Develop Reference

Autocomplete Text Box With Active Directory Users

Hi there I am trying to create a textbox that when a user types into it they get a list of users with the specific name:
Example: If I started to type Jane.Doe, and I had only typed in Ja a list would come up with users from the Active Directory who start with Ja. I need to figure out how I can get the Users to a list each time a user types. I pretty much have the ajax side done. Its just getting the list of users updated each time.
My current idea:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult RemoteData(string query)
{
List<string> lstADUsers = new List<string>();
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, null, "LDAPPATH"))
{
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(new UserPrincipal(context)))
{
foreach (var result in searcher.FindAll())
{
DirectoryEntry de = result.GetUnderlyingObject() as DirectoryEntry;
string usersWithName;
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty((String)de.Properties["samaccountname"].Value))
{
usersWithName = de.Properties["samaccountname"].Value.ToString();
lstADUsers.Add(usersWithName);
}
}
}
}
List<string> listData = null;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(query))
{
listData = lstADUsers.Where(q => q.ToLower().StartsWith(query.ToLower())).ToList();
}
return Json(new { Data = listData });
}
So this allows us to get EVERY user in the Active Directory but I don't want this because the issue at hand gets that there are too many users and the search takes FOREVER to load this before it even displays the list of names. I only want to be able to take a parameter and only search for user that starts with that. How would I go about doing this?

You need to populate the Name property of UserPrincipal with a wildcard to limit the result set:
// assume 'query' is 'Ja'
UserPrincipal user = new UserPrincipal(context);
user.Name = query + "*"; // builds 'Ja*', which finds names starting with 'Ja'
using (var searcher = new PrincipalSearcher(user))
// ...

Retrieving OU's from Active Directory

I am trying to fetch a list of OU's from active directory. Unfortunately my search always ends up without any results even though I know there are 2 OU's inside the "myApp" domain component.
using (var entry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://myServer:1111/DC=myApp,DC=myDomain,DC=com", Username, Password)) {
using (var searcher = new DirectorySearcher()) {
searcher.SearchRoot = entry;
searcher.Filter = "(objectCategory=Organizational-Unit)";
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name");
//foo never gets results. :(
var foo = searcher.FindAll();
}
}
I tried following the code in a previous StackOverflow question, but, without luck.

I use something like this. It retrieve all OUs in dictionary name with path, just change SearchScope properly.
public Dictionary<string, string> GetOUInfo(SearchScope eSearchScope)
{
Dictionary<string, string> retValues = new Dictionary<string, string>();
try
{
DirectoryEntry oDirectoryEntry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://myServer:1111/DC=myApp,DC=myDomain,DC=com", Username, Password);
DirectorySearcher oDirectorySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(oDirectoryEntry,
"(objectCategory=organizationalUnit)", null, eSearchScope);
SearchResultCollection oSearchResultCollection = oDirectorySearcher.FindAll();
foreach (SearchResult item in oSearchResultCollection)
{
string name = item.Properties["name"][0].ToString();
string path = item.GetDirectoryEntry().Path;
retValues.Add(path, name);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
}
return retValues;
}

1) Are you sure of the base search "DC=myApp,DC=myDomain,DC=com" ? Is "myApp" a domain component ?
2) Can you try to specify the search scope ?
searcher.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree;
3) "(objectCategory=Organizational-Unit)" is a shortcut understood by Active-Directory, but in fact the objectCategory attribute is a distinguished name (DN) and the real value for an OU is : CN=Organizational-Unit,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,domain root DN.
Can you try this filter "(objectClas=Organizational-Unit)" which is more common to search an OU?
On the command line can you try this ?
C:\temp>ldifde -f c:\temp\out.txt -d "DC=myApp,DC=myDomain,DC=com" -r "(objectClass=organizationalUnit)"

Use this it will work
PrincipalContext yourOU = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "mycompany.com", "OU=Marketing,OU=Corporate,DC=mycompany,DC=com");
GroupPrincipal findAllGroups = new GroupPrincipal(yourOU, "*");
PrincipalSearcher ps = new PrincipalSearcher(findAllGroups);
foreach (var group in ps.FindAll())
{
Console.WriteLine(group.DistinguishedName);
}

Can i get a specific user by some attribute without knowing the OU's in Active Directory (AD)?

I need to get a specific user only knowing the "sAMAAccountName" field.
The thing is, this specific user can be inside of many groups:
OU=ThirdParty
OU=Company1
CN=User1
CN=User2
CN=User3
OU=Company2
CN=User1
CN=User2
CN=User3
Is there any way to get an user not knowing their groups, only using one attribute that they have?
My code:
DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher(_path);
search.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=User))";
StringBuilder groupNames = new StringBuilder();
try
{
SearchResultCollection result = search.FindAll();
.....
}
Thanks!
EDIT:
Ok, i got it using this code:
DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher(_entry, "(sAMAccountName=" + userCode + ")");

What information do you need to know about the user? We have used this type of code in the past to retrieve information about a user
using (var identity = new WindowsIdentity(username))
{
var user = new WindowsPrincipal(identity);
if (user.IsInRole("Some Role Name"))
return true;
return false;
}
EDIT
After your comment, I wonder if this post would provide you any further insite. They so show getting the field you're requesting, I'm just not sure the code to retrieve the employee will apply to you since this refers to InfoPath: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb952744(v=office.12).aspx

If you switch to System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement then you'll find out that the APIs are in fact much simpler.
For example:
public something FindUserByUserName( string UserName )
{
using ( var searcher =
new PrincipalSearcher( new UserPrincipal( ConfigurationContext ) { Name = UserName } ) )
{
var item = searcher.FindOne();
// do whatever you want with the found object and return it
}
}
where ConfigurationContext is a property which returns the PrincipalContext (credentials to connect to the AD, something like the "connection string")

Try this:
public static List<string> GetADUserInfo(string login)
{
//Using Hosting.HostingEnvironment.Impersonate()
List<string> info = new List<string>();
PrincipalContext infPC = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "domain", "login", "password");
UserPrincipal infUP = new UserPrincipal(infPC);
PrincipalSearcher infPS = new PrincipalSearcher();
UserPrincipal foundUP;
infUP.SamAccountName = login;
infPS.QueryFilter = infUP;
foundUP = infPS.FindOne();
if (foundUP != null) {
info.Add(foundUP.SamAccountName.ToLower);
info.Add(foundUP.GivenName);
info.Add(foundUP.Surname);
info.Add(foundUP.EmailAddress.ToLower);
return info;
}
return null;
}

How to determine all the groups a user belongs to (including nested groups) in ActiveDirectory and .NET 3.5

I have an application that uses ActiveDirecotry authorisation and it has been decided that it needs to support nested AD groups, e.g.:
MAIN_AD_GROUP
|
|-> SUB_GROUP
|
|-> User
So, the user in not directly a member of MAIN_AD_GROUP. I'd like to be able to look for the user recursively, searching the groups nested in MAIN_AD_GROUP.
The main problem is that I'm using .NET 3.5 and there is a bug in System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement in .NET 3.5 whereby the method UserPrincipal.IsMemberOf() will not work for groups with more than 1500 users. So I can't use UserPrincipal.IsMemberOf() and no, I can't switch to .NET 4 either.
I've worked around this last problem with the following function:
private bool IsMember(Principal userPrincipal, Principal groupPrincipal)
{
using (var groups = userPrincipal.GetGroups())
{
var isMember = groups.Any(g =>
g.DistinguishedName == groupPrincipal.DistinguishedName);
return isMember;
}
}
But userPrincipal.GetGroups() only returns the groups of which the user is a direct member.
How can I get this to work with nested groups?

Workaround #1
This bug is reported here at Microsoft Connect along with the following code that works around this issue by manually iterating through the PrincipalSearchResult<Principal> returned objects, catching this exception, and continuing on:
PrincipalSearchResult<Principal> groups = user.GetAuthorizationGroups();
var iterGroup = groups.GetEnumerator();
using (iterGroup)
{
while (iterGroup.MoveNext())
{
try
{
Principal p = iterGroup.Current;
Console.WriteLine(p.Name);
}
catch (NoMatchingPrincipalException pex)
{
continue;
}
}
}
Workaround #2
Another workaround found here avoids the AccountManagement class, and uses the System.DirectoryServices API instead:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.DirectoryServices;
namespace GetGroupsForADUser
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
String username = "Gabriel";
List<string> userNestedMembership = new List<string>();
DirectoryEntry domainConnection = new DirectoryEntry(); // Use this to query the default domain
//DirectoryEntry domainConnection = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://example.com", "username", "password"); // Use this to query a remote domain
DirectorySearcher samSearcher = new DirectorySearcher();
samSearcher.SearchRoot = domainConnection;
samSearcher.Filter = "(samAccountName=" + username + ")";
samSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("displayName");
SearchResult samResult = samSearcher.FindOne();
if (samResult != null)
{
DirectoryEntry theUser = samResult.GetDirectoryEntry();
theUser.RefreshCache(new string[] { "tokenGroups" });
foreach (byte[] resultBytes in theUser.Properties["tokenGroups"])
{
System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier mySID = new System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier(resultBytes, 0);
DirectorySearcher sidSearcher = new DirectorySearcher();
sidSearcher.SearchRoot = domainConnection;
sidSearcher.Filter = "(objectSid=" + mySID.Value + ")";
sidSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("distinguishedName");
SearchResult sidResult = sidSearcher.FindOne();
if (sidResult != null)
{
userNestedMembership.Add((string)sidResult.Properties["distinguishedName"][0]);
}
}
foreach (string myEntry in userNestedMembership)
{
Console.WriteLine(myEntry);
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("The user doesn't exist");
}
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}

Use UserPrincipal.GetAuthorizationGroups() instead - from its MSDN docs:
This method searches all groups
recursively and returns the groups in
which the user is a member. The
returned set may also include
additional groups that system would
consider the user a member of for
authorization purposes.
The groups that are returned by this
method may include groups from a
different scope and store than the
principal. For example, if the
principal is an AD DS object that has
a DN of
"CN=SpecialGroups,DC=Fabrikam,DC=com,
the returned set can contain groups
that belong to the
"CN=NormalGroups,DC=Fabrikam,DC=com.

I know this is an old thread, but it's the top result on Google, so in case this helps anyone, here's what I came up with that uses the AccountManagement stuff, but makes this particular query much easier.
public static class AccountManagementExtensions
{
public static bool IsNestedMemberOf(this Principal principal, GroupPrincipal group)
{
// LDAP Query for memberOf Nested
var filter = String.Format("(&(sAMAccountName={0})(memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:={1}))",
principal.SamAccountName,
group.DistinguishedName
);
var searcher = new DirectorySearcher(filter);
var result = searcher.FindOne();
return result != null;
}
}

The efficient way is to do a single AD query by having the right DirectorySearcher filter for e.g.
public bool CheckMemberShip(string userName)
{
bool membership = false;
string connection = "LDAP://"+YOURDOMAIN;
DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(connection);
DirectorySearcher mySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry);
mySearcher.Filter = "(&(objectClass=user)(memberOf:1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941:=cn=GROUPNAME,OU=Groups,OU=ABC,OU=ABC,OU=IND,DC=ad,DC=COMPANY,DC=com)(|(sAMAccountName=" + userName + ")))";
SearchResult result = mySearcher.FindOne();
// No search result, hence no membership
if (result == null)
{
membership = false;
}
entry.Close();
entry.Dispose();
mySearcher.Dispose();
membership = true;
return membership;
}
You need to replace YOURDOMAIN and GROUPNAME with right values from your AD.
Source : How to Recursively Get the Group Membership of a User in Active Directory using .NET/C# and LDAP (without just 2 hits to Active Directory)
Need to include using System.DirectoryServices;

Query From LDAP for User Groups

How To Get User group of user from LDAP active directory in C# .NET for ASP. In my Scenario I want to Pass user name to method which query from LDAP Active directory and tell me my user is Member of This User Groups. Please help me in this

If you're on .NET 3.5 or newer, you can also use the new System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement (S.DS.AM) namespaces.
With this, you can do something like:
// create context for domain
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
// find the user
UserPrincipal up = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, "YourUserName");
if(up != null)
{
// get groups for that user
var authGroups = up.GetAuthorizationGroups();
}
Read more about the new S.DS.AM namespace:
Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5

Look into using the System.DirectoryServices namespace. You can use a DirectorySearcher to find the user. Once you have the DirectoryEntry object for that user do this:
public List<string> GetMemberOf(DirectoryEntry de)
{
List<string> memberof = new List<string>();
foreach (object oMember in de.Properties["memberOf"])
{
memberof.Add(oMember.ToString());
}
return memberof;
}
This will return a list of strings which are the group names the user is a member of.
Of course you could further refine this to include the DirectorySearcher code so you can just pass the function the samAccountName.

try this...
public override string[] GetRolesForUser(string username)
{
var allRoles = new List<string>();
var root = new DirectoryEntry(WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[ConnectionStringName].ConnectionString,
ConnectionUsername,
ConnectionPassword);
var searcher = new DirectorySearcher(root,
string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "(&(objectClass=user)({0}={1}))",
AttributeMapUsername,
username));
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");
SearchResult result = searcher.FindOne();
if (result != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(result.Path))
{
DirectoryEntry user = result.GetDirectoryEntry();
PropertyValueCollection groups = user.Properties["memberOf"];
foreach (string path in groups)
{
string[] parts = path.Split(',');
if (parts.Length > 0)
{
foreach (string part in parts)
{
string[] p = part.Split('=');
if (p[0].Equals("cn", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
allRoles.Add(p[1]);
}
}
}
}
}
return allRoles.ToArray();
}

Use the DirectorySearcher class to preform an ldap query.
For reference:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/QueryADwithDotNet.aspx

I needed a method of authenticating a user and a check to see if they were in a specific user group. I did it by pushing the username and password and loading the "memberOf" property into the 'search' instance. Example below will display all the groups for that specific user name. The 'catch' statement will trap a wrong user name or password.
DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://xxxxxxxx/OU=xxxxxxx,DC=xxxxxx,DC=xxxxx,DC=xxxxxx", strLdapUserName, strLdapPassword);
try
{
//the object is needed to fire off the ldap connection
object obj = entry.NativeObject;
DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher(entry);
search.Filter = "(SAMAccountName=" + strLdapUserName + ")";
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf");
SearchResult result = search.FindOne();
string filterAttribute = (String)result.Properties["cn"][0];
foreach(string groupMemberShipName in result.Properties["memberOf"])
{
Console.WriteLine("Member of - {0}", groupMemberShipName);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//failed to authenticate
throw new Exception(ex.ToString());
}
Hope this helps. (Remember to reference System.DirectoryServices)

I think most methods listed above should work, but i would suggest adding code to ensure that your code can "detect circular loops in nested group memberships", and if found, break any infinite loops that your script of choice could potentially get into.