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Summary

The Request The Active Directory team has created the Requests By Attribute process (aka REBA) which allows department administrators to perform protected actions in the Austin Active Directory by crafting the request as a JSON strings then writing the request to programmatically submit specific requests to the Active Directory team via an attribute on department-specific objects. 

Overview

This Request By Attribute process is comprised of the following parts: a request string, the requests attribute, the request script, a result string, and the results attribute. The request string is a JSON string that contains the required properties and values for the request. A department administrator will create the request string then add the value to the multi-valued a department's administrative organizational unit (OU) object. These requests are processed automatically and are intended to reduce the need for department administrators to open tickets with the Active Directory team.

Process Overview

The requests attribute on a department's administrative OU (see Organizational Units below) to submit the request. The request script runs every hour and removes the request string from the requests attribute then processes therequest. The result string is a JSON string that contains the results of the request along with the original request string. The request script will generate the result string after processing a request then add the value to the multi-valued results attribute on the department's administrative OU. Any errors encountered by the delegation process are included in the result string.

Organizational Units

The Request By Attribute process is centered around a department's Adminstrative OU. Each department's Administrative OU is the named OU in the Departments container under the Administrative container at the root of the domain (ex. "OU=TEST,OU=Departments,OU=Administrative,DC=austin,DC=utexas,DC=edu" or "austin.utexas.edu/Administrative/Departments/TEST") and contains resources managed by the Department User Tools such as department user accounts and department's OU administrators group (ex. TEST-Administrators).

Attributes

The Request By Attribute process utilizes the following attributes on a department's Administrative OU object. The selected attributes are confidential and cannot be accessed by default. The specific attributes and the permissions granted to the attributes are as follows:

• The requests attribute is the utexasEduAustinMulti1 attribute on a department's Administrative OU. Department Adminstrators can read and write to this attribute to submit a request.
• The results attribute is the utexasEduAustinMulti2 attribute on a department's Administrative OU. Department Adminstrators can read this attribute to review the results of request processing.

Supported requests

The Request By Attribute process supports the following request types:

...

functions as a queue and holds all pending requests for a department. A scheduled task runs a PowerShell script hourly that evaluates all pending requests in the requests attribute. The PowerShell script will then remove a pending request from the attribute and either perform the requested actions or deny the request. The PowerShell script will then post the results of the request to a separate attribute on the same administrative OU. The results attribute can be reviewed by department administrators to determine if the request was completed or denied. A denied request will include information about why the request was not performed. 

Request Types

REBA is designed to be extensible and can support multiple request types. Each of the supported and planned request types are documented in their respective sections below.  Examples of how to submit each request type and review results are included in the documentation for the respective request type. 

Supported Request Types

The following request types are currently supported by REBA:

• Requests By Attribute - Delegation - Department administrators can manage permissions on organizational units within a department. This process has previously been available only via a ServiceNow request.

Planned

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Request Types

The following request types are expected to be supported by REBA in the future:

• DNS - Department administrators can

  request changes to

  create and manage DNS records associated with the department

  . 

  . This process will be limited to DNS records that begin with a department prefix.

Submit Requests and Review Results

Submitting requests and reviewing results can be performed using any LDAPv3 compliant tools. The Active Directory team provides support for two methods to manage requests via REBA: the provided PowerShell scripts and the OpenLDAP tools. The Active Directory team provides best-effort support for all other methods.

PowerShell Scripts

The Active Directory team has created the following documentation for submitting requests and reviewing the results with PowerShell scripts:

• Requests By Attribute - PowerShell scripts

OpenLDAP tools

The Active Directory team has created the following documentation for submitting requests and reviewing the results with OpenLDAP tools:

• Requests By Attribute - OpenLDAP tools

Questions

Please contact the Active Directory team via ServiceNow for any questions or assistance with this process.