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Natively Connect to Active Directory Data in PHP


The CData ODBC driver for Active Directory enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to Active Directory data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Active Directory into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Active Directory-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Active Directory data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To establish a connection, set the following properties:

  • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
  • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

  • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

    Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Active Directory by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC ActiveDirectory Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC ActiveDirectory Source","user","password"); ... odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC ActiveDirectory Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Administrator'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC ActiveDirectory Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, LogonCount FROM User");

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Active Directory data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, LogonCount FROM User"); while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){ echo $row["Id"] . "\n"; }

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Active Directory data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM User WHERE CN = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Administrator')); if($success) odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are Active Directory-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.

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Active Directory Icon Active Directory ODBC Driver

The Active Directory ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Active Directory, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Active Directory objects like you would a database - access Users, Groups, Roles, and Contacts, or define custom tables for any ObjectClass, and then perform SQL queries through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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