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MMS FAQ
MMS 2.2 SP1 was Microsoft's last release
of MMS before the new MIIS product was launched. At that time it
was in use at more than 300 companies worldwide. MMS is no longer
available from Microsoft.
Microsoft acquired its metadirectory technology and skills when
it purchased Zoomit Corporation in 1999. Zoomit's metadirectory
product, VIA 2.1, was renamed MMS 2.1 and extended and enhanced
in 2000 with the release of MMS 2.2. The service pack released in
2001 gave the product a stability which has lasted to this date.
The following FAQ applies to MMS 2.2 SP1.
1.
How long will MMS
2.2 SP1 be supported?
2. What platforms does MMS run
on?
3. What is the recommended hardware
specification for MMS?
4. What management agents does
MMS include?
5. What are the string-handling
functions in zscript?
6. How can a MA access or update
other metaverse objects?
7. How can I change the size
of the transaction stack?
8. What causes the error "Member
not owned[0]:" when deleting a list member?
9. Is there a limit to the extent
of a multi-valued attribute?
10. How do I populate the MMS
schema with the Exchange 2000 attributes?
11. What permissions do I need
to connect to Exchange using the MAPI MA?
12. How do I resolve error 0xc000011a
when updating Exchange using MAPI MA?
13. How can I clear unwanted
attributes from the metaverse?
14. How to do a report of all disconnectors for a particular MA?
15. Why did my Active Directory
schema import fail?
16. How can I limit a Report
MA to process a particular part of the metaverse?
17. Can MMS be clustered?
18. How do you delete connector
space objects with TAMA?
1. How long will MMS
2.2 SP1 be supported?
Microsoft ended support for MMS 2.2 SP1
on 30 September 2004. Limited support is available from MMS
Partners but customers are advised to upgrade to MIIS as soon as
possible.
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2. What platforms does MMS run on?
MMS 2.2 will run on either Windows 2000 Advanced Server or Windows
2000 Datacenter Server.
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3. What is the recommended hardware specification
for MMS?
A 300 MHz or faster CPU with 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB of available
disk space. Large or heavily used MMS systems will benefit from
more RAM, high-speed disk arrays and by spreading the directory
database over multiple spindles.
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4. What management agents does MMS include?
In addition to the Generic, Report and TAMA management agents
(MAs), the following specialised MAs are included in MMS 2.2:
• Banyan Vines
• Lotus cc:Mail
• Lotus Notes
• Microsoft Active Directory
• Microsoft Exchange (LDAP-based)
• Microsoft Exchange (MAPI-based)
• Microsoft NT
• Netscape LDAP
• Novell Groupwise
• Novell NDS (LDAP-based)
• Novell Netware
The
Generic MA can be configured to import or export data to other directory
or database systems in either fixed length, delimited or XML formats.
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5. What are the string-handling functions
in zscript?
The following functions are all useful for string manipulation.
Related functions have been grouped together.
$test_char()
Checks for the presence of one or more individual characters anywhere
within a variable or attribute value.
$get_char()
Returns the character at a specific position in a variable or attribute
value.
$set_char()
Replaces the character at a specified position in a variable with
another character.
$embedded()
Determines whether a variable or attribute value contains a particular
substring.
$get_substring()
Extracts a substring from a string variable.
$replace()
Replaces one substring with another within a variable.
$trim()
Truncates long strings from the left or the right.
$parser()
Parses a composite variable into smaller parts according to a subsidiary
template.
$proper_name()
Formats the contents of a variable as a name.
$map_char()
Replaces characters in a variable or attribute with other substitute
characters defined by the s_substitution parameter in the template
definition file.
$latin_to_cp()
Converts Latin 1 text encoding to a specific code page or removes
accents.
$unquote()
Removes single or double quotation marks (' or ") from a variable
or attribute.
$i_personal_name()
Parses a common name into its components according to pre-defined
conversion rules for title, given name, surname, and generational
qualifier, or according to a name template you supply.
$length()
Returns the length of the parameter.
$dn_component()
Extracts the value of a particular attribute from a distinguished
name.
$reverse_dn()
Reverses the order of attributes in a distinguished name.
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6. How can a MA access or update other metaverse
objects?
The following zscript functions apply to objects other than the
object currently being processed.
$instance()
Determines whether a given entry exists in the directory.
$search()
Searches the directory for entries with a specified attribute value.
$get_attr()
Gets the value of an attribute of a particular entry.
$set_attr()
Modifies the value of an attribute in a directory entry.
$MA()
Retrieves the value of a specific attribute of this Management Agent
or the management agent's distinguished name.
$parent()
Returns the full distinguished name of the entry's "parent"
(the entry immediately above it in the directory tree), or the value
of an attribute in the parent's distinguished name.
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7. How can I change the size of the transaction
stack?
The default maximum size of the transaction stack in MMS 2.2
is 512 MB. This may be increased or decreased as required by editing
the value of db5_max_tran_file_size in file \ZOOMSERV\DATA\CONFIG\DB5CFG.
The
new maximum size will take affect the next time the server is started
and if the transaction stack is now bigger than the new value, MMS
will gradually reduce it to the maximum by removing the oldest transactions.
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8. What causes the error "Member not owned[0]:"
when deleting a list member?
This error can occur when a list that is being updated through
a reflector mode MA has also been reflected in AD. To allow the
original MA to delete list members, the attribute msMMS-managedByMA
on the list object must be set to the DN of that MA (and not the
AD MA).
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9. Is there a limit to the extent of a multi-valued
attribute?
Yes. In MMS v2.2 there is a limit of 512 values. This limit is
will be removed in MMS v3.0.
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10. How do I populate the MMS schema with the Exchange
2000 attributes?
Exchange 2000 attributes are discovered from an Active Directory
that has had its schema extended by either installing Exchange 2000
or by running "ForestPrep" (Run E:\setup\i386\setup /ForestPrep
from the Exchange 2000 CD).
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11. What permissions do I need to connect
to Exchange using the MAPI MA?
MMS needs to log on as an NT account with the correct permissions
in Exchange:
• add an
account for "MmsServer" (for example)
• change the properties of the MMS service to use the new
account
• add "MmsServer" to the permissions for each container
(Admin or ViewAdmin as required) and each site (Admin or ViewAdmin
as required)
• ensure that there are trust relationships between the Exchange
and NT domains to be able to return a valid Assoc-NT-Account
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12. How do I resolve error 0xc000011a when updating
Exchange using MAPI MA?
There could be several causes of this error. The most common
cause is that the manager attribute needs to be converted to be
the DN of the manager object in Exchange, by default it is set to
the DN in MMS. Either correct the DN or comment out the assignment.
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13. How can I clear unwanted attributes
from the metaverse?
One of the easiest ways to remove unwanted attributes from existing metaverse objects is as follows:
•
First run VIABackup and check that it has worked.
• Create a new Netscape LDAP MA (sic) in Association mode
and point it at the LDAP port on the MMS server. (We call this a
“loopback” MA and it can be used for all sorts of things
but clearing unwanted attributes is the most common)
• Set the context prefix to the part of the metaverse that
contains the objects you want to update.
• Set the login (e.g. cn=Administrator,DsaName=meta,ou=Applications,
dc=Metaconnections,dc=co,dc=uk) and password.
• In the advanced flow script, nullify every attribute you
want to remove (e.g. $cd.mobile = $null).
• Include any inclusion and/or exclusion criteria that you
may need to process the correct metaverse objects.
• Run the MA, first with Discover CD, Update MV, Process Tree
and Process Users options set and check that the resulting Create
file is as expected.
• Set the Update CD option and run the MA again to apply the
updates.
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14. How to do a report of all disconnectors for
a particular MA?
Using the Report MA, include all objects where $mv_object_class("zcExcludedAliasThing")
= T and $embedded("MA name",$mv.dn) = T. List all required
attributes (e.g. $mv.cn) and edit the report generation script to
include the -populatedsa parameter on the run of importt to
cause it to process the connector space.
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15. Why did my Active Directory schema import fail?
If the AD schema has been extended, this can be caused by a clash
with the OID numbers already used within MMS. All OID numbers must
be unique and this can only be ensured by registering an OID prefix
with the appropriate authority (e.g. BSI in the UK). Within MMS
all attributes are identified by their OID number, not their name,
so it is good practice to never change or reassign an OID number
once it has been used.
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16. How can I limit a Report MA to process a particular
part of the metaverse?
Use the -targetDN parameter on the run of importt in the
Report Generation Script. This technique can also be used to restrict
the run of an MA in foreign user mode. e.g. execute importt -targetDN
"ou=mycompany,ou=mymetaverse,dc=mydomain,dc=co,dc=uk"
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17. Can MMS be clustered?
Several users have tried to devise methods of clustering MMS
2.2 but it is not supported by Microsoft. Therefore it is not recommended!
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18. How do you delete connector space objects with
TAMA?
TAMA does not delete CS objects. When a MV object is deleted the
associated connectors become disconnectors. The disconnector will
be deleted after the CD object has been deleted. Even if the object’s
profile (zcTaAccountResourceDNs) is updated to remove the TAMA resource
and/or the New Accounts exclusion rules would now prevent the connector
being created, the connector will remain. The only way to disconnect
the connector is to use the $disconnect_specific() function (in
the advanced attribute flow of the associated MA). For information
on configuring fire scenarios
please see Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article
Q317823.
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