CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#active-directory
Raed Alsaleh
Raed Alsaleh

Reputation: 1621

How to detect Active Directory path in c#

I've been searching through the internet to learn how to interact with Active Directory. I find the following piece of code but I want to know what ActiveDirectoryPath must be ?

Any brief description of the code is welcome

DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(ActiveDirectoryPath);
DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher(entry);

search.Filter = String.Format("(&(objectCategory=group)(cn={0}))", activeDirectoryGroup);
search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("distinguishedName");
SearchResult searchResult = search.FindOne();

if (searchResult == null)
    return new HashSet<User>();

DirectoryEntry group = searchResult.GetDirectoryEntry();
Hashtable searchedGroups = new Hashtable();
return GetUsersInGroup(group.Properties["distinguishedName"].Value.ToString(), searchedGroups, path);

Upvotes: 2

Views: 4906

Answers (1)

marc_s
marc_s

Reputation: 754220

Not entirely clear what you mean by detect Active Directory path - there's really no "current" AD path or anything; there's no "current directory" like in your file system.

You can determine the system default path by inspecting the LDAP://RootDSE entry and looking for the defaultNamingContext there:

using (DirectoryEntry deRoot = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://RootDSE"))
{
    if (deRoot.Properties["defaultNamingContext"] != null)
    {
        string defaultNamingContext = 
               deRoot.Properties["defaultNamingContext"].Value.ToString();
    }
}

Or you can just retrieve the currently logged in user from Active Directory, and inspect it's LDAP path (this code works on .NET 3.5 and newer with the new System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace):

using System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement;

using (PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
     UserPrincipal currentUser = UserPrincipal.Current;
     string userLdapPath = currentUser.DistinguishedName;
}

This will return the full LDAP path for the user, which contains the "container" that user is created in - something like:

LDAP://CN=User Name,OU=SomeOU,DC=YourCompany,DC=Com

and here the OU=SomeOU,DC=YourCompany,DC=Com part is the "path" in the Active Directory where this user exists inside of.

Upvotes: 2

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