SUMMARY

Python's adsi access works really well with Exchange (late or early binding since you can read microsoft's type library). To get started, you will need to download adsi from microsoft: Microsoft ADSI. Microsoft has documentation for using languages other than python in the sdk.

Introduction

Before doing anything else you need to go through the next two steps:

**Acquiring ADSI object**
Task	Description
Create Global Providers Object	adsi = win32com.client.Dispatch('ADsNameSpaces')
Create LDAP Provider Object	ldap = adsi.getobject("","LDAP:")

Now you have to decide how you want to access the exchange server.
I have chosen to authenticate, in which case you need to use OpenDSObject()

**Method of access**
Task	Description
Specify Login and Domain	logon_ex='cn=wilma, dc=bedrock'
Specify password	password='dino'
Login to Server	myDSObject = ldap.OpenDSObject(ex_path,logon_ex,password,0)

Note -- the fourth argument to opendsobject has various options for how to authenticate. For example, if you use 1 instead of zero, it should either use NTLM or Kerberos for authentication. For more information, check out: OpenDSObject

The ex_path in the above example specifies the resource you are trying to access. For example:

**Types of paths**
Task	Description
Specific User	ex_path="LDAP://server/cn=fredflintsone,cn=Recipients,ou=rubble,o=bedrock"
Mailing List	ex_path="LDAP://server/cn=bedrock,cn=Recipients,ou=rubble,o=bedrock"
All Recipients	ex_path="LDAP://server/cn=Recipients,ou=rubble,o=bedrock"

User Account Management

Adding a user to exchange


# Adding a new account to exchange is simple except for one thing.
# You need to associate an NT account with an exchange account.
# To do so at this point requires some c++ to produce some hex SID
# and trustee information that adsi can use.
# At this point assume we have C++ magic
#
# Note we are accessing Recipients directly now
ex_path="LDAP://server/cn=Recipients,ou=rubble,o=bedrock"
logon_ex='cn=wilma,dc=bedrock'
password='dino'
myDSObject = ldap.OpenDSObject(ex_path,logon_ex,password,0)

newobj = myDSObject.create("OrganizationalPerson", "cn=betty")
newobj.put('MailPreferenceOption', 0)
# etc . . . add whatever else you want. There are a few required fields.
# Now the part to get exchange associated with NT
# The Magic is here
import win32pipe
assoc_nt=win32pipe.popen('getsid bedrock\\fredflint')
nt_security=win32pipe.popen('gettrustee bedrock\\fredflint')
newobj.put('NT-Security-Descriptor',assoc_nt)
newobj.put('NT-Security-Descriptor',nt_security)

newobj.SetInfo

Getting/Modify user info


ex_path="LDAP://server/cn=fredflint,cn=Recipients,ou=rubble,o=bedrock"
myDSObject = ldap.OpenDSObject(ex_path,logon_ex,password,0)
myDSObject.Getinfo()
# To access a user's data try:
attribute = myDSObject.Get('Extension-Attribute-1')
print attribute
# To modify a user try:
myDSObject.Put('Extension-Attribute-1','barney was here')
myDSObject.Setinfo()

Comments Note -- To make any changes permanent setinfo is required.

Deleting a user from exchange


#Here we connect to Recipients and then
#delete a user
#This is a more complete example.
#data is a dictionary that contains info
#that may be dynamic like the domain,
#admin login, or exchange server
#notice I am using a try/except clause here
#to catch any exceptions
try:
  #ADSI here
  # Create the Global Providers object
  logon_ex='cn='+data['NT_admin']+', dc='+data['NT_domain']+',cn=admin'
  ex_list_path="LDAP://"+data['EX_site_srv']+"/cn=Recipients,ou="\
  +data['ou']+",o="+data['o']
  adsi = win32com.client.Dispatch('ADsNameSpaces')
  #
  # Now get the LDAP Provider object
  ldap = adsi.getobject("","LDAP:")
  dsobj = ldap.OpenDSObject(ex_list_path,logon_ex,data['NT_password'],0);
  dsobj.Getinfo()
  dsobj.Delete("OrganizationalPerson", "cn="+login)
  dsobj.Setinfo()
except:
  print 'Error deleting '+login, sys.exc_type , sys.exc_value

Distribution List




Adding to a distribution list


# I used putex instead of put because it has more options
# The '3' value means append. The SDK has specific info on it
ex_list_path="LDAP://"+server+"/cn="+list+",cn=Recipients,ou="+ou+",o="+o
dsobj = ldap.OpenDSObject(ex_list_path,logon_ex,password,0);
dsobj.Getinfo()
list_member='cn='+user+',cn=Recipients,ou='+ou+',o='+o
append_list=[list_member]
dsobj.putEx(3,'Member',append_list);
dsobj.SetInfo()



Recursively listing all unique members of a distribution list


#This function looks for all Organizational persons to add to a dictionary
#If it gets a groupOfNames, it needs to parse that and call the function again
#to get the members of the groupOfNames
def getmembers(path=''):
  user_dict={}
  logon_ex='cn=fred, dc=bedrock'
  password='dino'
  server='flintstone'
  ldap = win32com.client.Dispatch('ADsNameSpaces').getobject("","LDAP:")
  dsobj = ldap.OpenDSObject(path,logon_ex,password,0)
  dsobj.Getinfo()
  if dsobj.Class=='organizationalPerson':
      user_dict[string.capitalize(dsobj.cn)]=dsobj.uid
  elif dsobj.Class=='groupOfNames':
      for i in dsobj.Members():
              if i.Class=='organizationalPerson':
                  user_dict[string.capitalize(i.cn)]=i.uid
              elif type(i.member)==types.TupleType:
                  for j in i.member:
                      newpath='LDAP://'+server+'/'+j
                      getmembers(newpath)
              elif type(i.member)==types.StringType:
                  newpath='LDAP://'+server+'/'+i.member
                  getmembers(newpath)
  elif dsobj.Class=='Remote-Address':
      User_dict[string.capitalize(dsobj.cn)]=dsobj.uid
  elif  dsobj.Class=='Public-Folder':
      pass
  else:
      print 'skipped',dsobj.Class,dsobj.uid
  return user_dict







In Conclusion
Microsoft's ADSI allows one to manage exchange w/out having to resort to the lower-level APIs.
Python has no trouble accessing Microsoft's ADSI to help simplify user management.




Further Info


Microsoft MSDN references
Microsoft ADSI
Microsoft MSDN ADSI reference
Relevant Python libraries: win32com.client


Author
John Nielsen, jn@who.net 

-- Have a great time with programming with python! 
		
		 
		
		
			    ADSI, Exchange, and Python