C# – How to find a user’s Active Directory display name in a C# web application

active-directoryc

I'm writing a web application which uses windows authentication and I can happily get the user's login name using something like:

 string login = User.Identity.Name.ToString();

But I don't need their login name I want their DisplayName. I've been banging my head for a couple hours now…

Can I access my organisation's AD via a web application?

Best Answer

How about this:

private static string GetFullName()
    {
        try
        {
            DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + Environment.UserDomainName + "/" + Environment.UserName);
            return de.Properties["displayName"].Value.ToString();
        }
        catch { return null; }
    }

Related Solutions

C# – Validate a username and password against Active Directory

If you work on .NET 3.5 or newer, you can use the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace and easily verify your credentials:

// create a "principal context" - e.g. your domain (could be machine, too)
using(PrincipalContext pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, "YOURDOMAIN"))
{
    // validate the credentials
    bool isValid = pc.ValidateCredentials("myuser", "mypassword");
}

It's simple, it's reliable, it's 100% C# managed code on your end - what more can you ask for? :-)

Read all about it here:

Update:

As outlined in this other SO question (and its answers), there is an issue with this call possibly returning True for old passwords of a user. Just be aware of this behavior and don't be too surprised if this happens :-) (thanks to @MikeGledhill for pointing this out!)

C# – How to get the current user’s Active Directory details in C#

The "pre Windows 2000" name i.e. DOMAIN\SomeBody, the Somebody portion is known as sAMAccountName.

So try:

using(DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://MyDomainController"))
{
   using(DirectorySearcher adSearch = new DirectorySearcher(de))
   {
     adSearch.Filter = "(sAMAccountName=someuser)";
     SearchResult adSearchResult = adSearch.FindOne();
   }
}

someuser@somedomain.com.au is the UserPrincipalName, but it isn't a required field.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – Validate a username and password against Active Directory

C# – How to get the current user’s Active Directory details in C#

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