Query an Active Directory Organizational Unit

Depends on what you need to do, do you just need to get all the users in that OU? or query for a particular user in a particular OU?

You'd start out with a DirectorySearcher, that is instantiated something like this.

Dim oRootDSE As DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://rootDSE")
sDomain = CStr(oRootDSE.Properties("defaultNamingContext")(0))

Dim entry as DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" & sDomain & ",OU=SOME_OU")
Dim searcher As DirectorySearcher = New DirectorySearcher(entry)

--Michael

Thanks for the reply michael.

I need to grab the list of users from the organizational unit.

-Nauman.

I am trying to connect to the domain controller using IP address. However cannot make LDAP://192.168.0.10,OU=ADMIN_USERS work. LDAP://192.168.0.10 is working fine.

-Nauman.

Thanks raterus. LDAP://192.168.0.10/OU=ADMIN_USERS didnt work, but your second option worked. I have another question. This piece of code is giving me The Network path could not be found exception.  I am trying to reset user password but still dont have any luck. Its in c# but I think its easy to understand. If you have any vb.net code, please paste it. I can translate that into C#:

DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://192.168.0.10","dmain\\administrator","admin",AuthenticationTypes.Secure);
                        object native = entry.NativeObject;
                        Console.WriteLine("User authenticated.");
                        DirectoryEntry ou = entry.Children.Find("OU=ADMIN_USERS");
                        DirectorySearcher srch = new DirectorySearcher(ou);
                        srch.Filter = "samaccountname=ap_admin";
                        SearchResult search = srch.FindOne();

                        DirectoryEntry user = search.GetDirectoryEntry();
                        user.Properties["description"].Value = "abcasaasasasasa";
                        object[] obj = {"aaa"};
                        user.Invoke("SetPassword",obj);
                        user.CommitChanges();
                        Console.WriteLine(search.Properties.Count);

Thanks, Nauman.

Actually this was an authentication problem and was b/c of using AuthenticationTypes.Secure seting. AuthenticationTypes.Signing or AuthenticationTypes.Sealing worked in changing the password. Thanks for the hielp.

-Nauman.

You can use DirectorySearcher to query users in a organizational unit, it is much faster than other way. It returns SearchResultCollection which contains user object collection. And at each user object you can retrieve information like login name, email and many other but not password because it is write-only attribute. Password in AD is a complicated thing and there's no way to do so that I'm aware of. But you can always create a custom attribute to store user password and retrieve it back at any time.


Dim baseDN As String = "LDAP://oneCity/OU=Users,DC=oneCity,DC=com"
Dim filter As String = "(&(objectClass=user)(objectCategory=person))"
Dim searcher As DirectorySearcher

Try

    searcher = New DirectorySearcher
    searcher.SearchRoot = New DirectoryEntry(baseDN)
    searcher.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree
    searcher.Filter = filter
    Dim results As SearchResultCollection = searcher.FindAll()
    For Each result As SearchResult In results
      'each SearchResult object here is a AD user class
      Dim loginName As String = CType(result.Properties("cn")(0), String)
      Dim email As String = CType(result.Properties("mail")(0), String)
    Next

Catch ex As Exception

Finally
    If Not IsNothing(searcher) Then
      searcher.Dispose()
    End If
End Try

HTH

Thanks for the resposne ihenry. But here I am with another problem :( Things work fine on console application but and once in asp.net but after that asp.net page stopped working and it gave the following exception:

 System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: One or more input parameters are invalid
System.RuntimeType.InvokeDispMethod(String name, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Object target, Object[] args, Boolean[] byrefModifiers, Int32 culture, String[] namedParameters) +0
   System.RuntimeType.InvokeMember(String name, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object target, Object[] args, ParameterModifier[] modifiers, CultureInfo culture, String[] namedParameters) +473
   System.Type.InvokeMember(String name, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object target, Object[] args) +29
   System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] args) +106

The line that giving exception is user.Invoke("SetPassword",obj); The other update work fine.

I can open a separate question if you would like.

Thanks for the help, Nauman.
 

what's the obj variable? SetPassword should be used like the following:
user.Invoke("SetPassword", new object[]{"" + NewPassword + ""});

Change password using SetPassword is a bit tricky. How are you invoking the SetPassword method? what user are you binding to active directory with? and are you binding using secure channel?