Question

Active Directory hierarchy member of group

Asked by: Poidda

Hi,

I am having a problem searching Active directory to see if a user is a member of the group.  The following code works just fine if the user is in the group you pass, but I need to search all subgroups as well?  I am new to working with AD.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

This is what I have to search the current group.


public static ActiveDirectoryUserCollection GetUsersInRole(string roleName)
{
    ActiveDirectoryUserCollection users = new ActiveDirectoryUserCollection();
    DirectorySearcher userSearch = null;
    DirectoryEntry userDE = null;

    userSearch = ActiveDirectoryUtility.CreateNewDirectorySearcher();
    userSearch.PropertiesToLoad.Add(ActiveDirectoryUtility.LdapAttributeMember);
    userSearch.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree;
    userSearch.Filter = "(&(objectCategory=group)(cn=" + roleName + "))";
    userSearch.Sort = new SortOption("sn", SortDirection.Ascending);
    SearchResult groupResult = userSearch.FindOne();

    if (groupResult != null)
    {
        for (int groupIndex = 0; groupIndex < groupResult.Properties["member"].Count; groupIndex++)
        {
            userDE = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + groupResult.Properties["member"][groupIndex].ToString());

            if (userDE != null)
            {
                ActiveDirectoryUser user = new ActiveDirectoryUser();
                user.ParentHashCode = users.GetHashCode();
                user.AdsPath = userDE.Path;
                user.givenName = GetPropertyCollectionString(userDE.Properties, "givenName");
                user.sn = GetPropertyCollectionString(userDE.Properties, "sn");
                user.samAccountName = GetPropertyCollectionString(userDE.Properties, "samAccountName");
                users.Add(user);
            }
        }
    }
}

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Asked On
2008-07-06 at 23:04:53ID23542541
Tags

Active Directory, .NET, c#

Topics

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

,

Active Directory

,

C# Programming Language

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: Chris-DentPosted on 2008-07-07 at 01:30:19ID: 21943374


You'll need to use a recursive test of group membership. I wrote something to do that in VbScript, it won't directly translate but perhaps it'll give you enough of an idea. I certainly don't know enough C# to write it in that :)

strGroup is the group you're testing, arrGroups is an array returned from the "memberOf" attribute. And x is a simple counter (not used for anything other than displaying output as a tree).

In essence, you pass the array through to a subroutine, loop through the contents of that array as a basic member of, and passing each sub-groups memberOf array back to the Subroutine.

It gets a bit hairy if you have to protect against circular nesting, hopefully you won't need to.

HTH

Chris

Function RecursiveIsMember(strGroup, arrGroups, x)
	' Return Type: Boolean
	' 
	' Goes through Nested Groups until either booIsMember is True or there are no more groups to check
	
	Dim objUser, objGroup
	Dim strGroupDN
	Dim arrTemp
	Dim booIsMember
 
	booIsMember = False
 
	On Error Resume Next
 
	For Each strGroupDN in arrGroups
		Err.Clear
		Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://" & strGroupDN)
		' WScript.Echo Space(x) & objGroup.Get("name")
		If Err.Number = 0 Then
			If LCase(objGroup.Get("name")) = LCase(strGroup) Then
				booIsMember = True
				Exit For
			Else
				Err.Clear
				arrTemp = objGroup.GetEx("memberOf")
				If Err.Number = 0 Then
					y = x + 2
					booIsMember = IsMember(strGroup, arrTemp, y)
					If booIsMember = True Then
						Exit For
					End If
				End If
			End If
		End If
		Set objGroup = Nothing
	Next
	On Error Goto 0
	IsMember = booIsMember
End Function
                                              
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by: PoiddaPosted on 2008-07-07 at 17:02:25ID: 21949675

Yeah that's the way I thought I'd have to do it, but thought there must be a better solution?!?!

 

by: Chris-DentPosted on 2008-07-08 at 01:26:55ID: 21951879


Afraid not.

The MemberOf attribute only holds direct membership, there's no way within Active Directory to enumerate membership through nested groups without recursion. The data just isn't there otherwise.

Chris

 

by: PoiddaPosted on 2008-07-08 at 15:16:41ID: 21958816

ok.  Thanks for being the bearer of bad news.  ;)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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