Active Directory - Roles of a user [duplicate]

Answer 1

In an Active Directory context, the Roles you refer to are really the security (or authorization) groups a user is a member of.

So if you're on .NET 3.5 and up, you should check out the System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement (S.DS.AM) namespace. Read all about it here:

• Managing Directory Security Principals in the .NET Framework 3.5
• MSDN docs on System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement

Basically, you can define a domain context and easily find users and/or groups in AD:

// set up domain context
using (PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain))
{
   // find a user
   UserPrincipal user = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, "SomeUserName");

   if(user != null)
   {
       // get the authorization groups - those are the "roles" 
       var groups = user.GetAuthorizationGroups();

       foreach(Principal principal in groups)
       {
           // do something with the group (or role) in question
       }
   }
}

The new S.DS.AM makes it really easy to play around with users and groups in AD!