Summary
The Request The Active Directory team has created the Requests By Attribute process (aka REBA) which allows a department administrator to request protected actions in the Austin Active Directory by crafting the request as a JSON string then adding the request to administrators to programmatically submit specific requests to the Active Directory team via an attribute on the a department's Administrative administrative organizational unit (OU) .
Overview
The Request By Attribute process is comprised of the following parts: the request string, the requests attribute, the request script, the result string, the results attribute.
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object. These requests are processed automatically and are intended to reduce the need for department administrators to open tickets with the Active Directory team.
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Process Overview
The requests
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attribute
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Organizational Units
The Request By Attribute process is centered around each department's Adminstrative OU. The Administrative OU for a department is the OU that contains the resources managed by the Department User Tools such as department user accounts and the department's Department Adminstrators group.
- The distinguished name of the Administative OU for the EXAMPLE department would be: OU=EXAMPLE,OU=Departments,OU=Administrative,DC=austin,DC=utexas,DC=edu
- The name of the Department Administrators group for the EXAMPLE department would be: EXAMPLE-Administrators
Attributes
The Request By Attribute process relies upon the security of the attributes on each department's Administrative OU object. The attributes are confidential and cannot be accessed by default. Access to the attributes has been granted to the request process and each department's Department Administrators group.
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. The associated department's Department Adminstrators can read and write to this attribute submit requests.
- The results attribute is the utexasEduAustinMulti2 attribute on a department's Administrative OU. The associated department's Department Adminstrators can read this attribute to review the results of any processed requests.
Supported requests
The Request By Attribute process supports the following request types:
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on a department's
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administrative OU 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 tocreate 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:
OpenLDAP tools
The Active Directory team has created the following documentation for submitting requests and reviewing the results with OpenLDAP tools:
Questions
Please contact the Active Directory team via ServiceNow for any questions or assistance with this process.