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..

AzureAD: Get List of all users with a particular license

You might have to do reporting and want a list of all users in Azure AD which have a particular license..

Following is an easy way to do so

Get-MsolAccountSku will give you a table of all the License Types you have and count

AccountSkuId ActiveUnits WarningUnits ConsumedUnits
TENANTNAME:AAD_BASIC 300000 0 1
TENANTNAME:AAD_PREMIUM 300000 0 200000
TENANTNAME:AAD_PREMIUM_P2 300000 0 200000
TENANTNAME:POWER_BI_STANDARD 1000000 0 200000

You can then choose the AccountSkuId you want to report on and pass that in the “TENANTNAME:AAD_PREMIUM” of the Get-MSOLUser command

It took me about 20 min to run this report for about 155000 users

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

Scheduling Syncs for ADConnect Maintenance

We have loads of objects in our AD / Azure AD.. we believe doing regular Full Imports and Full Syncs for all the MA’s is a good way to make sure Sync engine is healthy.

Had recently visited #MSAUIGNITE 2017 in Gold Coast, Australia and SME’s there suggested Full Sync is not needed in environments unless there has been a connector change.. But I disagree and consider ADConnect as Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM / FIM) and by experience we have seen a good healthy sync engine we should do FI / FS for maintenance.

After doing some initial sync timings, found our FI from Azure took 9 hrs and FS took about 2 hrs. Likewise from AD FI took 1 hr and FS took 2 hrs.

Decided we wanted to schedule each FI and FS to make sure sync engine is all caught up out of business hours.

Assumptions

  • The MA is called “AzureAD”
  • Run Profile Name is called “Full Import”

Do the following on our ADConnect Sync Box

  • Create a powershell script with the following code and save it as “AzureFI.ps1” at a location say D:\SyncScript

  • Create a task scheduler and run as the same user which runs the sync engine.
  • Schedule it once a week / month as per your requirement. As per your initial tests, you can schedule it out of business hours say 10pm and by morning it is finished.
  • For action
    • Action: Start a Program
    • Program/Script: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
    • Argument: -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File “D:\SyncScript\AzureFI.ps1”

That’s it!!! You can create similar scripts and change ConnectorName / RunProfileName and create tasks for each at particular times.

You will have a healthy sync engine for ADConnect.