Python code to convert from objectSid to SID representation

Question

I want to retrieve base64 encoded objectSid from an LDAP query to an Active Directory database and convert them to the standard SID representation. Can you please give me a Python snippet that does that?

Answer 1

This should do the trick:

import struct

def convert(binary):
    version = struct.unpack('B', binary[0])[0]
    # I do not know how to treat version != 1 (it does not exist yet)
    assert version == 1, version
    length = struct.unpack('B', binary[1])[0]
    authority = struct.unpack('>Q', '\x00\x00' + binary[2:8])[0]
    string = 'S-%d-%d' % (version, authority)
    binary = binary[8:]
    assert len(binary) == 4 * length
    for i in xrange(length):
        value = struct.unpack('<L', binary[4*i:4*(i+1)])[0]
        string += '-%d' % value
    return string

References: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/03/15/89753.aspx and http://codeimpossible.com/2008/04/07/Converting-a-Security-Identifier-from-binary-to-string/.