Creating User ON AD (Active Directory) by C# programming.

Introduction

Microsoft’s Active Directory aka AD is used to manage user, computer and other resources on Domain Cotroller. There are many tools available for managing Active Directory. When it comes to deal with Active directory its headache for many programmers.  There are plenty of sample code available on Microsoft’s MSDN foum.

Technical

Working with Active directory one has be concern about Network Security, business Rule and Technological constraints. If you are accessing your Active Directory through ASP.Net /MVC Web Application, then you must be sure about the permission at IIS level and Domain Controller Level.

For Accessing Active directory protocol used is known as LDAP(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Microsoft Provides methods to deal with LDAP in System.DirectoryServices assembly.

In  DirectoryServices Assembly a class named DirectoryEntry  used to access Active Directory. This class inherits Component class.

By creating instance of this class we create pointer to all directory entries. Constructor of this class take LDAP Url,credential and Authentication Type as arguments as shown bellow:

DirectoryEntry MailFolder = new DirectoryEntry(LDAPPath,”username”, “password”, AuthenticationTypes.Secure);

Here authenticationType enum does have following values

• Anonymous
• Delegation
• Encryption
• Fastbind
• None
• ReadOnlyServer
• Sealing
• Secure
• SecureSocketssLayer

We have chosen here to have Secure AuthenticationType.

Parameter “LDAPPath”: This will be the Ldap Url that points to your active directory

For ex. LDAP://myDc.myServer.net:389/DC=myServer,DC=net

Parameter “Username”: This will be the username that have access to Active Directory.

Parameter “Password”: Password for supplied username.