Frequently asked questions (FAQ)¶
Feedback¶
Bug reports and desired feature requests can be submitted to an issues list, https://github.com/Microsoft/idfix/issues, where it will be reviewed. We also happily accept pull requests containing new functionality or fixes .
Performance¶
IdFix performance will vary based on the hardware utilized and the network latency to the Active Directory global catalog (GC) server. Machines should have the minimum RAM specified and will benefit by using faster hard drives because temporary files are written to disk during the AD Query.
Number of errors shown¶
Customers with more than 50,000 errors returned might exceed physical memory in attempting to display all data at one time. To alleviate this issue, errors are broken into blocks of 50,000. Exceeding the block size enables the More Errors options of View Next Block and View Previous Block.
Temporary files¶
Large volumes of data may be parsed in the search for duplicate values. For instance, a user may have up to six attributes that must be checked and the proxyAddresses field can have many values. The duplicate check count may routinely exceed five times the number of objects returned. For this reason, data must be written to disk to avoid the out-of-memory exception on most workstations. Don’t delete the temporary files while running. This will trigger an exception and might cause unpredictable results.
Directory Exceptions¶
There are 60 separate LDAP return codes and four types of directory exceptions that can occur when contacting a directory server. These should be gracefully handled with a message box and an error written to the log. Client-server timeout is one example where the condition might be sporadic. To alleviate this issue, the default LDAP time-out interval has been increased from 30 seconds to two minutes. This is a server-side limitation, and the application respects all server-side limits. If this should occur, then wait for a period of time when the GC is not so heavily utilized and/or launch the application from a lower-latency location. For example, directly on a global catalog server.
Don’t see updates in other domains¶
If the response to an update was COMPLETE, then the value has been applied to the directory. However, you might need to wait for replication to complete. Attempting to apply the update multiple times in a row might result in an exception stating the server is unwilling to process the request. Run Query AD again and you should observe that the error has been resolved.
FAIL (ACTION)¶
Extensive efforts have been made to make the schema and value limits of the Active Directory unobtrusive. With that caveat, it is still possible for the value entered in the UPDATE column to conflict with a directory rule within AD. If the ACTION value on a row turns to FAIL, then there is an unknown conflict between the UPDATE column and the attribute values stored in the directory. These conflicts will require that the attribute values currently stored be examined more closely and might require ADSIEDIT to resolve.
Double Byte Characters¶
IdFix has not been localized and double byte characters have not been tested in the application. Please send any errors of this type to IdFixSupport@Microsoft.com for further investigation.
Filtering¶
The application allows the user to specify a directory branch to use to begin the subtree search for errors. Multiple subtrees are not supported, and the start point will be used by the Query function until changed in the Filter Subtree dialog. Filtering of values within the column is not supported as they can already be sorted. Selecting Import to use a manually edited file will reset the filter to the whole forest for the Query option.
Sorting¶
The data columns can be sorted by selecting the column header as is standard in DataGrid view UX behavior. Selecting again will reverse the sort.
Export Data¶
Use Export to export data.
Import Data¶
The ability to Import a CSV file is now supported. This feature is a use-at-your-own-risk option. While we’ve created error and format handling functions to help populate the DataGrid correctly, there is no way to ensure that incorrect errors are not introduced by manually editing the file. Consider these best practice recommendations:
• Use Excel to view and edit the source file.
• Do not change the number of columns, headings, or any field values other than Update or Action.
• Do not save the file with any format other than CSV.
• Do not use escape characters in the field values.