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Active Directory Objects

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Active Directory Objects

This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

Microsoft® Active Directory® is the centralized directory service for Microsoft Windows® 2000, and acts as a repository for all network information. The Active Directory schema, or set of structural definitions, can be dynamically updated by applications. When Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server is installed, it extends the Active Directory schema to include Exchange-related object attributes and classes. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Exchange, you must run the Exchange version of the Active Directory connector, which also extends the schema.

Active Directory® Service Interfaces (ADSI) can be used to manipulate all objects in Active Directory.

To build a new gateway, you must create the following gateway-related objects in Active Directory:

Mail-Gateway Object

When you create a new gateway, you can further extend the Active Directory schema to create a new object class for the gateway. This allows you to define a set of configuration attributes that are unique to that gateway.

It is recommended that gateways and foreign connectors be represented in Active Directory by objects of a class that inherits from the ms-Exch-Mail-Gateway class. The ms-Exch-Mail-Gateway object, in turn, is a sub-class of ms-Exch-Connector.

Addr-Type Object

Every gateway has an associated address type that corresponds to the address format of the foreign system that the gateway serves. The address type is represented by an Active Directory Addr-Type object. An Addr-Type object, which derives from the class ms-Exch-Add-Type, must always contain the location of the proxy generation DLL that generates proxy addresses for a recipient based on the address type.

The address type associated with a new gateway can be added to a recipient policy object. This object contains a collection of settings that can be applied to a select set of Exchange recipients. The Recipient Update Service (RUS) periodically tests for changes to recipient policies. When a new address type is detected, the RUS generates new proxy addresses for the targeted recipients.

The setup program of a gateway must install an Addr-Type object and associated information when it installs the gateway.

Address Entry Templates

When you instantiate a new Addr-Type object, you should also provide a corresponding address entry template. This template allows the user to create new addresses of the corresponding type by entering information in the dialog box displayed. The user does not need to know the details of the address type syntax. The address entry template works with an address syntax program to convert the data entered by the user into a proxy address string.

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Build: June 2007 (2007.618.1)

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