Generic LDAP MA Error on Upgrade to AADConnect v1.1.649.0

Hey Guys

Another day – another bug #bugmaster (although a very small one)

If you use Azure AD Connect and manually upgrading to v1.1.649.0 and have a Generic LDAP MA in your configuration, after the upgrade you will get a “no-start-ma” error on Delta / Full Import or an “extension-dll-exception” on an export or when syncs start automatically after the upgrade.

Fix: Easy one – open the MA and click through each config page to refresh the MA manually.

Microsoft has acknowledged the bug and will fix it in the next release.

I am surprised as there aren’t that many MA extensions in AADConnect so how this was missed in their internal testing..

Quick Tip: Get local time for next AzureAD Sync

When you run the command

You get an output similar to

AllowedSyncCycleInterval : 00:30:00
CurrentlyEffectiveSyncCycleInterval : 01:00:00
CustomizedSyncCycleInterval : 01:00:00
NextSyncCyclePolicyType : Delta
NextSyncCycleStartTimeInUTC : 18/05/2017 10:55:42 PM
PurgeRunHistoryInterval : 7.00:00:00
SyncCycleEnabled : True
MaintenanceEnabled : True
StagingModeEnabled : False
SchedulerSuspended : False
SyncCycleInProgress : False

You will notice that the time is in UTC..

Quick one-liner can show you local time

Output is more sane

Friday, 19 May 2017 8:55:42 AM

Extending Azure AD Schema via Graph API – The n00b Guide

I’ve been playing recently on try to figure out how I can extend the Azure AD Schema for my tenant.

In my endeavor, I have come across (till now) two way to do it:

  1. Using AADConnect and selecting directory extension to create the attribute in AzureAD in the form of “extension_{AppClientId}_{attributeName}“. This method works only if I have the custom attribute already in my on prem AD.
  2. Using Graph API to create it directly in Azure AD

Will expand on point 2 in this post. In our scenario, we have some custom attributes which are stored in AD LDS. For security and other reasons we didn’t want those attributes to be in our AD.

Goal

Create custom attributes in Azure AD when they are not available to be done via AADConnect Interface

Solution

  • Whenever AADConnect is installed for your tenant, it creates an app called “Tenant Schema Extension App”. You can find it in Azure Portal AAD Blade.

  • Click on the App and note its “Object ID”
  • Open https://graphexplorer.azurewebsites.net/
  • Login with the credentials which have write access to AAD (Global Admin or sorts).
  • In the main window select GET and put in the following URL :

https://graph.windows.net/myorganization/applications/<ObjectID>

You will see the App details in the window

  • To look at its extensionProperties (which shows the custom attributes created) goto the following link

https://graph.windows.net/myorganization/applications/<ObjectID>/extensionProperties

As you would see that it has some custom attributes I have created. The “name” tag has the attribute name with is “extension_{AppClientId}_{attributeName}“.

  • To create a new attribute change the GET to POST and put in the following code to create a new attribute called “newAttribute”

  • Press GO and it will create the new attribute for you

There you go. newAttribute is created and your schema has been extended in Azure AD. You can simply delete that by changing the type to DELETE and putting the URL

https://graph.windows.net/myorganization/applications/<ObjectID of App>/extensionProperties/<ObjectID of attribute>

Limitations

Now here is the bummer. For my scenario I thought when I do then and “Refresh Schema” in AADConnect for AzureAD MA, it will be visible and then I can create custom rules and flows from AD LDS (via Generic LDAP MA). BUT you still can’t see it (tested as of v1.1.524.0) . Microsoft says that this is as per design at the moment. They are thinking of future enhancements or even integrating AD LDS as an option in GUI.

Moreover, if you had directory extension done even by using the GUI (using custom attributes from AD), and you do a refresh schema – it looses those as well saying

The Attribute ‘extension_<GUID>_customAttribute’ could not be located in the schema.

I call this a bug rather than design.

 

Well, in the end, I couldn’t get to reach my end goal (provisioning values from AD LDS to AzureAD via custom schema) but atleast got there half way and understood how to create custom Attributes in Azure AD via Graph API.

 

There is more cool stuff you can do with graphAPI and for the people who are hardcore programmers.. not me atm.. Hit up the links below..

 

References