Populating a custom attribute in AD when creating a new user through code

Question

I don't have that much experience with AD but from looking online I've found how to programatically create users through C#. I've also read up on custom attributes and what I was hoping to do was to create a new custom attribute, let's say 'myNewAttribute' and populate it as part of the user creation.

I had thought that if I add this custom attribute in AD then it should be possible to populate it on every account creation but maybe it needs to be created each time?

Assuming it does not need to be created each time, up until now I've created users by doing something like:

using(var pc = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, <SERVER HERE>,username,password))
{
    using(var up = new UserPrincipal(pc)){
        up.UserPrincipalName = "whatever";
        up.Save();
    }
}

What I would ideally like to be able to do is:

up.myNewAttribute = "new value here";

Is this possible or if not how can I set the attribute value here?

Does your custom attribute already exists in AD? And you just want to set/update the value using C#. — Muhammad Hannan
– Muhammad Hannan, Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 10:01
It will, I am planning on creating it in AD (adding to the schema I believe is what happens) and setting the value of it through code. Yes, updating / setting the value. — Full Time Skeleton
– Full Time Skeleton, Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 10:02
You can use DirectoryEntry for this. Please check stackoverflow.com/questions/36100121/… — Muhammad Hannan
– Muhammad Hannan, Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 10:15

Gabriel Luci · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-26 15:06:33Z

1

The UserPrincipal class only exposes certain attributes. For any others, you have to access the underlying DirectoryEntry object and modify it directly:

((DirectoryEntry) up.GetUnderlyingObject()).Properties["myNewAttribute"].Value = "new value here";

If it's something you'll be doing frequently, another option is to create your own class that inherits from UserPrincipal and exposes that attribute as a property. There is an example with GroupPrincipal here, but it applies just the same to UserPrincipal: https://anyrest.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/how-to-use-ad-attributes-not-represented-in-userprincipal-groupprincipal-and-computerprincipal/

answered Apr 26, 2019 at 15:06

Gabriel Luci

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