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.

Answer 1

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??

Answer 2

Not tested** This will point you in the right direction.. Should be very close to what you need.

    Dim MySearchRoot As DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://domain/DC=..", "usr", "pwd")
    Dim MyDirectorySearcher As New DirectorySearcher(MySearchRoot)

    MyDirectorySearcher.Filter = ("(&(objectCategory=organizationalunit)(name=UsersStudents))")

    MyDirectorySearcher.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree
    MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("First Name")
    MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("Last Name")
    MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("Pre-Windows 2000 Logon Name")
    MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("Name")
    MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("Type")
    MyDirectorySearcher.Sort.Direction = System.DirectoryServices.SortDirection.Ascending
    MyDirectorySearcher.Sort.PropertyName = "Name"

    Dim MySearchResult As SearchResultCollection = MyDirectorySearcher.FindAll()

    Dim myTable As New DataTable("Results")
    Dim colName As String

    For Each colName In MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad
        myTable.Columns.Add(colName, GetType(System.String))
    Next

    Dim result As SearchResult

    For Each result In MySearchResult
        Dim dr As DataRow = myTable.NewRow()
        For Each colName In MyDirectorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad
            If result.Properties.Contains(colName) Then
                    dr(colName) = CStr(result.Properties(colName)(0))
                End If
            Else
                dr(colName) = ""
            End If
        Next
        myTable.Rows.Add(dr)
    Next

    gridview.datasource = myTable
    gridview.databind()

Answer 3

There is a C# sample here for populating an ASP.Net GridView from AD.