PassCore: A self-service password change utility for Active Directory

⭐Please star this project if you find it useful!

PassCore is a very simple 1-page web application written in C#, using ASP.NET 5, Bootstrap, AngularJS and Microsoft Directory Services. It allows users to change their Active Directory password on their own, provided the user is not disabled.

PassCore does not require any configuration, as it obtains the principal context from the current domain. I wrote this because a number of people have requested several features that the original version did not have. The original version of this tool was downloaded around 8000 times in 2.5 years. My hope is that the new version continues to be just as popular. There really is no free alternative out there (that I know of) so hopefully this saves someone else some time and money.

PassCore has the following features:

• Easily localizable (i.e. you can customize all of the strings in the UI -- see the section on Customization)
• Supports reCAPTCHA
• Has a built-in password meter (thanks to ng-password-strength)
• Responsive design that works on mobiles, tablets, and desktops.

1. Ensure the server running IIS is domain-joined. To setermine if the computer is domain-joined Go to the Start menu, right click on Computer, then select Properties, and make sure the Domain field contains the correct setting.
2. Download the latest binary release of PassCore 2.0.2.beta.2 -- NOTE: Before extracting the contents of the file, please right click on it, select Properties and make sure the file is Unblocked (Click on the Unblock button at the bottom of the dialog if it is available). Then, extract the contents of the zip file to the directory where you will be serving the website from.
3. Install the HttpPlatformHandler via Web Platform Installer.
4. Go to your IIS Manager, Right click on Application Pools and select Add Application Pool.
5. A dialog appears. Under Name enter PassCore Application Pool, Under.NET CLR Version select No Managed Code and finally, under Managed pipeline mode select Integrated. Click OK after all fields have been set.
6. Now, right click on the application pool you just created in the previous step and select Advanced Settings .... Change the Start Mode to AlwaysRunning, and the Idle Time-out (minutes) to 0. Click on OK. This will ensure PassCore stays responsive even after long periods of inactivity.
7. Back on your IIS Manager, right click on Sites and select Add Website
8. A dialog appears. Under Site name, enter PassCore Website. Under Application pool click on Select and ensure you select PassCore Application Pool. Under Physical path, click on the ellispsis (...), navigate to the folder where you extracted PassCore and select the wwwroot folder. Important: Make sure the Physical path points to the wwwroot folder and not to its parent folder which is the one containing approot, logs and wwwroot folders.
9. Under the Binding section of the same dialog, configure the Type to be https, set IP Address to All Unassigned, the Port to 443 and the Host name to something like password.yourdomain.com. Under SSL Certificate select a certificate that matches the Host name you provided above. If you don't know how to install a certificate, please refer to SSL Certificate Install in order to install a proper certificate. Important: Do not serve this website without an SSL certificate because requests and responses will be transmitted in cleartext and an attacker could easily retrieve these messages and collect usernames and passwords.
10. Click OK and navigate to https://password.yourdomain.com (the host name you previously set). If all is set then you should be able to see the PassCore tool show up in your browser. If you encountered 500 error page, then you need to refer to the Resolving Errors part of Running ASP.NET websites on IIS.

All server-side settings and client-side settings are stored in the /approot/src/Unosquare.PassCore.Web/appsettings.json file. The most relevant configuration entries are shown below. Make sure you make your changes to the appsettings.json file using a regular text editor like Atom.

• To enable reCAPTCHA
  • Find the RecaptchaPrivateKey entry and enter your private key within double quotes (")
  • Find the IsEnabled entry and enter the word true (note this should be done without double quotes)
  • Find the SiteKey entry and enter your Site Key within double quotes (")
• To change the language of the reCAPTCHA widget
  • Find the LanguageCode entry and enter one of the options listed here. By default this is set to en
• To enable the password meter
  • Find the ShowPasswordMeter entry and set it to true (without quotes)
• To disable the password meter
  • Find the ShowPasswordMeter entry and set it to false (without quotes)
• The rest of the configuration entries are all pretty much all UI strings.
  • Change them to localize or brand this utility to meet your needs

• Please see this post if you can't get the application to work.
• @James-LA was kinf enough to provide another set of installation instructions. Please see this post for further details.
• If your users are having trouble changing passwords as in issues #8 or #9 then try configuring the section PasswordChangeOptions in the /approot/src/Unosquare.PassCore.Web/appsettings.json file. Here are some guidelines:
  • Ensure UseAutomaticContext is set to false
  • Ensure LdapUsername is set to an AD user with enough permissions to reset user passwords
  • Ensure LdapPassword is set to the correct password for the admin user mentioned above
  • User @gadams65 suggests the following: Use the FQDN of your LDAP host. Enter the LDAP username without any other prefix or suffix such as domain\ or @domain. Only the username.

PassCore is open source software and MIT licensed. Please star this project if you like it.