Entra Connect configuration documenter is a tool to generate documentation of a Microsoft Entra Connect installation.

The current capabilities of the tool include:

• Documentation of the complete configuration of Microsoft Entra Connect sync.
• Documentation of any changes in the configuration of two Microsoft Entra Connect sync servers or changes from a given configuration baseline.
• Generation of the PowerShell deployment script to migrate the sync rule differences or customisations from one server to another.

Step 1. Download Microsoft Entra Connect Configuration Documenter tool

1. Sign in to the production Microsoft Entra Connect server
2. Download the Microsoft Entra Connect configuration documenter tool (direct link) or GitHub
3. Right-click the .zip file and select Properties

4. Select Unblock and click OK

5. Extract the files in the .zip to the folder C:\Scripts so it looks like the screen below

Step 2. Verify Microsoft Entra Connect Configuration Documenter tool

1. Sign in to the production Microsoft Entra Connect server
2. Open the AzureADConnectSyncDocumenter folder
3. Run the cmd file AzureADConnectSyncDocumenter.cmd

4. Press any key to close the screen

5. Open the AADConnectSyncDocumenter-Error.log file

6. Check that it’s empty and that there are no errors present

7. Verify that the generated report Contoso is created under the folder Report

8. Open the report

Step 3. Export PROD Microsoft Entra Connect server configuration

1. Sign in to the production Microsoft Entra Connect server
2. Run PowerShell as an administrator
3. Run the commands below

Import-Module ADSync
Get-ADSyncServerConfiguration -Path "C:\Temp\MEC-DC01-PROD"

4. Go to the Temp folder to find the exported configuration folder

Step 4. Export NON-PROD Microsoft Entra Connect server configuration

1. Sign in to the non-production (staging) Microsoft Entra Connect server
2. Run PowerShell as an administrator
3. Run the commands below

Import-Module ADSync
Get-ADSyncServerConfiguration -Path "C:\Temp\MEC-DC02-NON-PROD"

4. Go to the Temp folder to find the exported configuration folder

Step 5. Create Microsoft Entra Connect server configuration comparison report

1. Sign in to the production or non-production server. This does not matter because you only want to create a comparison configuration report.
2. Start File Explorer and go to the following path

C:\Scripts\AzureADConnectSyncDocumenter\Data

3. Copy both the configuration folders from the previous step to the Data folder

4. Run PowerShell as an administrator
5. Change the path to the Microsoft Entra Connect Configuration Documenter tool

cd C:\Scripts\AzureADConnectSyncDocumenter\

6. Run the command below to create the config comparison report between both Entra Connect servers

.\AzureADConnectSyncDocumenterCmd.exe "MEC-DC02-NON-PROD" "MEC-DC01-PROD"

7. Go to the Report folder
8. Open the report

9. Check the checkbox Only show Changes
10. Verify that the Target/Pilot Config is the non-production server
11. Verify that the Reference/Production Config is the production server

12. Go through the configuration comparison report

That’s it!

Read more: How to find Microsoft Entra Connect accounts »

Conclusion

You learned how to compare Microsoft Entra Connect configuration. The tool creates a beautiful report where you can find all the information about the Entra Connect config. It’s a great way to compare Entra Connect server configurations so you don’t make any mistakes when it comes to syncing your on-premises objects to Microsoft 365.

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