Category:Policy Extension

From ActiveRoles

1 Understanding Policy Extensions
2 Deploying Policy Extensions Found on This Website
3 Official Disclaimer
4 Troubleshooting
5 Creating policy extensions

Understanding Policy Extensions

ActiveRoles Server of version earlier than 6.5 provided for policies of only pre-defined types. The list of policy types in the ActiveRoles Server console was restricted to the types available out of the box, such as Home Folder AutoProvisioning or User Account Deprovisioning. There was no way to extend the list by adding new types of policy. Each policy type determines a certain policy action (for example, creating a home folder for a user account) together with a collection of policy parameters to configure the policy action (for example, parameters that specify the network location where to create home folders). Version 6.5 of ActiveRoles Server builds upon this concept, providing the ability to implement and deploy policy extensions. It enables policy extensions to be created as necessary, and listed along with the pre-defined policy types, allowing administrators to configure policies that perform custom actions determined by those new types of policy. Although ActiveRoles Server allows the creation of policy extensions based on the Script Execution built-in policy type, creating and configuring a script policy from scratch can be time-consuming. Custom policy types provide a way to mitigate this overhead. Once a policy extension is deployed that points to a particular script, administrators can easily configure and apply policies of that type, having those policies perform the actions determined by the script. The policy script also defines the policy parameters specific to the policy extension. Policy extensions provide an extensible mechanism for deploying. This capability is implemented by using the Policy Type object class. Policy Type objects can be created by using the ActiveRoles Server console, with each object representing a certain type of custom policy.

Deploying Policy Extensions Found on This Website

Use the following steps to retrieve a Policy Extension from this website and deploy the Policy Extension in your ActiveRoles Server environment.

Download

Identify the desired Policy Extension and go to the page containing the description of that Policy Extension.
Click the link in the upper-right corner of the page to start downloading the Policy Extension zip file.
Save and unzip the downloaded zip file on your computer.

Install

In the ActiveRoles Server console tree, expand the Configuration | Server configuration | Policy Types branch, right-click the Policy Types node, and then click Import Policy Type.
Use the Import Policy Type dialog box to locate and open the XML file you have downloaded and unzipped on your computer.

Apply

In the ActiveRoles Server console tree, expand the Configuration | Server Configuration | Policies | Administration branch, right-click the Administration node, and select New | Provisioning Policy (or New | Deprovisioning Policy) to start the wizard for creating a Policy Object.
Follow the instructions on the wizard pages until you reach the Policy to Configure page.
On the Policy to Configure page, click the name of the policy type provided by the Policy Extension you installed. Click Next.
On the Policy Parameters page, specify the parameters as needed to configure the policy. Click Next.
Follow the instructions on the wizard pages to complete the creation of the Policy Object.

Official Disclaimer

Please be noticed that the Policy Extensions as well as any other information published here are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. If you want this functionality to be conditionally supported, please contact Quest Professional Services.

Troubleshooting

What to do if a Policy Extension does not function as expected in your ActiveRoles Server environment:

Review the Compatibility section on the page describing the Policy Extension to verify that this Policy Extension can be used with your ActiveRoles Server version.
On the computer running the Administration Service, check the EDM Server event log for error events to get information about the issues that might prevent ActiveRoles Server from performing this Policy Extension.
Ask for assistance from ActiveRoles Community experts.
Contact Quest Professional Services if you want this Policy Extension to be officially supported by Quest Software.

Creating policy extensions

If you want to learn how to create a policy extension and share it with the community please read the article How to create a new custom policy extension.