Query Active Directory from ASP.NET and bind result to List View

Question

I managed to do ASP.NET authentication work wih AD. Now, I want to query an OU in AD and display the result either ListView or GridView in ASP.NET page.

Here's the Domain Controller: dc.itlab.edu

The OU: UsersStudents

In the organizational unit (OU) UsersStudents there are following columns:

First Name, Last Name, Pre-Windows 2000 Logon Name, Name , Type

I want to query column First Name, Last Name, Pre-Windows 2000 Logon Name in OU UsersStudents and bind the result to ListView or GridView.

Thank you for suggestion either in C# or VB.NET.

Solution

If you are on .NET 3.5, or could upgrade to it - the LDAP stuff has been vastly improved with the introduction of the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace.

It contains among other things classes like UserPrincipal, which offers most of the commonly used LDAP attributes as properties. Using the PrincipalSearcher and QBE (Query-by-example), you could very easily find those users (or other objects) you're interested in and binding them to the ASP.NET grid view.

To learn more about the new .NET 3.5 stuff, read this excellent article at MSDN Magazine:

Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5 - January 2008 issue

Update: Using the .NET 3.5 interface, you can write code something like this:

// define the content - domain name (second param) must be NetBIOS-style,
// third parameter is the container where to create the context for
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "ITLAB", "OU=UsersStudents,DC=dc,DC=itlab,DC=edu");

// define your "prototype" for the searcher - here: you want to search for 
// users which have the .Enabled property set to true; you could define additional
// requirements here
UserPrincipal qbePrototype = new UserPrincipal(ctx);
qbePrototype.Enabled = true;

// create PrincipalSearcher based on that QBE prototype
PrincipalSearcher ps = new PrincipalSearcher(qbePrototype);

// find all matching Principals - in your case, those will be of type UserPrincipal
PrincipalSearchResult<Principal> results = ps.FindAll();

Now you should be able to bind the results directly to a DataGridView or something, and pick out those properties for your columns that you're looking for:

• First Name = UserPrincipal.GivenName
• Last Name = UserPrincipal.Surname
• Pre-Windows 2000 Logon Name = UserPrincipal.SamAccountName
• Name = Name
• Type = ?? What you do mean here??

Comments

[Narazana]

There's column "Type" in the OU. Type -> User

[marc_s]

If you're only searching for Users, then this Type will always be User anyway.....

[Narazana]

I keep getting this error message System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryServicesCOMException: There is no such object on the server . I think somewhere along this line (ContextType.Domain, "itlab", "OU=UsersStudents,DC=DC,DC=itlab,DC=edu") has an error because when I use only PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain) I got result back. But how to query particular OU then?

[marc_s]

@Narazana: I don't know what your domain is called Netbios-style - I just guessed it might be "itlab" - if it's not, use that instead! Same applies to the LDAP path for the container - that's just a guess based on your post - maybe it's not 100% accurate - you need to verify that and change if necessary. That third parameter defines where in the hierarchy you're creating your context - in this case, in the "UsersStudents" OU - change this if needed.

[Narazana]

Finally, I got it after 3hr straight and with help of marc_s. Dim ctx As New PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "DC", "OU=UsersStudents,DC=itlab,DC=edu") the second param "dc" (case insensitive) is NetBiosName of domain controller. Anywhere, is there any method to query only a certain number of users Not all of them?

[marc_s]

@Narazana: I don't think you can limit the number of entries you get back - but you could e.g. search by lastname, e.g. define qbePrototype.Surname = "A*" to search for everyone with a lastname beginning with an "A", and then go through the list that way, letter by letter.