Establishing a Connection
Enabling SSIS in Visual Studio 2022
If you're using Visual Studio 2022, you will need to install the SQL Server Integration Services Projects extension to use SSIS.
- Navigate to Extensions > Manage Extensions.
- In the Manage Extensions window's search box, search for "SQL Server Integration Services Projects 2022" and select the extension in the list.
- Click Download.
- Close Visual Studio and run the downloaded Microsoft.DataTools.IntegrationServices.exe installer. Proceed through the installer with default settings.
- Open Visual Studio. There should now be an "Integration Services Project" project template available.
Adding the Microsoft Active Directory Connection Manager
Create a new connection manager as follows:
- Create a Visual Studio project with the "Integration Services Project" template.
- In the project, right-click within the Connection Managers window and select New Connection from the menu.
- In the Description column, select CData Microsoft Active Directory Connection Manager and click Add...
- Configure the component as described in the next section.
Alternatively, if you have an existing project and CData Microsoft Active Directory Source or CData Microsoft Active Directory Destination:
- Right-click your CData Microsoft Active Directory source or destination component in your data flow
- Select Edit... to open an editor window.
- Click the New... button next to the Connection manager: dropdown selector to create a connection manager.
- Configure the component as described in the next section.
Connecting to Microsoft Active Directory
Set Server and Port for basic connectivity. Additionally, you can fine-tune the connection with the following:
- FollowReferrals: When set, the component surfaces data as views from only referral servers. To modify data on a referral server, you must specify this server with Server and Port.
- LDAPVersion: Set this to the version of the protocol your server implements; by default, the component uses version 2.
- UseDefaultDC: Set this to connect to the default Domain Controller and authenticate using the current user credentials.
Authenticating to Microsoft Active Directory
To authenticate requests, set the User and Password properties to valid Microsoft Active Directory credentials (e.g., set User to Domain\\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
The component uses plaintext authentication by default, since the component attempts to negotiate TLS/SSL with the server. You can specify another authentication method with AuthMechanism.
See SSL Configuration for more information on TLS/SSL configuration.
Fine Tuning Data Access
The following properties control the scope of data returned:
- BaseDN 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, a value of cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.
- Scope: This property enables more granular control over the data to return from a subtree.
Customizing Tables
The component surfaces the columns most often needed from Microsoft Active Directory entities. However, if you need to work with other data, the tables are easy to modify. Tables are defined in schema files, which have a simple format.
See Working with Active Directory Tables for a guide to extending the default schemas or writing your own. To use custom schemas, set the Location property to the folder containing the schema files.