Schema

You can define exactly the schema needed for your Management Agent (MA). The schema script is typically dictated by the data source or system that the scripts communicate with. Therefore, it’s up to the user of this MA to define the schema (and anchor value) by creating a schema definition script.

The MA expects the schema script to return at least one object (PSCustomObject) per object type (object class) that you want to support with the MA. The object returned must include a value for ‘objectClass’ and at least one anchor attribute specified with the prefix ‘Anchor-‘ text, which indicate this to be an anchor attribute (the prefix text will be automatically removed from the attribute name upon schema discovery).

Below is a sample schema script that defines a 'user' object type / object class -

$obj = New-Object -Type PSCustomObject
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "Anchor-Id|String" -Value 1
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "objectClass|String" -Value "user"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "AccountName|String" -Value "SG"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "FirstName|String" -Value "Soren"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "LastName|String" -Value "Granfeldt"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "DisplayName|String" -Value "Soren Granfeldt"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "Description|String" -Value "Standard User"
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "ObjectSID|Binary" -Value 0x10
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "DateValue|String" -Value (Get-Date)
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "JustABoolean|Boolean" -Value $true
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "Manager|Reference" -Value 2
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "MemberOf|Reference[]" -Value (2,3)
$obj | Add-Member -Type NoteProperty -Name "MyMultiValue|String[]" -Value ("S1", "S2")
$obj

If the property is an anchor attribute (only one anchor can be specified per object type), it must be prefixed with the case-sensitive text ‘Anchor-‘. An anchor cannot be of type Reference or Boolean.

As can be seen from the sample above, the name of each property of the object returned must be on the form '|', i.e. ‘AccountName|String’. Supported types are -

• String
• Integer
• Boolean
• Binary
• Reference

If the property is multi-valued, it should be followed by brackets ‘[]’. Please note that only type String and Reference can be multi-valued.

Below you'll find what some may consider a simpler sample version of a schema script -

new-object -typename psobject -prop @{
 "anchor-id|string" = ""
 "objectclass|string" = "user"
 "username|string" = ""
 "userobjectsid|string" = ""
 "userdescription|string" = ""
}

Using the schema (the $Schema parameter)

The Import, Export scripts will be passed a parameter $Schema that has a PSCustomObject describing the schema. You can use this object in your scripts to make your scripts more generic. The schema object is made up of PSCustomObject nested and will have this structure (depending on your schema) -

• One or more NoteProperty with Name like the objectclass, i.e. person And under each of the above objectclass property is a PSCustomObject with these NoteProperties
• ObjectType - a string with the name of the object type
• PossibleDNComponentsForProvisioning - a list of elements for building DN's
• Anchors -

Refreshing the schema

If the schema needs modifications later, you can alter the schema script and perform a ‘Refresh Schema’ on the defined MA.