October 2007 - Posts

• otherWellKnownObjects – the family relatives you do actually want to know

  In Active Directory there is an attribute named "otherWellKnownObjects" which is not very well documented but put simply is used to reference other related objects. When talking about otherWellKnownObjects you will also hear about a term "Well Known GUID". Well Known GUIDs define a related object type. See the lists below for examples. The otherWellKnownObjects attribute lists these related objects in a format like the following; B:32:89FB25B7DF784FC198A493E2E8A0EE7E:CN=MyCompany GAL,CN=All Global Address Lists,CN=Address Lists Container,CN=HostedExchange,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=mydomain,DC=com; Combining the Well known GUID with the DN of the object that has the otherWellKnownObjects attribute set provides you with somewhat of a lookup method. E.g. On the HMC platforms I can obtain the global address list used by the customer in the MyCompany OU by performing an LDAP bind to; LDAP://<WKGUID=89FB25B7DF784FC198A493E2E8A0EE7E,ou=MyCompany,ou=Hosting,dc=mydomain,dc=com> Note: Using the otherWellKnownObjects attribute is also handy to reference objects that can be moved or renamed. This works because any time an object is moved or renamed it checks any references to it in the otherWellKnownObjects attribute of other objects and updates them of the change accordingly. An MSDN article has been written about that: http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms676295.aspx Microsoft HMC / MPS Uses of the otherWellKnownObjects attribute On the Customer OU Well Known GUID Definition D22DFCC5B73645E99E16C9AD3D61F34F DN of the Offline Address List for this company 9E444526CB6F4D5C9A59C9A84E26B627 DN of the Address List for this company 89FB25B7DF784FC198A493E2E8A0EE7E DN of the Global Address List 3841BDA6D81C4095B9BBB838808F5A55 DN of the CN containing the service records 4619BE598BF441DB8C9DB0482E62E386 DN of the CN listing all groups and their types 3B6FF4FA8AA248039AD8F9493A43B704 DN of CSRAdmins@Customer group 65F37ECB46704F0E9300E1FB48E1096E DN of the Admins@customer group EA755D448CE64157A20E82B7CCBE14B0 DN to show the organisation type (e.g. private, customer, reseller, hosting) 58888CFC8F7F430C8183102CD5758D81 DN of the parent OU CC016CF08DEF4EA4A05C9C54B198785A DN of the customer OU On each user Well Known GUID Definition B7AE2ABCCBAD41A28973559FCA154DB0 DN of the Customer OU On the _Private OU Well Known GUID Definition EA755D448CE64157A20E82B7CCBE14B0 DN to show the organisation type (e.g. private, customer, reseller, hosting) CC016CF08DEF4EA4A05C9C54B198785A DN of the Customer OU   Posted Oct 22 2007, 05:13 PM by Cam with no comments Filed under: Hosting, HMC, MPS, Cameron McFie

• DTMU – a handy little migration thingimebob

  When migrating from Microsoft HMC 3.5 to HMC 4.0 you may come across a little utility named DTMU.exe. For those who are interested in what the DTMU tool does or are trying to work out what it is doing in the case that it fails, here you are; DTMU –PrepareAD Renames the "CN=MPS Server Config Entity,CN=System,DC=mycompany,DC=com" object to "CN=MPS Server Config Entity 3.5,CN=System,DC=mycompany,DC=com". It renames this, so the new install of HMC 4.0 thinks there is no MPS servers installed elsewhere. This attribute "MPS Server Config" is used by the Deployment tool to find the Config share and the MSI Share. It looks at the adminDescription attribute of this object for this information. DTMU –ResetPW Resets the MPFServiceAcct password in Active Directory Administrative Tools->Component Services->Computers->My Computer->COM+ Applications->Provisioning Engine properties. On the Identity tab, the password in "This user:" is changed. Resets the password on the logon tab of the "Provisioning Auditing and Recovery Service" on the HMC 3.5 provisioning servers. Open "Services" applet from control panel (or Start->Run->services.msc) to see this. Posted Oct 15 2007, 05:22 PM by Cam with no comments Filed under: Hosting, HMC, Cameron McFie

• MS Experts – Launched finally!

  Hi All, After about 10 months of talk, I have finally got off my behind and finished the design and implementation of the MS Experts site.  Yay! Initially you will see posts from Russell Tomkins and I.  We are looking for more people to join us though. Let us know at admins@msexperts.org if you are interested. The idea is to share any information that you found hard to find, or where there is no information at all. Thank you for reading. From the MS Experts Team Posted Oct 01 2007, 09:22 PM by Cam with 1 comment(s) Filed under: MSExperts, Cameron McFie, Russell Tomkins