I am pretty new to C#
I have been using Powershell scripts to code things like Unlocking an AD user or Enabling/Disabling an account. however, I do this with a different account, so I will log in with the admin account (Get-Credential) and storing it as '$cred' for example.
I am currently trying to do a similar thing in C# and I have found how to effectively "Authenticate"
But I am not sure how to store that Authentication, or have my app Authenticated to do things with it like Disable or Unlock an AD Account.
I have this:
public bool ADauthenticate(string username, string password)
{
bool result = false;
using (DirectoryEntry _entry = new DirectoryEntry())
{
_entry.Username = username;
_entry.Password = password;
DirectorySearcher _searcher = new DirectorySearcher(_entry);
_searcher.Filter = "(objectclass=user)";
try
{
SearchResult _sr = _searcher.FindOne();
string _name = _sr.Properties["displayname"][0].ToString();
MessageBox.Show("authenticated!");
result = true;
this.Close();
}
catch
{
MessageBox.Show("Incorrect credentials");
this.ADUsername.Text = "";
this.ADPwd.Text = "";
}
}
return result; //true = user Authenticated.
}
Which just tells me that the account is correct of course, but doesn't keep my application "authenticated", any ideas?
It's not accurate to say that your "application" was authenticated. All that was authenticated is a single network connection to your domain controller. As soon as _entry is destroyed, you lose that authentication.
If you want everything to happen using those credentials, then you have several options, ranging from easy (for you) to more difficult:
Have your users run your application under the credentials they need. Then you don't need to bother getting their username and password or setting the username and password on the DirectoryEntry object. Users can do this by:
Using Shift + right-click on the application icon and click "Run as a different user", or
Create a shortcut to: runas.exe /user:DOMAIN\username "yourapplication.exe". This will open a command window asking for the password, then start your application under those credentials.
You still ask for the username and password, but restart your application under those credentials using Process.Start().
Keep the username and password variables alive for the life of the application and pass them to every DirectoryEntry object you create in your application.
Options 1 and 2 require the computer that you're running this from is joined to the same or trusted domain as the domain you are connecting to. But since I see you're not specifying the domain name, I'm guessing that's the case.
You can do this a lot easier by using the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement assembly and namespace.
Add a reference to the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement assembly to your project, and then use this code to validate username/password against AD:
using System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement;
// create the principal context
using (PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "YourDomain"))
{
bool accountValidated = ctx.ValidateCredentials(userName, password);
// do whatever you want to do with this information
}
Related
I'd like to ask for your help with following issue. I am working on ad-hoc application, will be used only by me and just once.
Part of it is to perform password reset for over 3000 users in AD and send them new credentials.
I can read from AD as normal user, but I have to use privileged account to modify it. How can I do that? I know, I can use PowerShell and have it done in a seconds, but I'd like to learn how to do it in C#.
My code to search for user is simple
public class ADSecurity
{
public static string getUserName(string sam)
{
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, IdentityType.SamAccountName, sam);
return user.Name;
}
}
How can I do the same, but as different user?
I've seen some guides, but none of them explained a-z ... just advice on how to impersonate, but nothing about how to use it. There was one article here about impersonation, but using LDAP protocol (DirectoryEntry). But as I understand, it is really slow.
Any advice appreciated. I need to run it 2 days from now, so in worst case scenario I use PowerShell to do it.
Thanks.
There are a few ways to do it:
Run your application under the needed credentials (Shift+right-click on the .exe file and use 'Run as a different user'). If you're just doing this once, this is the easiest.
Use the PrincipalContext constructor that accepts a username and password.
public class ADSecurity
{
public static string getUserName(string sam)
{
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, null, username, password);
UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, IdentityType.SamAccountName, sam);
return user.Name;
}
}
Use the DirectoryEntry constructor that accepts a username and password.
I'm not sure which example you're talking about that's "slow", but in my experience, using DirectoryEntry directly is almost always faster, as long as you use it correctly. The System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace (what you are using in your example) uses DirectoryEntry behind the scenes anyway.
Of course, options 2 & 3 require you know the password.
please take a few minutes and read my question completely. here is my problem :
I want to connect to LDAP server by C# for a web application, means clients connecting to the asp.net server.
*- The ldap server and application server are not the same.
**- They are not in a same domain.
I have been trying 4 different ways and could not solve the problem by none of them.
1-
var credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);
var serverId = new LdapDirectoryIdentifier("domain.net");
var conn = new LdapConnection(serverId, credentials);
conn.Bind();
2-
System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry entry = new System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry("LDAP://domain.net/DC=domain,DC=net");
entry.Username = "username";
entry.Password = "password";
System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher searcher = new System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher(entry);
searcher.Filter = "(&(objectClass=user))";
var results = searcher.FindAll();
the problem with these 2 ways is that the user must have an access to the server for login and we know that there is only admin of the system who has the permission.
3-
PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "domain.net");
var ret = pc.ValidateCredentials(model.UserName, model.Password);
the problem is the server must be in the domain of ldap server. we have this limitation !!
4-
https://auth0.com/blog/using-ldap-with-c-sharp/
public bool validateUser(string username, string password)
{
var sha1 = new SHA1Managed();
var digest = Convert.ToBase64String(sha1.ComputeHash(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(password)));
var request = new CompareRequest(string.Format("uid={0},ou=users,dc=example,dc=com", username),
"userPassword", "{SHA}" + digest);
var response = (CompareResponse)connection.SendRequest(request);
return response.ResultCode == ResultCode.CompareTrue;
}
this code does not return any thing. it will be very helpful if there is a query to compare usernames and passwords. this code seems to use this way but there are different types of hash algorithms. I tried to use SHA1 and MD5, and userPassword , unicodePwd attribute. but the return is empty all the time.
is it the best solution to put both servers in a same domain? any other solution , Thank you so much.
Method 1 is the simplest way. If that doesn't work, nothing will. So you will have to change your configuration to make it work.
When you say:
the user must have an access to the server for login and we know that there is only admin of the system who has the permission.
What do you mean? Are you explicitly denying login rights to the domain controllers? Are there network issues between the computer this is running on and the domain controller (can you hit port 389 on the domain controller(s))?
Update: PrincipalContext.ValidateCredentials just does an LDAP bind in behind - it uses LdapConnection. You can see the source code here. The probable reason why ValidateCredentials is working on a domain machine and not otherwise is because it uses Kerberos authentication by default, which will only work from a domain computer.
The same is true with LdapConnection. So try setting the authentication mode. For example, try Basic
var credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);
var serverId = new LdapDirectoryIdentifier("domain.net");
var conn = new LdapConnection(serverId, credentials, AuthType.Basic);
conn.Bind();
Or look at the available values and try what works.
Does anyone know how can I reset password for Active Directory in C#?
I wrote the following code to reset the password in Active Directory:
[WebMethod]
public static string ResetPassword(string test)
{
string userDn = "CN=Joe Bloggs,OU=Test Accounts,OU=ST IT,OU=Departments,OU=Internal,OU=Divisions,DC=thegroup,DC=com,DC=au";
string password = "!qwer12345";
DirectoryEntry uEntry = new DirectoryEntry(userDn);
uEntry.Invoke("SetPassword", new object[] { password });
uEntry.Properties["LockOutTime"].Value = 0; //unlock account
uEntry.Close();
return "hello";
}
When I run the code, an error displays when it reaches the line uEntry.Invoke("SetPassword", new object[] { password });
Does anyone know what's causing this issue and how I could fix it?
This seems to explain the cause of the issue- you need to supply admin credentials (username and password).
I would think it's a security issue - when you're running it locally
on Windows directly, it's being executed under your own account, which
most likely has enough privileges to create the user.
When you do it through the web service, you run it as the "anonymous"
ASP.NET user which by default most likely won't have the permissions
to do this.
So when you bind to AD, you will need to supply credentials (username
and password) that are sufficiently priviledged to be able to create
users. You can do this in the "new DirectoryEntry()" constructor -
check it's overloads.
I've done an application that basically goes through all active users on a network via DirectoryEntry, where I'm able to get each computers Username (login id), this is done by DE.UserName (DirectoryEntry).
Alright, so far so good, now with my problem; whenever I try to fetch it's password it's throwing an exception saying I need to have admin rights in order to get the password of each connected pc.
I am not the owner of the network, so I'm wondering if there's any way to auth as an admin or change your group to Administrator, or in any way bypass this so I can access it's password?
Code:
DirectoryEntry computers = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://JBVAS");//The domain
IEnumerator enumerator = computers.Children.GetEnumerator();
while(enumerator.MoveNext())
{
DirectoryEntry entry = enumerator.Current as DirectoryEntry;
Console.WriteLine("Username: {0}{1}Password: {2}",
entry.Username, Environment.NewLine, entry.Password);
}
You could use impersonation to make your code (temporary) run under a higher privileged user.
I wrote an easy-to-use impersonation class some years back, you can find it over at CodeProject.com.
An example could be:
using ( new Impersonator( "myUsername", "myDomainname", "myPassword" ) )
{
// code that executes under the new context
}
Put your Active Directory code that needs administrator permissions inside the using block.
I am having issues getting the groups from Active Directory via System.DirectoryServices
Originally I started my application on a computer that was registered on the domain, but as it was a live domain I did not want to do any writes to AD what so ever, so I set up a machine with Windows XP as the host operating system, and installed windows server 2003 on a VM.
I've added another Ethernet port in the machine and set up a switch, the 1 Ethernet port is dedicated to the VM and the other port is used for the host.
After configuring the IP addresses to get them communicating I transferred my application onto the host machine and fired it up, but I was getting an DirectoryServicesCOMException.
With the message that the user name and password was invalid :( just to check that it was not active directory I created a 3rd virtual machine and installed Windows XP, which i added to the domain with the credentials tested in the APP, works a treat.
So I thought it must be because the machine where the application is running is not part of the domain.
Heres the block of code that was causing the issue:
public CredentialValidation(String Domain, String Username, String Password, Boolean Secure)
{
//Validate the Domain!
try
{
PrincipalContext Context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, Domain); //Throws Exception
_IsValidDomain = true;
//Test the user login
_IsValidLogin = Context.ValidateCredentials(Username, Password);
//Check the Group Admin is within this user
//******HERE
var Results = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(Context, Username).GetGroups(Context);
foreach(Principal Result in Results)
{
if (Result.SamAccountName == "Domain Admins")
{
_IsAdminGroup = true;
break;
}
}
Results.Dispose();
Context.Dispose();
}
catch (PrincipalServerDownException)
{
_IsValidDomain = false;
}
}
The information in the login dialogue is being entered like so:
Domain: test.internal
Username: testaccount
Password: Password01
Hope someone can shed some light in this error.
Update:
After checking the Security Logs on the server i can see that my log in attempts was successful, but this is down to:
_IsValidLogin = Context.ValidateCredentials(Username, Password);
The line after where im checking the groups is causing the error, so the main issue is that the lines of code below are not working correctly from a machine thats not joined to the network:
var Results = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(Context, Username).GetGroups(Context);
According to your code snippet, you're failing when you attempt to create the PrincipalContext, before calling ValidateCredentials. At that point the thread running your code is still working under either a local identity (if you're in a web process) or the identity you signed onto your machine with (for a windows process). Either of these won't exist on the test.internal domain.
You might want to try the overload of PrincipalContext that includes the username and password in the constructor. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb341016.aspx
I used to do quite a bit of user management via C# .NET. I just dug up some methods you can try.
The following two methods will get a DirectoryEntry object for a given SAM account name. It takes a DirectoryEntry that is the root of the OU you want to start searching for the account at.
The other will give you a list of distinguished names of the groups the user is a member of. You can then use those DN's to search AD and get a DirectoryEntry object.
public List<string> GetMemberOf(DirectoryEntry de)
{
List<string> memberof = new List<string>();
foreach (object oMember in de.Properties["memberOf"])
{
memberof.Add(oMember.ToString());
}
return memberof;
}
public DirectoryEntry GetObjectBySAM(string sam, DirectoryEntry root)
{
using (DirectorySearcher searcher = new DirectorySearcher(root, string.Format("(sAMAccountName={0})", sam)))
{
SearchResult sr = searcher.FindOne();
if (!(sr == null)) return sr.GetDirectoryEntry();
else
return null;
}
}