There's a question about converting from a SID to an account name; there isn't one for the other way around.
How do you convert a username to a SID string, for example, to find out which HKEY_USERS subkey relates to a user of a given name?
There's a question about converting from a SID to an account name; there isn't one for the other way around.
How do you convert a username to a SID string, for example, to find out which HKEY_USERS subkey relates to a user of a given name?
The podcast tells me I should ask, and answer, questions when they're not answered on SO already. Here goes.
The easy way, with .NET 2.0 and up, is this:
NTAccount f = new NTAccount("username"); SecurityIdentifier s = (SecurityIdentifier) f.Translate(typeof(SecurityIdentifier)); String sidString = s.ToString();
The hard way, which works when that won't, and works on .NET 1.1 also:
[DllImport("advapi32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto, SetLastError=true)] public static extern bool LookupAccountName([In,MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)] string systemName, [In,MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)] string accountName, IntPtr sid, ref int cbSid, StringBuilder referencedDomainName, ref int cbReferencedDomainName, out int use); [DllImport("advapi32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto, SetLastError=true)] internal static extern bool ConvertSidToStringSid(IntPtr sid, [In,Out,MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPTStr)] ref string pStringSid); /// The method converts object name (user, group) into SID string. /// Object name in form domain\object_name. /// SID string. public static string GetSid(string name) { IntPtr _sid = IntPtr.Zero; //pointer to binary form of SID string. int _sidLength = 0; //size of SID buffer. int _domainLength = 0; //size of domain name buffer. int _use; //type of object. StringBuilder _domain = new StringBuilder(); //stringBuilder for domain name. int _error = 0; string _sidString = ""; //first call of the function only returns the sizes of buffers (SDI, domain name) LookupAccountName(null, name, _sid, ref _sidLength, _domain, ref _domainLength, out _use); _error = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error(); if (_error != 122) //error 122 (The data area passed to a system call is too small) - normal behaviour. { throw (new Exception(new Win32Exception(_error).Message)); } else { _domain = new StringBuilder(_domainLength); //allocates memory for domain name _sid = Marshal.AllocHGlobal(_sidLength); //allocates memory for SID bool _rc = LookupAccountName(null, name, _sid, ref _sidLength, _domain, ref _domainLength, out _use); if (_rc == false) { _error = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error(); Marshal.FreeHGlobal(_sid); throw (new Exception(new Win32Exception(_error).Message)); } else { // converts binary SID into string _rc = ConvertSidToStringSid(_sid, ref _sidString); if (_rc == false) { _error = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error(); Marshal.FreeHGlobal(_sid); throw (new Exception(new Win32Exception(_error).Message)); } else { Marshal.FreeHGlobal(_sid); return _sidString; } } } }
The LookupAccountName()
native method has the advantage of being able to be executed on a remote machine whereas the .NET methods can't be executed remotely.
Though the example doesn't show it LookupAccountName(null)
using System; using System.Management; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace WMISample { public class MyWMIQuery { public static void Main() { try { ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\CIMV2", "SELECT * FROM Win32_UserAccount where name='Galia'"); foreach (ManagementObject queryObj in searcher.Get()) { Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------"); Console.WriteLine("Win32_UserAccount instance"); Console.WriteLine("-----------------------------------"); Console.WriteLine("Name: {0}", queryObj["Name"]); Console.WriteLine("SID: {0}", queryObj["SID"]); } } catch (ManagementException e) { MessageBox.Show("An error occurred while querying for WMI data: " + e.Message); } } } }