Active Directory Attribute List Using c#

Question

How i get the list of active directory user attributes(not of particular user i.e.all attributes) e.g.cn,mail etc. using c#?

Answer 1

If you're on .NET 3.5 and up, you need to check out the classes in System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory for this. You need to look at classes like ActiveDirectorySchema and ActiveDirectorySchemaClass.

You can get hold of the current AD schema by using:

ActiveDirectorySchema currSchema = ActiveDirectorySchema.GetCurrentSchema();

When you have the current schema, you can inspect the various class definitions, e.g.:

ActiveDirectorySchemaClass userSchema = currSchema.FindClass("person");

Once you have that object, you can inspect and enumerate its properties, things like:

• MandatoryProperties
• OptionalProperties

and so on to get an insight into the AD schema.

Answer 2

UserPropertyList = new List<string>();

ActiveDirectorySchema currSchema = ActiveDirectorySchema.GetCurrentSchema();

ICollection Collection = currSchema.FindAllProperties();

IEnumerator Enumerator = Collection.GetEnumerator();

while (Enumerator.MoveNext())
{
   UserPropertyList.Add(Enumerator.Current.ToString());
}

The above code will add all search attributes of Active Directory to the UserPropertyList...

Answer 3

DirectoryEntry dir = new DirectoryEntry();
    dir.Path = "LDAP://YourActiveDirServername ";        
    DirectorySearcher sea = new DirectorySearcher(dir);
    sea.Filter = "(sAMAccountName=Uname)";
    SearchResult seares = sea.FindOne();      
    StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder();
    System.DirectoryServices.ResultPropertyCollection prop = seares.Properties;
    ICollection coll = prop.PropertyNames;
    IEnumerator enu = coll.GetEnumerator(); 
        while (enu.MoveNext())
        {
            str.Append(enu.Current + " = " + seares.Properties[enu.Current.ToString()][0] + "\n");
        }  

Also, take a look at: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/everythingInAD.aspx

Answer 4

While ADExplorer does not list all the available attributes, I have found it a great tool for seeing what goes where.

You can download it from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963907.aspx

Answer 5

Expanding on marc_s's answer here. Here is a complete code example that prints the common name and the actual attribute name.

ActiveDirectorySchema schema = ActiveDirectorySchema.GetCurrentSchema();
ActiveDirectorySchemaClass person = schema.FindClass("user");
foreach( ActiveDirectorySchemaProperty property in person.GetAllProperties() )
{
    Console.WriteLine("{0} = {1}", property.CommonName, property.Name);
}

Example output.

Common-Name = cn
Instance-Type = instanceType
NT-Security-Descriptor = nTSecurityDescriptor
Object-Category = objectCategory
Object-Class = objectClass
Object-Sid = objectSid
SAM-Account-Name = sAMAccountName
Account-Expires = accountExpires
...

Answer 6

You could use WMI:

 ObjectGetOptions objectGetOptions = new ObjectGetOptions(null, System.TimeSpan.MaxValue, true);
 ManagementClass managementClass = new ManagementClass("root\\directory\\LDAP", "ads_user", objectGetOptions);

 foreach (PropertyData dataObject in managementClass.Properties)
 {
    Console.WriteLine(dataObject.Name);
 }