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Using the Lithnet PowerShell Modules to generate full object metadata FIM/MIM HTML Reports

How many times have you wanted a consolidated report out of FIM/MIM for an object? What connectors does it have, what are the values of the attributes, which Management Agent contributed the value(s) and when? Individually of course you can get that info using the Metaverse Search and looking at the object in MIM Portal. But what if you wanted it all with a single query? This blog post provides an approach to doing just that. The graphic above shows a screenshot of a sample output. Click this Sample Report for full resolution version of the screenshot above. Note: The updated version of the script below outputs DisplayName for the ExpectedRulesList attribute so it actually provides valuable information. 

Overview

The approach is quite simple. It is;

  • Query the FIM/MIM Metaverse for an object
  • Take the response from the Metaverse to build the Connectors and Metaverse Hologram reports
  • Use the connector information to query the MIM Service MA (this example assumes it is on the same server. If not add the following line into the script with the appropriate values) and get the objects MIM Service Connector Space info 
    Set-ResourceManagementClient -BaseAddress http://fimsvc:5727;
  • Take information retrieved above to then query the MIM Service and return the information for the object.
  • Format all the output for HTML, apply a simple style sheet, output to file and display in the default browser

NOTE: If you combine this with the Get-MVObject query building script detailed here it can be a relatively simple solution. That script even uses the same variables $queries and $query as outputs from the search and input into the HTML Report.

NOTE: You could possibly run it remotely from the MIM Sync Server too, if you leverage Remote Powershell to your FIM/MIM Sync server as detailed here.

The Script

Here it is. Lines 23 and 24 contain a hard-coded query. Update for your search criteria, or as detailed above combine this with the Get-MVObject query building script detailed here .  The Output directory specified in Line 7 is where the stylesheet and the resultant HTML file will be placed. Update for your needs.

For the Expected Rules List (unlike the screenshot as I’ve modified the script afterwards), the script gets the DisplayName for them and puts that in the report. DisplayName is more valuable than an ERE ObjectID.

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An alternate method for dealing with Orphaned MetaVerse Objects

Update 21 April ’17. The LithnetMIISAutomation PS Module now has a -Force switch for Delete-CSObject

As often happens in development environments, data changes, configurations change and at some point you end up with a whole bunch of objects that are in no-mans land. This happened to me today. I had thousands of objects that we basically empty but had previously triggered to be exported to the MIM Service prior to them actually being deleted from the source management agent.

FailedCreations
Failed Creation via web services

An example of one of the objects. A group with a Pending Export to the MIM Service.

Failed Creation via web services
Failed Creation via web services

A closer look at the object and there is no attribute data present as the source object had been removed.

no attributes to sync
no attributes to sync

And only a single connector, to the MIM Service which it will never reach as it doesn’t contain the mandatory attributes.

single connector
single connector

Normally to clean up such a mess you’d probably be looking at deleting the Connector Space for the MIM Service and then refreshing it from the MIM Service and these objects would be gone. However, this development environment is rather large, and that wasn’t something I had time or was prepared for at this time. So here’s how I worked around the issue.

Deleting spurious objects from the Connector Space

There’s two approaches;

  1. Select each of the errors, select the MIM Service Connector and select delete. That would work but I had thousands.
  2. Automate the process described in point 1. That’s the approach I took

Using the ever versatile Lithnet MIM Sync Powershell Module I retrieved the last run details for my MIM Service MA. I grabbed all the errors, inspected the errors for the ones that were failing creation to the MIM Service and then deleted the CSObject for that orphan.

Here’s where it got more than a little *clink clink* cowboy-ish. The Delete-CSObject cmdlet requires confirmation to delete the CSObject. There is not a switch to force the delete, or accept confirmation globally*. I wasn’t going to click Yes or press Enter 5000 times either.

drinkingbird

So I wrote a small script that loops and checks for the Confirm disconnection dialog and sends the enter key to window.

Here’s the two little scripts.

This first script retrieves the last run details and loops through the errors.

This second script which I ran in a second separate PowerShell Runspace loops around and presses enter at the right time.

*I’ve submitted an enhancement request to Ryan to add a confirm parameter to Delete-CSObject. UPDATE: You can now use the -Force switch. Get-CSObject -DN $objDN -MA “MIM Service” | Disconnect-CSObject -Force