We're using LDAP to authenticate users against a large Active Directory setup. We want to extract the list of all groups from Active Directory so that we can mirror them in a local database, and map users' AD groups to local groups.
However when we run the ldap query to get a list of all groups, Active Directory limits the maximum results for our search.
What is the best strategy to get this information given the limitations on query result size? Can we use some form of query paging?
Thanks in advance!
Active-Directory support pagging control. You must refer to Microsoft official article : Searching the Directory ans especialy Search Size and Page Size
A simple paged results query can be used to do that. The key would be to ensure that the requested page size does not exceed whatever the maximum results size is for your Active Directory instance.
The ADO wrappers for ADSI, for example, automatically page results, an example of which can be found here, though obviously that may or may not work for you depending on your technology stack.
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
You can use a PrincipalSearcher and a "query-by-example" principal to do your searching:
// create your domain context
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
// define a "query-by-example" principal - here, we search for any GroupPrincipal
GroupPrincipal qbeGroup = new GroupPrincipal(ctx);
// create your principal searcher passing in the QBE principal
PrincipalSearcher srch = new PrincipalSearcher(qbeGroup);
// to get around the 1'000 or so object limit - you need to "go deep" and
// set the page size on the underlying DirectorySearcher to e.g. 500
(searcher.GetUnderlyingSearcher() as DirectorySearcher).PageSize = 500;
// find all matches
foreach(var found in srch.FindAll())
{
// do whatever here - "found" is of type "Principal" - it could be user, group, computer.....
}
You can specify any of the properties on the GroupPrincipal and use those as "query-by-example" for your PrincipalSearcher.
Related
Our organization stores signing certificates in Active Directory. We are using anonymous bind to search for them at a base DN (e.g. OU=MY ORG,dc=mydc,dc=org). I have been trying to use the Spring LdapTemplate to look them up, but no matter what method I use, I get the cryptic InterruptedNamingException.
Assuming a cert subject of cn=mycert.myorg.com
My code looks like this
LdapContextSource contextSource = new LdapContextSource();
contextSource.setUrl(String.format(LDAP_URL_FORMAT, ldapCertStoreParameters.getServerName(),
ldapCertStoreParameters.getPort()));
contextSource.setBase(ldapCertStoreParameters.getBaseDn());
contextSource.setAnonymousReadOnly(true);
contextSource.afterPropertiesSet();
LdapTemplate ldapTemplate = new LdapTemplate(contextSource);
ldapTemplate.setIgnorePartialResultException(true);
ldapTemplate.afterPropertiesSet();
X500Principal principal = x509CertSelector.getSubject();
Object obj = ldapTemplate.lookup(new LdapName(principal.getName()));
The X500 principal's name is the whole dn. cn=mycert.myorg.com,OU=MY ORG,dc=mydc,dc=org
I have also tried the search using just the cn.
We have verified that the DN exists on the server using Apache Directory Studio.
• I would suggest you to please remove the call altogether or set the ‘userSearchBase’ either to an empty String (“”) as per the given example in the below community thread: -
Configure Spring security for Ldap connection
As in the ‘AbstractContextSource’, set the base suffix from which all operations should origin. If a base suffix is set, you will not have to (and, indeed, must not) specify the full distinguished names in any operations performed. Since you specified the full DN for the userDN/filter, you must not specify the base.
AD servers are apparently unable to handle referrals automatically, which causes a ‘PartialResultException’ to be thrown whenever a referral is encountered in a search. To avoid this, set the ‘ignorePartialResultException’ property to true. There is currently no way of manually handling these referrals in the form of ‘ReferralException’, i.e., either you get the exception (and your results are lost) or all referrals are ignored (if the server is unable to handle them properly). Neither is there any simple way to get notified that a ‘PartialResultException’ has been ignored.
For more details regarding the LDAP template search for Active Directory stored certificates, kindly refer to the link below: -
https://docs.spring.io/spring-ldap/docs/current/apidocs/org/springframework/ldap/core/LdapTemplate.html
• Also, please try to refer to the below documentation for configuration of Springboot LDAP template configuration through certificates stored in Active Directory: -
https://www.baeldung.com/x-509-authentication-in-spring-security
I want to get incremental changes from Active Directory using C# and for that I am trying to build a solution as mentioned in the following article (using DirSync Control).
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/ad/polling-for-changes-using-the-dirsync-control
However, I am facing following problems:
When using following code, I am getting exception that The user has insufficient access rights. The user is part of administrators group.
What more permission needs to be given to that account? And how?
LdapConnection connection = new LdapConnection("adfs.fed.zzz.com");
connection.SessionOptions.ProtocolVersion = 3;
connection.Credential = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("adfsfed\\username", "password");
connection.AuthType = AuthType.Basic;
connection.Bind();
var filter = "(&(objectClass=*))";
var searchRequest = new SearchRequest("", filter, SearchScope.Subtree, properties);
DirSyncRequestControl dirSyncRC = new DirSyncRequestControl(null, DirectorySynchronizationOptions.None);
searchRequest.Controls.Add(dirSyncRC);
var response = connection.SendRequest(searchRequest) as SearchResponse;
If I am using below code, then I am not getting any exception but getting empty result in cookie.
String[] properties = { "objectGUID", "sAMAccountName", "displayName", "mail", "member" };
String filter = "(|(objectClass=group)(objectClass=user))";
DirectorySearcher directorySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(myLdapConnection, filter, properties);
var dSynch = new DirectorySynchronization(System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySynchronizationOptions.None);
directorySearcher.DirectorySynchronization = dSynch;
directorySearcher.SearchScope = System.DirectoryServices.SearchScope.Subtree;
var results = directorySearcher.FindAll();
var cookie = dSynch.GetDirectorySynchronizationCookie();
Considerations:
I have only one Domain Controller
I am system admin. So, I can assign appropriate permissions to the user.
Please help.
• Your user ID will need the "Replicating Directory Changes" permission and should be a member of ‘Domain Administrators’ group to use the DirSync LDAP control extension. But please note that it pretty much can read anything in the directory partition, regardless of standard permissions. Though they cannot change anything.
However - you may have some attributes that are sensitive in your directory. Please refer the powershell script in the below link and execute it with the user ID after giving appropriate permissions using C#. It is a dirsync code that will retrieve even attributes like ‘userAccountControl, userparameters, msexchuseraccountcontrol, pwdlastset, unicodePwd (BLANK, So no hashed domain password is returned), lockouttime, accountexpires, unixuserpassword(Its Hash is returned).
http://dloder.blogspot.com/2012/01/powershell-dirsync-sample.html
Based on the response given by #KartikBhiwapurkar-MT, I figured out the bug.
The error The user has insufficient access rights is completely misleading (User had already Replicating Directory Changes rights and was part of Domain Administrators group). The error was happening in System.DirectoryServices.Protocols is that I was passing out "" as first parameter (distinguishedName)
new SearchRequest("", filter, SearchScope.Subtree, properties);
but it should have been passed as
new SearchRequest("DC=adfs,DC=fed,DC=zzz,DC=com", filter, SearchScope.Subtree, properties);
I was getting empty cookie in System.DirectoryServices because of bug in latest nuget package (6.0.0). At the time of writing this answer, the bug is still open.
Reference to bug
I am using MSAL to validate a user against Microsoft Azure AD and am getting a valid token back.
The MSAL library is handing me back a User object which contains a property called userIdentifier.
This is a string, not a GUID.
The documentation says to use a field called oid to uniquely identify users across the Microsoft Identity platform. I have this property available under User.idToken.oid.
This value is a GUID as the documentation says.
My question is, what is this User.userIdentifier and should I be using this? I need to know what to store on the database side to tie this local user to an Azure AD user.
For clarity's sake it is advised to use the accountIdentifier property as it will always be populated, even in the edge cases where oid might not be available:
const accountIdentifier: string = idToken.objectId || idToken.subject;
More info on GitHub.
Looking at the source code (https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-js/blob/dev/lib/msal-core/src/Account.ts), there is no userIdentifier, but there is an accountIdentifier.
Could be yours is an older version, in which case this might not be correct for that.
// create accountIdentifier
const accountIdentifier: string = idToken.objectId || idToken.subject;
It is either the oid or sub claim, whichever has a value.
If you want the oid, you should get it from the idTokenClaims property on Account.
i'm looking for an easy way to export all active directory users info into unique vcards for each. there is some info i'd like to leave out of the vcard like home phone, and emergency contact. i've looked around the web and have little luck finding anything. any help would be appreciated.
I doubt there will be a very easy way. Ultimately, you need to
enumerate all your users (or a subset therefore)
iterate over the resulting list of users
export each user's data to a VCard
For the searching & iterating part, you can use a PrincipalSearcher to do your searching:
// create your domain context
using (PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
// define a "query-by-example" principal - here, we search for a UserPrincipal
// this "QBE" user would give you the ability to further limit what you get back
// as results from the searcher
UserPrincipal qbeUser = new UserPrincipal(ctx);
// create your principal searcher passing in the QBE principal
PrincipalSearcher srch = new PrincipalSearcher(qbeUser);
// find all matches
foreach(var found in srch.FindAll())
{
UserPrincipal foundUser = found as UserPrincipal;
if(foundUser != null)
{
ExportToVCard(foundUser);
}
}
}
And now all that's left to do is create the ExportToVCard function :-) See e.g. this blog post with code samples and further links for help.
If you haven't already - absolutely read the MSDN article Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5 which shows nicely how to make the best use of the new features in System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement. Or see the MSDN documentation on the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace.
If you just want the data itself, I would take a look at Softerra's free LDAP Browser, found here.
Setup a profile for your directory server - once it's connected in the browser, you'll see the default schema for the BaseDN you've provided during the initial setup. On the server icon, right click, and hit "Export Data".
The export wizard will walk you through most of the process, but the important part is Step 3. If you want to find all users, just set your search filter to (objectClass=user), make sure your search scope is SubTree, and then then edit what attributes you want to return.
You'll have to process the results into VCards, but this is the easiest\fastest way of getting all the users and attributes that you want.
the company I work for has 2 Active Directory forests. One forest is called us where I log on in the morning with my profile (us\maflorin) and another forest is called (mail.us) which is dedicated to Exchange.
I have created an asp.net application that runs on SharePoint and gets the SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.LoginName which is the us domain login name. (us\maflorin for example for me). I would like to get from the us credentials the corresponding object on the Exchange forest in order to write changes to the global address list (GAL) for user that opened the page after a line manager approval process.
I wrote the following working code to get the Exchange object, but it uses two ldap queries to find the object:
private Dictionary<string,AdRecod> FindExchangeAdProperties(string samAccountName,string description)
{
Dictionary<string,AdRecod> properties = null;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(samAccountName))
{
properties = GetUserProperties(#"(&(objectCategory=person)(mailNickname=" +
samAccountName + "))");
if (properties != null) return properties;
}
if ((description == "") || (description == "0"))
throw new Exception("No matching Description, couldn't find correct Exchange AD object");
properties = GetUserProperties(#"(&(objectCategory=person)(description=" +
description + "))");
return properties;
}
Is it possible to get the exchange object with a single ldap query directly from the us samAccountName?
The mailNickname attribute on the exchange forest does not always match the sAMAccountName on the us forest. If it does not match, I use the second ldap query to see if a record is return by querying on the description field. The description field is many times the same for both forests but sometimes an administrator changed it.
Is it possible to find the corresponding Exchange Active Directory object for the us domain credentials more easily? How does Outlook find from the us credentials the corresponding mailbox / Ad object ? I was looking at the AD schema with adsiedit but could not find a clear field that is used to link the two forest objects together.
Furthermore I was looking into the Autodiscover service of the exchange web services managed api (mailbox dn attribute) but you need to pass into the GetUserSettings method an SMTP address and this field is not populated on the us domain.
Many thanks,
Mathias
I was able to find an answer to this question with a better approach than the one above which depends on the company's naming convention.
On the exchange forest I run a LDAP query with the DirectorySearcher class to obtain the attribute msExchMasterAccountSid.
The following code then provides the correct sam on the forest we use to logon:
var sid = directoryEntry.Properties["msExchMasterAccountSid"].Value as byte[];
// no mailbox
if (sid == null) continue;
var sidString = new SecurityIdentifier(sid, 0).ToString();
var samAccountName = "";
using (var context = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "US"))
{
var principal = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(context, IdentityType.Sid, sidString);
if (principal == null) continue;
samAccountName = principal.SamAccountName;
}