Chapter 5 -- Searching Active Directory

Chapter 5

Searching Active Directory

Often you need to get several pieces of information from the directory, such as the name of each person who doesn't have a telephone number listed. Other times you just need one piece of information but aren't sure where it's located. Like any database, Active Directory supports flexible searching.

In this chapter, I'll cover the search technologies for finding information in Active Directory. Searching is different from enumeration (which I'll cover in more detail in the next chapter) because in searching you're letting the server do the work for you. The client submits a query to Active Directory, the server goes through the process of finding the information and returning it, and the client processes the results. Enumeration, on the other hand, consists of retrieving an object from the server, examining its properties, and then retrieving the next object.