My recent post about getting Active Directory replication Meta Data has spawned a considerable number of emails. I wanted to take a moment and remind everyone of the help switch specifically talking about the replication metadata info. This usage provided in AdFind tells you your sort options available for each metadata attribute and what info is contained in each of the columns.
You can get that help by typing
adfind /meta?
Here is the latest version of that output…
F:\Dev\Current\CPP\AdFind\Debug>adfind /meta?
AdFind V01.39.00cpp ***BETA*** Joe Richards (joe@joeware.net) January 2009
-help Basic help.
-? Basic help.
-?? Advanced/Expert help.
-???? Shortcut help.
-sc? Shortcut help.
-meta? Metadata help.
Usage:
AdFind [switches] [-b basedn] [-f filter] [attr list]
basedn RFC 2253 DN to base search from.
If no base specified, defaults to default NC.
filter RFC 2254 LDAP filter.
If no filter specified, defaults to objectclass=*.
attr list List of specific attributes to return, if nothing specified
returns ‘default’ attributes, aka * set.
Switches: (designated by – or /)
MetaData Help
=============
AdFind has the ability to decode various metadata type attributes. These
attributes can give information about replication status of the server
itself or replication metadata for individual objects.
These special attributes are normally returned from Active Directory in
XML format. This is a bit bulky and can be tough to read without cleanup
so I have added the ability decode the attributes and cut down the amount
of data passed over the wire. Using the ;binary option when specifying an
attribute causes AD to reformat certain attributes and send them across as
binary blocks of data. When requesting the meta attributes outlined below
if you do not specify the ;binary option, they will be returned in the
native format, if you add the ;binary option, they will be returned in the
alternate format and AdFind will decode the strings to its format.
To further assist the ease of retrieving this information, see the shortcut
usage menu via adfind /sc?
MetaData Attributes
——————-
msDS-ReplQueueStatistics – RootDSE attribute
Replication queue statistics. Output is labeled. No sort options.
msDS-ReplPendingOps – RootDSE attribute
Any replications operations currently in progress. Output is labeled.
Default sort order is server return order. Sort options – dsa,date
msDS-ReplConnectionFailures – RootDSE attribute
msDS-ReplLinkFailures – RootDSE attribute
Replication failure information. Output is labeled. Default sort order
is by DSA. Sort options – dsa,date
msDS-ReplAllInboundNeighbors – RootDSE attribute
msDS-ReplAllOutboundNeighbors – RootDSE attribute
Replication info for all direct neighbors. Output is labeled. Default
sort order is by DSA. Sort options – dsa,date,nc,err
msDS-TopQuotaUsage – RootDSE attribute
Indicates the top object owners on a given server. Output is labeled.
Default sort order is server return order. Sort options – nc,owner.
msDS-NCReplInboundNeighbors – Naming Context attribute
msDS-NCReplOutboundNeighbors – Naming Context attribute
Replication for all direct neighbors for the specific NC. Output is
labeled. Default sort order is by DSA. Sort options – dsa,date,nc,err
msDS-NCReplCursors – Naming Context attribute
Replication cursors by DSA by context. Output format:
HighestUSN LastSyncTime DSA
Default sort order is last sync time. Sort options – lastsync,dsa
msDS-ReplAttributeMetaData – Object Level attribute
Replication metadata for object. Output format:
USNLocal DSA USNOrig Date/Time Version Attribute
Default sort order is attribute. Sort options – DSA,date,usnloc,usnorig,ver
msDS-ReplValueMetaData – Object Level attribute (FFL2+ only – i.e. LVR Replication)
Replication value metadata for object. Output format:
attribute USNLocal DSA USNOrig Date/Time Version State ObjectDN
Default sort order is date. Sort options – attrib,obj,DSA,state,date,usnloc,usnorig,ver
Sort Options
————
The decoded output for most of the metadata attributes can be sorted to various
fields in the output. The specific fields for each attribute are listed with
the description of the attributes. In order to change the sort field, use the
-metasort switch. Specify the switch combined with the options specified above
to change the sort order. If value has a dash (-) appended, the search order
is reversed.
Ex1:
adfind -rootdse msDS-TopQuotaUsage;binary
Get top 10 quota users in decoded format
Ex2:
adfind -b cn=someobject,ou=someou,dc=test,dc=loc -s base msDS-ReplAttributeMetaData;binary
Get attribute metadata for specified object in decoded format
This software is Freeware. Use at your own risk.
I do not warrant this software to be fit for any purpose or use and
I do not guarantee that it will not damage or destroy your system.
Contact joe@joeware.net via email for licensing information to package
this utility in commercial products.
See full Warranty documentation on www.joeware.net.
If you have improvement ideas, bugs, or just wish to say Hi, I
receive email 24×7 and read it in a semi-regular timeframe.
You can usually find me at joe@joeware.net
