A value reference is a pattern of text that contains the name of the property it refers to and some formatting options that allow modifying the resulting value.
Value references have the following format:
%propertyname[:lower|upper][,count][,char]%where:
% - special symbols that indicate the beginning and the end of a value reference
propertyname - the LDAP name or alias of the property the value of which you want to be inserted
[] - means optional
lower|upper - the case of the inserted value
count - the maximum length of the inserted value
char - a padding character, fills up the inserted value, if its length is less than 'count'
To insert a percent symbol in the property value, you need to specify it as %%.
For example, %company% value reference will be replaced with the value of the Company property.
%company% - Acme
The value reference %company,2% will be replaced with the first two characters of the Company property value.
%company,2% - Ac
The value reference %company:lower,2% will be replaced with the first two characters of the Company property value in the lower case.
%company:lower,2% - ac
The value reference %company,7,#% will be replaced with the value of the Company property, and if it contains less than 7 characters, the number signs (#) will be inserted instead of the insufficient characters.
%company,7,#% - Acme###
| When a property is updated using value references, a value reference can be replaced with the value that contains characters illegal for the updated property. In this case, such characters will be omitted in the resulting value. For example, the resulting value for the Username (pre-Windows 2000) property will exclude such characters as semicolon (;), asterisk (*), question mark (?), etc, even if these characters are present in the referenced values. |
Value references that refer to the properties containing date and time have the following format:
%propertyname[,[+/-count y][+/-count M][+/-count d][+/-count h][+/-count m][+/-count s]][,time]%where:
% - special symbols that indicate the beginning and the end of a value reference
propertyname - the LDAP name or alias of the property the value of which you want to be inserted
[] - means optional
+/- - indicates whether a specific period of time is added or subtracted
count - the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes or seconds added or subtracted from the date and time inserted by a value reference
y - year
M - month
d - day
h - hour
m - minute
s - second
time - the set time to be inserted by a value reference
For example, %accountExpires% value reference will be replaced with the value of the accountExpires property.
%accountExpires% - 1/1/2014 09:00:00 AM
The value reference %accountExpires,+1d% will be replaced with the value of the accountExpires property plus 1 day and 1 hour.
%accountExpires,+1d% - 1/2/2014 9:00:00 AM
The value reference %accountExpires,+1M,12:00% will be replaced with the value of the accountExpires property plus 1 month, and time will always be set to 12:00:00 AM.
%accountExpires,+1M,12:00% - 2/1/2014 12:00:00 AM
| When a property is updated using value references, a value reference can be replaced with the value that contains characters illegal for the updated property. In this case, such characters will be omitted in the resulting value. For example, the resulting value for the Username (pre-Windows 2000) property will exclude such characters as semicolon (;), asterisk (*), question mark (?), etc, even if these characters are present in the referenced values. |
For some properties, you can use aliases instead of their LDAP names. An alias is another property name defined in Adaxes. Aliases are defined for widely-used properties, the LDAP name of which is not self-descriptive.
By default, the following aliases are defined:
| Alias | Property LDAP Name |
|---|---|
| firstname | givenName |
| lastname | sn |
| fullname | cn |
| username | samAccountName or uid |
| datetime | adm-CurrentDateTime |
| initiator | adm-InitiatorUserName |
For example, to insert the value of the cn property, you can use either %cn% or %fullname%. Both variants are correct, but the last one is more comprehensible.
You can modify aliases defined by Adaxes or specify aliases for other properties via the AttributeNameAliases.xml file. By default, this file is located on the computer, where the Adaxes service is installed in a system directory containing application data for all users. A typical path to this file:
- Windows Server 2003/2003 R2: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Softerra\Adaxes 3,
- Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008: C:\ProgramData\Softerra\Adaxes 3,
- Windows 7/8/8.1/10, Windows Server 2008 R2/2012/2012 R2: C:\Users\All Users\Softerra\Adaxes 3.
| If Administration Console is installed on another computer, not on the computer, where the Adaxes service is installed, you will also need to make similar modification on that computer. |
In addition to usual Active Directory properties, value references can refer to so called calculated or virtual properties defined by Adaxes. These properties are not physically stored in Active Directory, but are calculated or derived in one way or another. For details, see Calculated Properties.