Macos – How to check the domain name for a Mac

domainmacos

I have Macs on a domain and I want to find out what their PC names are. I went to “System Preferences » Sharing” to look at the name, but in some cases it was blank.

Is there another way to check what the PC name is on the Mac?

Best Answer

From the OS X GUI, one way to check the name this system is using on a Microsoft/Windows Active Directory domain is to run the Directory Utility and check the Active Directory settings.

  1. Open /System/Library/CoreServices/Directory\ Utility.app.

    You can navigate there in the Finder and double-click on it, or open it by typing…

    open -a Directory\ Utility.app

    …in a Terminal window.

  2. Click on the lock icon and authenticate.

  3. Double-click on "Active Directory".

  4. Look at the contents of the "Computer ID:" field.

Note that Macs do not have a fully unified host name infrastructure. The name a Mac uses via local multicast Bonjour could be different from the DNS names for its various IP addresses, which could be different from the name it uses for Active Directory.

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