Live@Edu - Active Directory 'contacts' support?

[sukh]

Hi

 

Can you check the Exchange server that you are connecting to and see the FQDN for under mail properties.

 

I just want to confirm if you have access to the AD. Use the domain portion of the FQDN and try to connect to it using ADUC, when you load ADUC, click on your domain and select, connect to domain, then enter the FQDN of the domain that you retrieved from the mail properties.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

Hi

 

Can you check the Exchange server that you are connecting to and see the FQDN for under mail properties.

 

I just want to confirm if you have access to the AD. Use the domain portion of the FQDN and try to connect to it using ADUC, when you load ADUC, click on your domain and select, connect to domain, then enter the FQDN of the domain that you retrieved from the mail properties.

 

Thanks

Sukh

 

We don't have access to that AD.

[sukh]

Hi

 

What I'm trying to identify is the Exchange deployment. So far, it seems like a resource forest deployment. Can you confirm?

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

Hi

 

What I'm trying to identify is the Exchange deployment. So far, it seems like a resource forest deployment. Can you confirm?

 

Thanks

Sukh

 

I can't tell you much about it, as we have no link to it, other than logging into it. The domain is within the LEA forest, and we connect direct to the exchange farm via our WAN using Outlook, or via the internet over OWA.

 

That is pretty much everything I know and can find out at the moment.

[sukh]

Hi

 

On your previous post you mention

 

"Separate root. ie. we are completely independent from them. "

 

and now you mention "The domain is within the LEA forest"

 

Can you please clarify.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

Hi

 

On your previous post you mention

 

"Separate root. ie. we are completely independent from them. "

 

and now you mention "The domain is within the LEA forest"

 

Can you please clarify.

 

Thanks

Sukh

 

Its really quite simple. Our school has its own Domain Forest, with our own domain in. The LEA has their own system too set up however they have it. We have a WAN which also connects us out to the internet, which routes certain services to us - one being exchange, which we connect to.

 

There are no trusts, links or any form of co-operation between our domains at all.

[sukh]

Hi

 

That still doesn't clarify the Exchange deployment.

 

Can you check ADUC and Domain and trusts?

 

Just confirm if you can see any of the domains (yours and lea)

 

Also, check your DNS and see if you have any forwarders set to the LEA domain.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

There are no trusts. There is no access to the LEA domain. As I said, there are no links between our systems at all. We have no access to their domain in domain and trusts or ADUC. They are independent systems.

 

Our DNS forwarders go to our LEA DNS servers, and they forward on to the SWGfL.

[sukh]

Have you got a specific DNS forward entry for the lea domain in your DNS?

[localzuk]

Have you got a specific DNS forward entry for the lea domain in your DNS?

 

No. All external DNS requests are routed via their DNS servers - ie. anything not on our DNS server goes to theirs.

[sukh]

can you get the canonicalName, homeMDB and distinguishedName attribute properties for a user in your domain and PM or post?

 

Use ADSI Edit

 

Thanks

S

[localzuk]

canonicalName - sch4290.somerset.gov.uk (ie. our internal domain)

homeMDB - nonthing in there.

dn - CN=USER,OU=Staff,OU=Managed Users,DC=sch4290,DC=somerset,DC=gov,DC=uk

 

What are you trying to discover?

[sukh]

Hi

 

I'm try trying to understand how Exchange is deployed.

 

For this I needed to know how your AD forest is setup.

 

The purpose of both os these is to see if we can extract the GAL recipients for you to use at live@edu.

 

Can you run the below and see what domains come up. I have tested this myself and is safe to do so. Copy the contents into notepad and save as vbs and execute. It will return all the domains though a dialogue box. Let me now how many you get.

 

Dim objConnection, objRootDSE, objRecordSet

Dim strFilter

 

strFilter = "(NETBIOSName=*)"

 

Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

objConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"

objConnection.Open "Active Directory Provider"

 

Set objRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")

Set objRecordSet = objConnection.Execute( _

";" & _

strFilter & ";" & "dnsroot,ncname;subtree")

Set objRootDSE = Nothing

 

While Not objRecordSet.EOF

WScript.Echo Join(objRecordSet.Fields("dnsroot").Value)

WScript.Echo objRecordSet.Fields("ncname").Value

 

objRecordSet.MoveNext

WEnd

 

 

 

Thanks

Sukh

[sukh]

Hi

 

Also do the same for below. Will identify your root domain.

 

Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo")

Wscript.Echo "Forest DNS Name: " & objSysInfo.ForestDNSName

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

First response:

 

sch4290.somerset.gov.uk

DC=sch4290,DC=somerset,DC=gov,DC=uk

 

Second response:

Forest DNS Name: sch4290.somerset.gov.uk

 

So, as I said, our Forest is independent of the LEA in its entirity - they have no input, control, links or access to it. Just like we have no access to theirs.

[sukh]

Thanks for doing the above.

 

Can you check your mail profile under control panel and check the FQDN of the exchage server and let me know?

 

Thanks

Sukh

[localzuk]

The fqdn of their exchange is lead.Somerset.gov.uk

 

Even though they both end in Somerset.gov.UK, our domain and theirs are not linked.

[sukh]

From the info/discussions it appears that the LEA have a Exchange Hosted deployment. They are using GAL Segregation. Which I assume they are providng for other schools in the LEA. They restrict this by OU. So effectively your school will be an OU in their forest and will be permissioned to see on certain GAL's. In this scenario, it is difficult to extract contacts from the GAL unless your are the host.

 

Also, I assume, when the LEA take care of all mailbox creations and admin?

 

There are tools which you have to pay for out there which will do this, however I'm speaking with another colleague of mine and he did mention that this may be possible if we use Outlook OLE methods to extract the contacts.

 

I've not come across an LEA who have deployed EXchange in this manner.

 

Cheers

Sukh

[Jackd]

I have no idea if it'd work for what you're trying to do, but connect outlook to the LEA's exchange and then go into Access, create a new DB, and then in the external data table click more and theres an outlook folder option. I used this to export some contacts to csv from an exchange server I didn't have any special access to.

 

Jack

[sukh]

Hi Jack

 

I've just tried this on Exchange 2007 and 2003 with Access 2003. 2010 may be more flexible. It does work but the email address is not in SMTP format. Might need to play around with this.

 

This may be worth a try.

 

Sukh

[Jackd]

Works fine for me with 2010.

[localzuk]

I decided in the end to create myself a little c# application which extracts the GAL into a simple text file for me. Attached for anyone interested (including the code).

Outlook GAL Extractor.zip