Using LDAP or ADSI with Delphi for user account management

Question

We have a large Transaction Processing System (batch processing) ERP Solution for large Healthcare claims processing organizations and businesses. We currently implement our own user account management. i.e., a user with the appropriate rights/roles can create, edit, or delete accounts and assign rights and roles based on needs.

Each user logs in with assigned account, and access to features are assigned based on rights and roles.

We have been asked by a client if we support LDAP or Active Directory, were the users accounts are managed on a virtual domain controller, and once logged in, the user then has no need to log into additional software....for example, ours.

I have been reviewing the LDAP Protocol, and Active Directory Service Interfaces.

Just curious to know if anyone has experience with this, and what is the best method of approaching this transition of supporting these? I am particularly concerned with whether or not we have to stop using our current account management and login system?

We are currently developing using Delphi 2010 and UNIDAC (for database connections).

Thanks

Pharmacopoeia

I did quite a bit of Delphi/ADSI stuff - but that's been 10 years almost, and it was on Delphi 7 at the time. See my tips & tricks page so some pointers. – Photomural

Related (for single-sign-on with Active Directory) question: How can I get a Kerberos ticket with Delphi? – Leahy

Don't bother to get rid of your custom user management, keep it as another option. That might call for a refactoring. – Malda

Yes, we implemented LDAP support (login through Active Directory) for our software. We have done what @menjarez suggests: support both account management options. In fact we support mixed account management meaning you do not have to configure for one or the other. This was done to support situations where not all users of our software would be identifiable by the configured LDAP provider (which may not be Active Directory!) – Tel

Thanks everyone, all the comments and suggestions are very helpful! – Pharmacopoeia

Answer 1

To authenticate user on AD you can try using adshlp library from:

http://www.agnisoft.com/white_papers/active_directory.asp

There are ways to automate the login with this library.

Insolence