One popular request I have received over the years for AdFind was to decode the Generalized Time fields like I decode some of the common int8 (64 bit) time fields. I have always said no to this because I don’t consider the fields encoded so not in need of decoding… I see something like
>whenCreated: 20021023015020.0Z
>whenChanged: 20050514161046.0Z
and I have absolutely no issue reading it and understanding what it is telling me. On the other hand I see
>pwdLastSet: 127910506324095116
and I have no clue what that is. Hence, the second is an obvious field to decode while the first doesn’t, IMO, need it…
Well Brian Desmond (fellow MVP) emailed me and asked for this decoding to take place and actually gave an argument for “decoding” Generalized Time fields that I could appreciate and that combined with the fact that I was feeling mellow this morning added it in… So now the Generalized time fields *can* look like
>whenCreated: 2002/10/22-21:50:20 Eastern Daylight Time
>whenChanged: 2005/05/14-12:10:46 Eastern Daylight Time
This is handled through 4 new switches… Why 4? I want to give you (and myself) flexibility. I can’t assume everyone wants to “decode” those fields so I added -tdcgt and -tdcgts which are decode generalized time and decode generalized time in sortable format. I also decided that some people will want to decode both the int8 stuff as well as the generalized time so made it so they can do so with a single switch, either -tdca or -tdcas where the A stands for all.
The second request I added in is the decoding of some well known “delta” int8 values… These are int8 values that don’t have an actual time value but instead are a delta to be used for something or other, examples include:
>forceLogoff: -9223372036854775808
>lockoutDuration: -18000000000
>lockOutObservationWindow: -6000000000
>maxPwdAge: -78624000000000
>minPwdAge: 0
I added the decode of these to the -samdc (SAM Decode) switch functionality so they can now look like:
>forceLogoff: -9223372036854775808 [undefined]
>lockoutDuration: -18000000000 [-30.00 minutes(s)]
>lockOutObservationWindow: -6000000000 [-10.00 minutes(s)]
>maxPwdAge: -78624000000000 [-91.00 day(s)]
>minPwdAge: 0 [0.00 day(s)]
I am finishing up most of the tests of AdFind and AdMod and rereading the usage screens to make sure I didn’t miss changes. After that I have to update the Web Pages (there will be a format change there as it is getting too cumbersome and error prone to maintain the way it is) and I will upload everything for your enjoyment.
joe
Cool. I was working with an older version of ADFIND and this feature of the newer version helped me out. I use ADFIND to report unused user accounts and return several date attributes. Having all of the date values in the same format helps.
Thanks Joe 🙂