Looking into the active directory with php/mysql

jpmoriarty

I've had a look round these boards but i'm at a bit of a loss - i'm doing an intranet at work and was planning on doing a database for all the employees. it then occured to me that i could use the active directory, since all the users are in there already. I think i need to use LDAP, but i'm thinking that i really need to have MySQL look into the active directory so that i can include it in my queries.

Is there a way that i can do something akin to the "linking tables" that you can do with access, only link the active directory into MySQL?

If not, and i have to go down the PHP route, then how do i go about using the ldap functions (are there tutorials around? i cant find them!) to get the info into my web page?

I'm trying to do things like employee movement lists, so would want to do things like putting a username into my MySQL database from the active directory, and similarly get an employee name from the active directory by giving it a username from the database.

Any help, advice greatly received.

Francois

hi jp,

Theorically, yes you can, Active Directory is based on LDAP technology which is integrated in PHP core.
So you have to find tutorials on LDAP and Active Directory, instead of linking MySQL with AD. Microsoft web site has lots of examples on this subject (AD querying).

jpmoriarty

oh dear - i dont like the sound of that!

Lets say as in the above example I had a company movement sheet, whereby it displayed all the employees and whether they had said they would be in or out that day. Database wise, not a problem - you have a table with username, date, and "in" or "out" field, and with the PHP you query that database to give you all the records with todays date in it and inner join it with the user table that gives you the proper name for that username and then display the lot in a table.

But if i can only connect to LDAP through PHP, then surely that changes things hugely - i'd have to do the same query, but then for every result that's returned i'd have to do the LDAP thing to check the active directory to see what is the name of the user with the username that was returned from the database. that means that if i had 50 employees then it would effectively go off and check the AD 50 separate times, which would be quite a waste of resources, wouldnt it?

Is there something I'm missing here??!!

Also could you post links to any MS guides that you know of - i'm searching the site and am not having much luck finding any...

Many thanks for your time