CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#ldapdirectoryservices
tolsen64
tolsen64

Reputation: 999

How do I find a user using DirectoryServices AccountManagement?

I've used DirectoryEntry & DirectorySearcher for quite some time and it always works. Recently I learned about AccountManagement and thought I'd try it for a new project. But I can't get it to find me.

This old code work fine:

Using oDirectoryEntry As DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://us.psy.com", "xxx2yyy", "MyStrongPwd")
    Using oDirectorySearcher As DirectorySearcher = New DirectorySearcher(oDirectoryEntry)
        oDirectorySearcher.Filter = "(&(sAMAccountType=805306368)(sAMAccountName=xxx2yyy))"
        Try
            Return oDirectorySearcher.FindOne IsNot Nothing
        Catch
            Return False
        End Try
    End Using
End Using

But I cannot make this work:

using (PrincipalContext context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "US", "DC=psy,DC=com"))
{
    MessageBox.Show(context.ConnectedServer); // This shows me the server name
    using (UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(context, IdentityType.SamAccountName, "xxx2yyy"))
    {
        MessageBox.Show(user.SamAccountName); // results in Object reference not set to an instance of an object
        user.ChangePassword("OldPwd", "NewPwd");
        user.Save();
    }
}

Hoping someone can see what I'm doing wrong.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 798

Answers (1)

Gabriel Luci
Gabriel Luci

Reputation: 40928

I think marc_s is on the right track. But you can just specify the domain the same way you do with DirectoryEntry. You can use the constructor with only the domain name, like this:

using (PrincipalContext context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "us.psy.com"))

That will search your whole domain.

That said, if you already know how to use DirectoryEntry and DirectorySearcher, you're better off sticking with it. The AccountManagement namespace is just uses them in the background anyway. It can make some things easier, but it hides a lot from you, which hurts performance. Using DirectoryEntry and DirectorySearcher directly will almost always perform faster.

I talked a bit about that in an article I wrote (but also how to get better performance from DirectoryEntry and DirectorySearcher): Active Directory: Better Performance

Upvotes: 1

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