Free Scripts

Displaying Account details from Active Directory

Recently I updated a Web application I built last year to use Active Directory as a way of user authenication instead of prompting for usernames and passwords.

I have not worked with ASP.NET much so my knowledge is poor especially the AD connector objects. However I thought it might be nice to share my example it since it was relevative easy to complete...

First of all, let me explain what is happening!

In my VB, I first get the username of the person logged into the machine on our network. This username value comes back as: DOMAINusername.

I then connect to AD and pass my username. Notice i'm splitting the username value as I don't need the DOMAIN part...

Once a connection is made, I retrieve some details like the users Firstname, Lastname and Email address. I have also included the member security groups since some pages of the application were controlled this way...

Obviously there is alot more happening and what I have posted below is just an exmaple to display the information from AD. You could take this futher by storing this info in a Session so you could reuse it throughout the Web Application.

Source Code

<%@ Page Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="Default.aspx.vb" Inherits="_Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head id="Head1" runat="server">
    <title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <p>
            Firstname: <asp:Label runat="server" ID="Firstname"></asp:Label><br /> 
            Lastname: <asp:Label runat="server" ID="Lastname"></asp:Label><br />
            Email: <asp:Label runat="server" ID="Email"></asp:Label><br />
            Member Of: <asp:Label runat="server" ID="MemberOf"></asp:Label>
        </p>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>
 
Imports System.DirectoryServices
 
Partial Class _Default
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
 
    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
 
        Dim Username = Request.LogonUserIdentity.Name.Split(New Char() {""c})(1).ToLower()
        Dim Searcher As New DirectorySearcher(New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://<YOUR_AD_SERVER_DETAILS_HERE>"), "(&(objectCategory=user)(sAMAccountName=" & Username & "))", New String() {"givenName", "sn", "mail", "memberof"}, SearchScope.Subtree)
        Dim Result As SearchResult = Searcher.FindOne()
 
        If Not Result Is Nothing Then
            Dim Entry As DirectoryEntry = Result.GetDirectoryEntry()
 
            Firstname.Text = Entry.Properties("givenName").Value
            Lastname.Text = Entry.Properties("sn").Value
            Email.Text = Entry.Properties("mail").Value
            MemberOf.Text = GetGroups(Username, Entry)
 
            Entry = Nothing
        End If
 
        Username = Nothing
        Searcher = Nothing
        Result = Nothing
    End Sub
 
    Private Function GetGroups(ByVal Username As String, ByVal Entry As DirectoryEntry) As String
        Dim GroupString As String = ""
 
        Try
            Dim Count = Entry.Properties("memberof").Count
            Dim EqualsIndex As String
            Dim CommaIndex As String
 
            For I As Integer = 0 To Count - 1
                EqualsIndex = Entry.Properties("memberof")(I).IndexOf("=", 1)
                CommaIndex = Entry.Properties("memberof")(I).IndexOf(",", 1)
 
                If EqualsIndex = -1 Then
                    Return Nothing
                End If
 
                GroupString += Entry.Properties("memberof")(I).Substring((EqualsIndex + 1), (CommaIndex - EqualsIndex) - 1) & "|"
            Next
 
            Return GroupString
 
        Catch Ex As Exception
            If Ex.GetType Is GetType(System.NullReferenceException) Then
                Return "No Group Memberships Found"
            Else
                Return Ex.Message.ToString & Ex.ToString
            End If
        End Try
    End Function
End Class