The Active Roles console displays comprehensive information about client sessions. With the console connected to a given Administration Service, you can examine which clients are using that Service. Session information provided by the console includes the following:
- User Logon name of the account used by the session to connect to the Administration Service.
- Active Roles Admin Whether or not the client is logged on as a member of the Active Roles Admin account, and thus has administrator rights on the Administration Service.
- Client Version Client application, such as MMC Interface or Web Interface, and its version.
- Last Access Time Date and time that the Administration Service was last accessed within this session.
- Logon Time Date and time that the session was opened.
- Client Host DNS name of the computer running the client application.
- Client Site Network site of the computer running the client application.
To display a list of client sessions on the Administration Service
- Connect to the Administration Service you want to examine for the client sessions.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select Client Sessions.
As a result, the details pane lists the client sessions for the Administration Service to which the console is connected.
By using the shortcut menu on a client session, you can also perform the following tasks:
- Send e-mail to the session user.
- Disconnect the session from the Administration Service.
- View additional information about the session.
For example, to view additional information about a session, right-click the session in the details pane and click Properties.
The Properties dialog box for a client session includes the following tabs:
- General Information about the session user, client version, client host, and client site.
- Client Activity Information about logon time, last access time, and the number of operations performed within the session, grouped by operation type.
- Member Of List of all security groups computed due to a transitive group membership expansion operation on the session user at the moment of session start.
- Domain Controllers Information about the domain controllers used to retrieve and update directory data within the session.
Active Roles includes a set of performance counters to monitor various aspects of the Administration Service’s performance. Counters are grouped into performance objects that include the following:
- Requests Counts data management requests submitted to the Administration Service.
- LDAP operations Counts LDAP requests issued by the Administration Service.
- Permissions propagation Counts changes to Active Directory security made by the Administration Service.
- External changes Counts data changes polled by the Administration Service from Active Directory, and changes made to the Administration Database.
- Script modules Counts the average execution time of Active Roles script modules, the number of times a particular script module was executed, and number of script module instances being currently executed.
- Miscellaneous Counts the number of clients connected to the Administration Service and the number of queued post-policy processing operations.
To examine Administration Service performance counters, you can use the Performance tool on the computer running the Administration Service:
- Start the Performance tool: click Start and select All Programs | Administrative Tools | Performance.
- In the console tree, select System Monitor.
- Click in the details pane, and then press CTRL+I to display the Add Counters dialog box.
- From the list in the Performance object box, select any name that begins with the prefix AR Server. For example, you might select AR Server:Requests.
- Select an item from the list of counters. For example, you might select Requests/sec.
- Click Add and then click Close.
As a result, the Performance tool displays the output of the counter you have selected.
The Active Roles console provides a convenient way to customize object creation wizards and property pages found in the console, and to customize display names for object types and object properties. Customization is performed through the use of Active Directory objects called display specifiers.
Each display specifier object holds information describing the various user interface elements for a particular object type. These elements include (but not limited to) creation wizard pages, property pages, and names to use for object types and properties in user interfaces.
The following sections summarize the customization-related features that are based on the use of display specifiers:
- Other Properties page in the object creation wizard
- Other Properties tab in the Properties dialog box
- Customizing display names
In the Active Roles console, directory objects are created using creation wizards. Thus, creating a user account starts the New Object - User wizard. The Active Roles console makes it possible to extend creation wizards with an extra page allowing additional properties to be populated in the course of the object creation process.
The Active Roles console makes it easy to view or modify the set of properties on the wizard extension page by using a separate tab in the Properties dialog box for display specifier objects. The Other Properties to Display tab provides a way to customize the set of properties included on the extension page of object creation wizards. If there are no properties to include on the extension page, the page is not displayed.
The Other Properties to Display tab can be used to add or remove properties from the extension page of the creation wizard for the object type that the display specifier is associated with. The tab lists the object properties included on the extension page, and allows you to make changes to that list.
You can use the following instructions to add the Other Properties page to the New Object - User wizard. Similarly, you can extend the creation wizard for a different object type by creating and configuring a custom display specifier for that object type. For example, to extend the wizard for Group, Computer, or Organizational Unit, create and configure a custom display specifier named group-Display, computer-Display, or organizationalUnit-Display, respectively.
Note that the names of display specifiers are case-sensitive, so you must type the name exactly as specified in the Active Directory schema. To view the names of display specifiers, you can use the console to examine the “Active Directory | Configuration Container | Display Specifiers | 409” container in Raw view mode.
To extend the New Object - User wizard
- Open the Active Roles console and switch into Raw view mode (select View | Mode, then click Raw Mode and click OK).
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Application Configuration, and select the Active Roles Display Specifiers (Custom) container.
- Use the All Tasks | Advanced Create command to create the appropriate locale container.
The custom display specifier must be created in the locale container matching the locale of your environment. These locale containers are named using the hex representation of that locale’s LCID. Thus the US/English locale’s container is named 409, the German locale’s container is named 407, the Japanese locale’s container is named 411, and so forth.
You may need to first create the appropriate locale container. You can do this by using the All Tasks | Advanced Create command to create an object of the class EDS-Display-Specifier-Container.
- In the locale container, create the custom display specifier named user-Display.
You can do this by using the All Tasks | Advanced Create command on the locale container to create an object of the class Display-Specifier. Note that the name of the display specifier is case-sensitive, so you should type the name for the new display specifier exactly user-Display, not user-display or User-display.
- In the details pane, right-click user-Display and click Properties.
- Go to the Other Properties to Display tab.
- Add one or more properties to the Other properties in the object creation wizard list. Then, click OK.
- Restart the Administration Service and then reconnect the Console to the Service, for your changes to take effect.
As a result of these steps, the New Object - User wizard includes an extra page where you can specify values for the properties you selected in Step 7. You can start the wizard in the Active Roles console by right-clicking an organizational unit in the console tree, and then selecting New | User. Follow the wizard steps to reach the page containing the list of “other” properties.