Validate a username and password against Active Di

Question

How can I validate a username and password against Active Directory? I simply want to check if a username and password are correct.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no "simple" way to check a users credentials on AD.

With every method presented so far, you may get a false-negative: A user's creds will be valid, however AD will return false under certain circumstances:

• User is required to Change Password at Next Logon.
• User's password has expired.

ActiveDirectory will not allow you to use LDAP to determine if a password is invalid due to the fact that a user must change password or if their password has expired.

To determine password change or password expired, you may call Win32:LogonUser(), and check the windows error code for the following 2 constants:

• ERROR_PASSWORD_MUST_CHANGE = 1907
• ERROR_PASSWORD_EXPIRED = 1330

Answer 2

My Simple Function

 private bool IsValidActiveDirectoryUser(string activeDirectoryServerDomain, string username, string password)
    {
        try
        {
            DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" + activeDirectoryServerDomain, username + "@" + activeDirectoryServerDomain, password, AuthenticationTypes.Secure);
            DirectorySearcher ds = new DirectorySearcher(de);
            ds.FindOne();
            return true;
        }
        catch //(Exception ex)
        {
            return false;
        }
    }

Answer 3

Try this code (NOTE: Reported to not work on windows server 2000)

#region NTLogonUser
#region Direct OS LogonUser Code
[DllImport( "advapi32.dll")]
private static extern bool LogonUser(String lpszUsername, 
    String lpszDomain, String lpszPassword, int dwLogonType, 
    int dwLogonProvider, out int phToken);

[DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
private static extern int GetLastError();

public static bool LogOnXP(String sDomain, String sUser, String sPassword)
{
   int token1, ret;
   int attmpts = 0;

   bool LoggedOn = false;

   while (!LoggedOn && attmpts < 2)
   {
      LoggedOn= LogonUser(sUser, sDomain, sPassword, 3, 0, out token1);
      if (LoggedOn) return (true);
      else
      {
         switch (ret = GetLastError())
         {
            case (126): ; 
               if (attmpts++ > 2)
                  throw new LogonException(
                      "Specified module could not be found. error code: " + 
                      ret.ToString());
               break;

            case (1314): 
               throw new LogonException(
                  "Specified module could not be found. error code: " + 
                      ret.ToString());

            case (1326): 
               // edited out based on comment
               //  throw new LogonException(
               //   "Unknown user name or bad password.");
            return false;

            default: 
               throw new LogonException(
                  "Unexpected Logon Failure. Contact Administrator");
              }
          }
       }
   return(false);
}
#endregion Direct Logon Code
#endregion NTLogonUser

except you'll need to create your own custom exception for "LogonException"

Answer 4

If you are stuck with .NET 2.0 and managed code, here is another way that works whith local and domain accounts:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Security;
using System.Diagnostics;

static public bool Validate(string domain, string username, string password)
{
    try
    {
        Process proc = new Process();
        proc.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo()
        {
            FileName = "no_matter.xyz",
            CreateNoWindow = true,
            WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,
            WorkingDirectory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData),
            UseShellExecute = false,
            RedirectStandardError = true,
            RedirectStandardOutput = true,
            RedirectStandardInput = true,
            LoadUserProfile = true,
            Domain = String.IsNullOrEmpty(domain) ? "" : domain,
            UserName = username,
            Password = Credentials.ToSecureString(password)
        };
        proc.Start();
        proc.WaitForExit();
    }
    catch (System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception ex)
    {
        switch (ex.NativeErrorCode)
        {
            case 1326: return false;
            case 2: return true;
            default: throw ex;
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw ex;
    }

    return false;
}   

Answer 5

very simple solution using DirectoryServices:

using System.DirectoryServices;

//srvr = ldap server, e.g. LDAP://domain.com
//usr = user name
//pwd = user password
public bool IsAuthenticated(string srvr, string usr, string pwd)
{
    bool authenticated = false;

    try
    {
        DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(srvr, usr, pwd);
        object nativeObject = entry.NativeObject;
        authenticated = true;
    }
    catch (DirectoryServicesCOMException cex)
    {
        //not authenticated; reason why is in cex
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        //not authenticated due to some other exception [this is optional]
    }

    return authenticated;
}

the NativeObject access is required to detect a bad user/password

Answer 6

Yet another .NET call to quickly authenticate LDAP credentials:

using System.DirectoryServices;

using(var DE = new DirectoryEntry(path, username, password)
{
    try
    {
        DE.RefreshCache(); // This will force credentials validation
    }
    catch (COMException ex)
    {
        // Validation failed - handle how you want
    }
}