Question

Query active directory groups is suddenly very slow

Asked by: frodoman

We have a single web page that queries active directory to identify the group(s) to which a user belongs.  This page has worked fine for several years and suddenly today the page load time has gone from 1-2 seconds up to 15-20 seconds.  I've traced the execution of this page and the slowdown is in the part that queries active directory.

To the best of my knowledge nothing has changed on either the domain controller nor the web server.  The web server is Win2003 and the domain controller is Win2000.  Site traffic is within normal patterns.  All other applications on the web server are functioning normally (none use Active Directory though).  Direct activities on the domain controller (adding a user for example) don't exhibit any delay in response time.  Nothing in the event logs on either server that indicate a problem.

I'm looking for ANY suggestions where to look to resolve this problem.  The page in question is the frontend portal for all of our web apps so a 20 second load time is unacceptable.

If it helps, the code where the slowdown occurs is as follows (this is classic ASP):

  m_LogonUser = Request.ServerVariables("LOGON_USER")
  Set objUser = GetObject("WinNT://ourdomain.com/" & m_LogonUser)
      
  for each Group in objUser.Groups
    nNextElement = cint(nLastElement) + 1
    redim preserve sGroupArray(nNextElement)
    sGroupArray(nNextElement) = Group.Name
  next

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Asked On
2007-10-16 at 11:39:03ID22897028
Tags

directory

,

active

,

query

,

slow

,

groups

Topics

WebApplications

,

Windows 2003 Server

,

Active Directory

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: MSE-dwellsPosted on 2007-10-16 at 12:24:33ID: 20088257

Have you tried running that as a VBscript interactively when logged on to the web server, it may assist in isolating the cause (which has a good chance of being DNS since it nearly always is)?

 

by: frodomanPosted on 2007-10-16 at 12:34:55ID: 20088333

I'm a .Net programmer and have inherited this problem so maybe this is a dumb question but I have no idea how to go about running this code as an interactive VBscript.  Can you assist with that?

 

by: frodomanPosted on 2007-10-16 at 12:46:50ID: 20088416

Okay, I copied this code into a .vbs file on my web server and executed it.  It takes a long time to execute but how does that help me figure out what the problem is?

 

by: MSE-dwellsPosted on 2007-10-16 at 13:00:31ID: 20088533

Hehe ... patience young hobbit ;0)  Let's incorporate a couple of wscript.echo statements like this and determine where the slowness occurs -

m_LogonUser = Request.ServerVariables("LOGON_USER")
wscript.echo "about to get a handle to the user - " & m_LogonUser
  Set objUser = GetObject("WinNT://ourdomain.com" & m_LogonUser)
wscript.echo "got handle"

wscript.echo "about to enumerate groups"
  for each Group in objUser.Groups
    nNextElement = cint(nLastElement) + 1
    redim preserve sGroupArray(nNextElement)
    sGroupArray(nNextElement) = Group.Name
wscript.echo "got next group - " & sGroupArray(nNextElement)
  next

 

by: MSE-dwellsPosted on 2007-10-16 at 13:14:41ID: 20088660

Having just read your profile, I too find it interesting just how compelling attaining these meaningless ranks is ... I used to prefer being paid ;0)

 

by: frodomanPosted on 2007-10-16 at 13:15:21ID: 20088667

Appreciate the help MSE.  I simplified the script for testing as follows:

wscript.echo "Starting"
Set obj = GetObject("WinNT://ourdomain.com/myusername")
wscript.echo "Got User"
for each Group in obj
  wscript.echo Group.Name
next
wscript.echo "Ending"

The output is:
  Starting
  [DELAY ABOUT 10 SECONDS]
  Got User
  [DELAY ABOUT 10 SECONDS]
  Group1
  Group2
  ...etc...
  Ending

So once the first group is displayed there is no delayed.  The delay is apparently in both the GetObject line and the "For each..." line.

I ran the same script on the domain controller and the response is near instantaneous - no delays at all.

 

by: frodomanPosted on 2007-10-16 at 13:17:15ID: 20088676

>>>  I used to prefer being paid

With the market what it is, I'll take what I can get :-)  Too bad the gas station won't accept EE points as payment!

 

by: MSE-dwellsPosted on 2007-10-16 at 13:19:40ID: 20088692

Where is the DNS resolver of the web server pointing?  It should be configured against a DNS server (usually an internal name server) that houses the DNS zone that represents your Active Directory.  My guess is the script is having difficulty locating a DC and failing over to NetBIOS etc.

 

by: frodomanPosted on 2007-10-16 at 15:20:41ID: 20089544

That was it exactly.  Someone made a change to our internal DNS server...

Appreciate the help!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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