Question

Premise, it is first time I work with Active Directory (my project is a web app in Asp.Net MVC).

For a User in Active Directory I need to read an attribute givenName in my C#.

My questions:

1. Using Active Directory Browser on Windows Server I cannot see givenName attribute for a user. Can this attribute be hidden from the view in Active Directory?

2. Could you provide me a sample of code which allow me to take the givenName attribute knowing the UserName for the user?

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);

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

if(user != null)
{
   // do something here.... 
   string givenName = user.GivenName;    
}

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