Classic Flow Rules

Delegating Group Management – Using the Lithnet FIM PowerShell Module

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Within my AD structure, group management is delegated within certain OU’s, I now need to replicate that functionality in the FIM portal.

The is no real way of identifying which groups should be managed by whom, except the OU within which the group currently resides.

So, to start off with I need to get the parent OU of the group into the portal:

Import the OU into the MV:

Setup an export flow for adOU into the portal.

Then, by using the Lithnet PowerShell Module, we can create all the sets and MPR’s required, below is a sample for creating one delegated “collection”. In production, my XML file is much bigger – delegating group management to around ten different groups.

Note, that you first need to create references to all users who might be given the rights to manage groups. This includes the FimServiceAdmin and FimServiceAccount – referenced by their ObjectID, the others are referenced by their AccountName. All members referenced in this section, are added to the __Set:GroupValidationBypassSet. This set is defined in the non-administrators set – not in this set – this bypasses the group validation workflow:

AllNonAdministratorsSet

Create a set of groups to be managed – the filter being the OU that the groups belong to & MembershipLocked=False

Create a set of administrators for this delegation – adding the explicit members

Then create the two MPR’s to allow the members of the administrative set to manage those groups – the first MPR allows modification (Read, Add and Remove) of the ExplicitMember attribute, while the second allows creation and deletion.

Use Import-RMConfig -File <PathToXML> -Preview -Verbose to validate your xml and see what it would do. Drop the “-Preview” to make the change

An Alternative To Using The Generic Array From File Function

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While looking to improve on my method of getting exceptions or a long list of mail suffixes into an array, to be checked during code execution, I came across this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms696048(v=vs.85).aspx

This seemed to me to be a really nice solution, just defining all exceptions and suffixes within one file, read it in on code execution, then check for existence or whatever in the code.

So, given the following xml file:

Add the System.Xml Import and declare the variables, so they are global:

Add the code to read the xml file into the Initialize Sub:

Then, when you wish to look for those values within those variables – just like in the last post:

An Update on my Generic Array From File post

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In this post: https://blog.oholics.net/a-generic-array-from-file-function-to-cope-with-inevitable-exceptions/, I documented a method of generating an array of values from a text file.

While I was happy that this method worked, I was not entirely happy with the fact that I still had some hard coded values in the code. However, the way that the function operated meant that if I took my collection of mail suffixes (20+) and added them all to the text file, then the array would be built for each and every user that passed through the dll, not too efficient!

So, I was looking for something a little more elegant. I was happy for the array to simply be defined when the dll was loaded.

Here is my solution:

At the beginning of my AD MA, I declare my dates and logging levels etc, then generate those arrays using the function. These arrays are now static and are good for processing all users without being regenerated.

When I wish to look into the array to validate a valid email suffix for example, I go from this (as in the last post):

To this:

Much cleaner – plus all suffixes can now just reside in a text file.

Note that updates to the text file will only be realised if the dll is reloaded and the array is regenerated. I believe that this is after 5 minutes of inactivity and seems to hold true from testing.

Process To Email The Manager Of A Service Account When Their End Date Is Approaching

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A long term goal of mine, has been to get “account requestors” to take ownership of their Service Accounts.

Attempts have been made by my predecessors to record an owner of a service account, but it has simply been done as a string attribute of the AD object. Thus, when the person leaves and the account is deleted, the service account becomes orphaned, with an reference to a long forgotten ID.

So thinking of a way to carry this out….. I am already using the email address of the owner of an administrative account to make decisions about whether the administrative account should be enabled or disabled – based on the end date of the owner – discovered by looking up the email address in the MV.

I figured that I could do something similar for those Service Accounts. I’ll be creating service accounts via the portal, the owner of the account will be assigned to the manager attribute. So, how can I get the email address of the manager into the MV as a thing that I can lookup??? I can’t do an advanced flow rule on the FIMMA, and even if I could, Manager is a reference attribute, so I can’t do it anyway… I found an article about dereferencing another attribute, that get me going down this path….. The solution is simple. Create a new attribute and binding in the portal – “ManagerEmailAddress”, then setup a workflow as follows:

GetManagerEmailAddressWF

When the account falls into scope, the managers email address is set into that new attribute – in the sync engine create a direct flow to put that into the MV (I’m using “serialNumber” – for one reason or another, that I wont go into :)).

I have on the import from AD, some code to set an MV boolean flag – “functionalID” – if the DN of the person object contains the strings found in the Service Account OU’s, thenfunctionalID = True. This attribute is pushed into the portal and is used in set definitions.

So, I’m getting there. Now I need something to set another flag in the MV that will go to the portal. this one defines if the owner of the Service Account is approaching their end date (30 days prior):It is defined on the Import from AD and populates the MV attribute “functionalID-owner-expiring”

Of course after initial code definition, I found another of those inevitable exceptions, so added the generateArrayFromFile function, with a reference (in txt file) to the email address that should be ignored.

Create attribute and binding in the portal for FunctionalID-owner-expiring

Setup an Export in the FIMMA for the new attribute

Create a set: FunctionalID = True and FunctionalID-owner-expiring = True.

Create notification workflow and mail template: notification to [//Target/Manager], then the set transition MPR.

I think I have it, just need to do a little testing to see that it works as expected.

I’m still a long way from the stated goal, as I still need to find “owners” for all of those accounts that have been created in the past.

A Generic Array From File Function To Cope With Inevitable Exceptions

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In the last few days, I have had a few more exceptions to cope with in my FIM Config.

  1. Another new mail suffix
  2. A user who is employed by one tenant, who has that tenants email address suffix; but who is on secondment to another tenant, who have a different mail suffix. The users attributes have been changed in the HR system, so that they gain access to the stuff in the other tenant, which is controlled by automatic groups, based on attribute data!

So, I’d been thinking for a while about having a method to add exceptions without having to add them to the code directly and thus forcing a rebuild followed by full syncs. I found a nice function to read a text file to an array, this is added to the top of the dll after the lines:

Public Class MAExtensionObject_YourMA
Implements IMASynchronization

So, to put this use – take my previous port regarding generating validating email addresses: https://blog.oholics.net/defining-a-unique-email-address-and-validating-mail-suffix/, at line 97 I ask “Does the suffix match?” This chunk is now as follows:

So, the referenced file simply has the email address of the user that I don’t want to be alerted about. If the email address does not match the expected value, look in the array generated from the text file; if it in not in there either raise an error to get this fixed or investigated.

Regarding the valid mail suffixes – I posted about this already: https://blog.oholics.net/emailaddresspresent-flag-setting-and-checking-email-suffix-validity/.

I have a hardcoded list of those that are already in use in the dll, if the suffix is not found in that array, it does a lookup of the array generated from the “suffixes” text file, if it is not in there it raises an error:

Defining a Unique Email Address and Validating Mail Suffix

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In addition to creating a valid and unique email address – as defined here: https://blog.oholics.net/defining-a-unique-email-address/

I also need to detect where those addresses might need to be changed. The AD and Exchange infrastructure supports a number of different tenant organisations, each with their own needs. There is regular horizontal movement of users between these organisations.

So I have added to my code to define a unique email address – the additional content starts at Line 72 – statement “If mventry.Item(“mail”).IsPresent Then“. Note that attributes are set on the import from HR to define who is entitled to an MBX and those who should just be mail enabled. The current code just logs out those things for action, but I have also included making these events throw an exception to the Sync Engine.

It was interesting to see just how many people are not really entitled to a mailbox, but who have one anyway!

Defining a Unique Email Address

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While looking at how we were going to define an email address, there were a couple of options.

Many accounts already have a mailbox, so I just want to provide an email address and the other required attributes to those who fall into scope and did not have a mailbox already.

Note that the compulsory attributes required for a basic mailbox are: homeMDB, msExchHomeServerName & mailNickname. By adding the mail attribute, I am defining the primary SMTP address that the person will get. See here for more details: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff472471.aspx

Initially, we planned to use and Exchange Email Address policy: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb125155%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx.

However, there was some fear that if enabled it might have some undesirable effects on those existing mailboxes. So, I went back to code to do the work. The use of Utils.FindMVEntries is not necessarily expensive in this case as the number of people falling into scope at any one time should be low and the likelihood of the first choice not being unique is also relatively low.

Because my organisation is multi-tenant and multi site, there are a number of rules defined to get to the correct suffix and then a valid prefix/ suffix pair.

The MV attribute “provisionExchangeMailbox” is defined in the MV as the person is sync’ed from “HR” via an advanced flow rule. Here is the code:

Logging

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When I was developing the code to define an initial password for new accounts that were due to be provisioned, I needed a way of seeing the password string that was generated.

I found it quite difficult to pick through the documentation around the subject (logging) in order to get this working, so have provided a generic example below.

I ended up using the logging dll throughout the project, to record certain anomalies.

The log will be written to the MAData folder of the MA that the code resides in. The documentation states that the file location can be changed, but I never got it to work. I’m happy with the default it is written to anyway.

Note that you need to add the logging dll to the project before you make use of it:

References