Re: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

2006-10-21 Thread Michael B Allen
Hi Joe,

Actually I think my terminology is a little off. From snooping around
a bit I think I want the attributeSchema information under
CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=example,DC=com. What I was thinking of
originally are the attribute syntax definitions like:

  ( 2.5.18.3 NAME 'creatorsName' EQUALITY distinguishedNameMatch
SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12
SINGLE-VALUE NO-USER-MODIFICATION USAGE directoryOperation )

But it's clear now that AD doesn't really use these textual definitions
(at least not anywhere I can see).

Anyway, the overall objective here is to do is to give my custom LDAP
client API intellegence (see previous post about scripting language
binding) about attributeSchema information so that the API can properly
type attribute values. In particular I need to create a table of at least
lDAPDisplayName, isSingleValued, and attributeSyntax. This table
will be consulted by the API to determine how to compare and present
values whether they be binary, multivalued, strings, etc.

To make it efficient I will need an index which will be just a hashmap
where the lDAPDisplayName is the key and the attributeSchema entry
is the datum. Additionally the attributeSyntax value should be one
of several predefined OID constants (e.g. ADSTYPE_CASE_IGNORE_STRING)
so that attributeSyntaxes can be comared logically.

Does any of this make sense? I suppose you don't get a little programmer
double talk here :-)

Mike

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:50:03 -0400
joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 First off... anything you do with LDIF will be an LDAP query... It speaks
 pure LDAP.
 
 Next off, if I understand what you are asking, yes, you query the schema and
 you can find all attribute syntaxes assigned, it won't tell you what they
 are, but you will know all in use. Multivalue status has nothing to do with
 attribute syntax, that is separate. Whether something is binary or text
 depends on what you ask for and how you ask for it. You can ask for anything
 to come back in a binary format with the standard LDAP binary modifier. What
 that exactly means though depends on the attribute, asking, for instance for
 a unicode text field in binary really isn't going to look all that different
 to you either way. But asking for say one of the replication attributes will
 result in dramatically different results being returned. 
 
 
   joe
 
 
 --
 O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
 http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm 
  
 
 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael B Allen
 Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 8:49 PM
 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
 Subject: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?
 
 How can I get a list of attribute syntaxes? For each attribute used by
 a system I would like to know if it is a multivalue attribute and if it
 is binary or text.
 
 Can I get such a list using an LDAP query?
 
 If not can I use ldifde?
 
 Thanks,
 Mike
 
 -- 
 Michael B Allen
 PHP Active Directory SSO
 http://www.ioplex.com/
 List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
 List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
 List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/
 
 List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
 List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
 List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/
 


-- 
Michael B Allen
PHP Active Directory SSO
http://www.ioplex.com/
List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/


RE: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

2006-10-21 Thread joe
Are you maybe looking for the extendedAttributeInfo of the Aggregate object
from the schema? That is the closest thing to that format in AD that I am
aware of.

AD's schema is entirely within the LDAP directory and is readable directly
with LDAP, there is no need to go to extra files etc. The downside is that
the schema doesn't tell the whole story unfortunately. For instance, the
description attribute is multivalued, but on certain SAM type objects the
SAM enforces that attribute to be single valued. Try it, add values to
description on say an OU and then on a user. One allows it, one throws an
error. Another issue is there there is no easy way to determine what
attributes are say GUIDS. I have come up with a mechanism in AdFind to do
that programmatically but that is far from 100%, I sometimes treat things as
GUIDs that aren't. But it is far better than having to maintain a list in my
eyes which I initially did, then I started getting quite a few emails from
folks who wanted me to add their custom GUID attributes to the decoding.
There are other items such as rangeupper saying one thing in the schema and
being something else due to SAM, etc. 


The attributeSyntaxes combined with the oMSyntax is what you want to mostly
look at for handling attributes. See  

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/adschema/ad
schema/syntaxes.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ad/ad/choos
ing_a_syntax.asp


And actually overall reading everything under the following link will
probably be helpful

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/adschema/ad
schema/active_directory_schema.asp


There isn't a lot of programmer talk on this list but the list has some
extremely high powered programming resources available here both from inside
and outside of Microsoft and in native and NET topics. There are also
quite a few non-programmer resources (or maybe they programmed in the past
but don't any longer) that can lend great insight into the products overall
and their experiences with folks who do write code and where they may want
to reconsider. 


My overall posting recommendation would be to try and keep questions focused
to very tight specific scopes, the bigger the scope andm question, the more
likely people are not going to respond because they either don't want to
tackle something so large in scope or their response needs to be so big it
isn't worth their time or maybe something is so big they just don't have
time to read it. It could be that there is concern that if a problem can't
be summed up in a short space, the poster may not actually have an
understanding of the problem and is fishing and hope someone reads through
all of the chafe to come out with the actual problem. That does happen and
the answers do come out, but I think the number of respondents and sometimes
the quality can be impacted. 


I know when I walk through the newsgroups and this list looking for posts to
respond to, if someone has more than one or two small paragraphs unless they
completely hook me with the subject or the first paragraph I won't read it
and just move on to something else. Subject is #1 thing I look at and that
tells me which messages to even open, then it is how long is it. I usually
do newsgroups and listservs in short bursts of time between other things, so
anything that can be read, understood, and responded to quickly is what I
tend to go after. My responses are often long but that is simply because I
type rather quickly. If I was slower at it, I would respond a lot less.
There are others that even though they can type fast, if they can't answer
the question in a sentence or two they don't want to respond at all unless
something else sucked them into the problem like some kind of issue they
haven't ever seen before or a pet problem (aka something that they have
worked on and are still gathering info). :)


   joe

--
O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm 
 

-Original Message-
From: Michael B Allen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:39 AM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

Hi Joe,

Actually I think my terminology is a little off. From snooping around
a bit I think I want the attributeSchema information under
CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=example,DC=com. What I was thinking of
originally are the attribute syntax definitions like:

  ( 2.5.18.3 NAME 'creatorsName' EQUALITY distinguishedNameMatch
SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12
SINGLE-VALUE NO-USER-MODIFICATION USAGE directoryOperation )

But it's clear now that AD doesn't really use these textual definitions
(at least not anywhere I can see).

Anyway, the overall objective here is to do is to give my custom LDAP
client API intellegence (see previous post about scripting language
binding) about attributeSchema information so that the API can

Re: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

2006-10-21 Thread Michael B Allen
 and listservs in short bursts of time between other things, so
 anything that can be read, understood, and responded to quickly is what I
 tend to go after. My responses are often long but that is simply because I
 type rather quickly. If I was slower at it, I would respond a lot less.
 There are others that even though they can type fast, if they can't answer
 the question in a sentence or two they don't want to respond at all unless
 something else sucked them into the problem like some kind of issue they
 haven't ever seen before or a pet problem (aka something that they have
 worked on and are still gathering info). :)
 
 
joe
 
 --
 O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
 http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm 
  
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Michael B Allen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:39 AM
 To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
 Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?
 
 Hi Joe,
 
 Actually I think my terminology is a little off. From snooping around
 a bit I think I want the attributeSchema information under
 CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=example,DC=com. What I was thinking of
 originally are the attribute syntax definitions like:
 
   ( 2.5.18.3 NAME 'creatorsName' EQUALITY distinguishedNameMatch
 SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12
 SINGLE-VALUE NO-USER-MODIFICATION USAGE directoryOperation )
 
 But it's clear now that AD doesn't really use these textual definitions
 (at least not anywhere I can see).
 
 Anyway, the overall objective here is to do is to give my custom LDAP
 client API intellegence (see previous post about scripting language
 binding) about attributeSchema information so that the API can properly
 type attribute values. In particular I need to create a table of at least
 lDAPDisplayName, isSingleValued, and attributeSyntax. This table
 will be consulted by the API to determine how to compare and present
 values whether they be binary, multivalued, strings, etc.
 
 To make it efficient I will need an index which will be just a hashmap
 where the lDAPDisplayName is the key and the attributeSchema entry
 is the datum. Additionally the attributeSyntax value should be one
 of several predefined OID constants (e.g. ADSTYPE_CASE_IGNORE_STRING)
 so that attributeSyntaxes can be comared logically.
 
 Does any of this make sense? I suppose you don't get a little programmer
 double talk here :-)
 
 Mike
 
 On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:50:03 -0400
 joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  First off... anything you do with LDIF will be an LDAP query... It speaks
  pure LDAP.
  
  Next off, if I understand what you are asking, yes, you query the schema
 and
  you can find all attribute syntaxes assigned, it won't tell you what they
  are, but you will know all in use. Multivalue status has nothing to do
 with
  attribute syntax, that is separate. Whether something is binary or text
  depends on what you ask for and how you ask for it. You can ask for
 anything
  to come back in a binary format with the standard LDAP binary modifier.
 What
  that exactly means though depends on the attribute, asking, for instance
 for
  a unicode text field in binary really isn't going to look all that
 different
  to you either way. But asking for say one of the replication attributes
 will
  result in dramatically different results being returned. 
  
  
joe
  
  
  --
  O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
  http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm 
   
  
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael B Allen
  Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 8:49 PM
  To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
  Subject: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?
  
  How can I get a list of attribute syntaxes? For each attribute used by
  a system I would like to know if it is a multivalue attribute and if it
  is binary or text.
  
  Can I get such a list using an LDAP query?
  
  If not can I use ldifde?
  
  Thanks,
  Mike
  
  -- 
  Michael B Allen
  PHP Active Directory SSO
  http://www.ioplex.com/
  List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
  List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
  List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/
  
  List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
  List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
  List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/
  
 
 
 -- 
 Michael B Allen
 PHP Active Directory SSO
 http://www.ioplex.com/
 
 List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
 List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
 List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/
 


-- 
Michael B Allen
PHP Active Directory SSO
http://www.ioplex.com/
List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/


Re: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

2006-10-21 Thread Michael B Allen
On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 18:30:47 -0400
Michael B Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Apparently I don't have CN=Aggregate,CN=Schema,DC=X. I'm using W2K 2003
 but maybe it's because it's SBS?

Correction: I do have it. I left out CN=Configuration. The exact DN is
available through the subschemaSubentry in the RootDSE.

Mike
List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/


RE: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

2006-10-20 Thread joe
First off... anything you do with LDIF will be an LDAP query... It speaks
pure LDAP.

Next off, if I understand what you are asking, yes, you query the schema and
you can find all attribute syntaxes assigned, it won't tell you what they
are, but you will know all in use. Multivalue status has nothing to do with
attribute syntax, that is separate. Whether something is binary or text
depends on what you ask for and how you ask for it. You can ask for anything
to come back in a binary format with the standard LDAP binary modifier. What
that exactly means though depends on the attribute, asking, for instance for
a unicode text field in binary really isn't going to look all that different
to you either way. But asking for say one of the replication attributes will
result in dramatically different results being returned. 


  joe


--
O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition -
http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm 
 

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael B Allen
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 8:49 PM
To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org
Subject: [ActiveDir] List Attribute Syntaxes?

How can I get a list of attribute syntaxes? For each attribute used by
a system I would like to know if it is a multivalue attribute and if it
is binary or text.

Can I get such a list using an LDAP query?

If not can I use ldifde?

Thanks,
Mike

-- 
Michael B Allen
PHP Active Directory SSO
http://www.ioplex.com/
List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/

List info   : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx
List FAQ: http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx
List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir@mail.activedir.org/