Zetetic.Ldap - Bringing LDAP & LDIF tools to .NET
Zetetic.Ldap is a . NET library for . NET 2 and above, which makes it easier to work with directory servers (like Active Directory, ADAM , Red Hat Directory Server, and others).
What’s it for?
We built the Zetetic.Ldap library to make directory projects and programming faster and easier, and release it here in the hopes that others will find it useful too. As far as we know, at this particular moment, this is the only .NET library that really understands the LDIF specification.
Features
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LDIF Parsing and Generation
SRead and write the file format used for moving data around between directory systems.
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LDAP Entry-oriented API with Change Tracking
Create and modify directory objects in a more natural way.
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LDAP Schema Interrogation
Quick programmatic access to the kinds of objects and fields your directory server understands. Learn if an attribute is a string, a number, a date, etc., without lots of manual research and re-parsing.
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LDIF Pivoter
Turn an LDIF file into a (comma or tab-delimited) flat file for analysis or loading into systems that don’t speak LDIF.
Examples
Zetetic.Ldap.LdifEntryReader
using (LdifEntryReader ldif = new LdifEntryReader(@"c:\temp\stuff.ldif"))
{
for (Entry entry = ldif.ReadEntry(); entry != null; entry = ldif.ReadEntry())
Console.WriteLine("Found: {0}", entry.DistinguishedName);
}
Zetetic.Ldap.LdifWriter
using (LdifWriter ldif = new LdifWriter(@"c:\temp\stuff.ldif"))
{
ldif.BeginEntry("cn=joe cool,o=zetetic");
ldif.WriteAttr("givenName", "joe");
ldif.WriteAttr("jpegPhoto", File.ReadAllBytes(@"c:\temp\joe-photo.jpeg");
ldif.WriteAttr("dateCreated", DateTime.Now);
ldif.Close();
}
Zetetic.Ldap.Schema
ISchemaInfo target = new AdsSchemaInfo();
using (LdapConnection conn = new LdapConnection("localhost:20389"))
{
conn.Bind(System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials);
target.Initialize(conn);
}
foreach (ObjectClassSchema o in target.ObjectClasses)
{
System.Console.WriteLine("oc: {0}", o);
foreach (AttributeSchema a in o.MustHave)
System.Console.WriteLine(" must: {0} as {1}", a, a.LangType);
foreach (AttributeSchema a in o.MayHave)
System.Console.WriteLine(" may : {0} as {1}", a, a.LangType);
}
The LDIF Pivoter
The pivoter transforms LDIF files into delimited files, so you can load them into a database (or elsewhere) for analysis and data quality checking. Let’s suppose you start out with a file like this, pulled from Active Directory with ldifde, or from any other directory server with ldapsearch:
dn: cn=molly,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net objectClass: top objectClass: person objectClass: organizationalPerson uid: mollybloom cn: molly givenName: Marion sn: Bloom dn: cn=leo,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net objectClass: top objectClass: person objectClass: organizationalPerson uid: leobloom cn: leo givenName: Leopold sn: Bloom dn: cn=stephen,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net objectClass: top objectClass: person objectClass: organizationalPerson uid: sdaedalus cn: stephen givenName: Stephen sn: Daedalus jpegPhoto:: JkfeJFLE32njkFKJEFHJEWLFHjlhjlfhulf7yYOfh3nfhjLHj fjlewfhJKLFEJ390KJFHJLEhjfejlwfh893hjhjlHKLhjkHJgvhwghjq 83hjkHFJKFGILUhjvlhjkdvguil3hu3289vfhjlfew7ylvhjlecewhjl dn: cn=characters,ou=groups,dc=dublin,dc=net objectClass: top objectClass: groupOfUniqueNames uid: characters uniqueMember: cn=molly,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net uniqueMember: cn=stephen,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net uniqueMember: cn=leo,ou=users,dc=dublin,dc=net
LDIF is a readable, flexible format, but it can be tricky to parse, particularly with folded lines on long values, binary syntax, etc. The pivoter is here to help.
The first step is to decide what values you want to draw out of the LDIF file. If you don’t tell the pivoter what columns to take, it will grab DN, RDN, parent DN, sAMAccountName, objectClass, sn, givenName, and mail. But if you want—let’s say—uid, sn, and objectClass only, point the pivoter to a little XML file like so:
<ArrayOfPivotColumn> <PivotColumn> <Source>uid</Source> <Destination>uid</Destination> <Index>0</Index> </PivotColumn> <PivotColumn> <Source>sn</Source> <Destination>sn</Destination> <Index>0</Index> </PivotColumn> <PivotColumn> <Source>objectClass</Source> <Destination>objectClass</Destination> <Index>-1</Index> </PivotColumn> </ArrayOfPivotColumn>
Now, launch the pivoter with the “-c” option to tell it where to load the XML configuration, and “-f” to specify the LDIF file:
Zetetic.Ldap.Pivoter.exe -c myconfig.xml -f dublin.ldif
You’ll get output like this — ready to rock in Excel or an RDBMS:
uid sn objectclass mollybloom Bloom organizationalPerson leobloom Bloom organizationalPerson sdaedalus Daedalus organizationalPerson characters groupOfUniqueNames