Querying Active Directory from SQL Server 2005

Question

How can I query Active Directory from SQL Server 2005?

Answer 1

Yes.

Linked server:

EXEC master.dbo.sp_addlinkedserver
    @server = N'ADSI', 
    @srvproduct=N'Active Directory Services',
    @provider=N'ADsDSOObject', 
    @datasrc=N'Servername.domain.com'

Query:

select * from openquery
(
ADSI,'SELECT name 
FROM ''LDAP://Servername.domain.com''
WHERE objectCategory = ''Person'' AND objectClass = ''user''
')

There are lots of examples if you search linked server and LDPA on Google. I say this because LDAP can be quite complicated to work with.