Connect to Active Directory Data in Aqua Data Studio

The CData JDBC Driver for Active Directory integrates Active Directory data with wizards and analytics in IDEs like Aqua Data Studio. This article shows how to connect to Active Directory data through the connection manager and execute queries.

Create a JDBC Data Source

You can use the connection manager to define connection properties and save them in a new JDBC data source. The Active Directory data source can then be accessed from Aqua Data Studio tools.

1. In Aqua Data Studio, select Register Server from the Servers menu.
2. In the Register Server form, select the 'Generic - JDBC' connection.
3. Enter the following JDBC connection properties:
   • Name: Enter a name for the data source; for example, Active Directory.
   • Driver Location: Click the Browse button and select the cdata.jdbc.activedirectory.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
   • Driver: Enter the Driver's class name, cdata.jdbc.activedirectory.ActiveDirectoryDriver.

   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL, which starts with jdbc:activedirectory: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     To establish a connection, set the following properties:

     • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
     • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

     • BaseDN: This 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, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Active Directory JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.activedirectory.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     A typical JDBC URL is below:
     jdbc:activedirectory:User=cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain;Password=bob123;Server=10.0.1.2;Port=389;

Query Active Directory Data

You can now query the tables exposed.