Question

I am making an application is asp.net to check some transaction reports. I want to use bank ldap server because bank employes can only access that application and check those reports. So please guide me for the ldap connection in asp.net using c# (Windows authentication)

Answer 1

If you’re on .NET 3.5 and up, you should check out the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement (S.DS.AM) namespace. Read all about it here:

• Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5
• MSDN docs on System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement

Basically, you can define a domain context and easily find users and/or groups in AD:

// set up domain context
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);

// validate credentials
bool isValid = ctx.ValidateCredentials("myuser", "mypassword");

// find a user
UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, "SomeUserName");

if(user != null)
{
   // do something here....     
}

The new S.DS.AM makes it really easy to play around with users and groups in AD!

Additionally, in ASP.NET, you might need to make sure that either the account your web site is running under (in IIS) has the permissions to read out AD, or you might need to supply separate credentials for AD access by using one of the several overloaded constructors for PrincipalContext