Job Update

I've been slacking in posting lately, time to get back on board here.  Back in January, I took a job offer for a company called Tools4ever. In the past 4 months, I've been working clients in dealing with identity management.  The core product we leverage is called UMRA (User Management Resource Administrator). This product allows us and our clients to building automation projects that can automate the building and managing of users based of data from a data source like an SIS or HRMS. Be on the look out in the near future for me posting articles on how product can be used in many different situations.

UMRA Product Info

Tools4Ever

MONyog & GrayLog2

So, I've discovered and started using two new tools this week. First, I wanted to audit some of things going on with my mySQL server, and I ended up finding MONyog.  This tool allows you to see what queries are being run, counts on them, analytics on queries, and more.  The trial is 30 days long, but the overall price is pretty inexpensive for the most part.  It has helped me track down some connections that were being refused and track what data is being used the most.

The second tool I would like to share is Graylog2. If you're looking for a centralized syslog server, but don't want to pony up some dough, then I suggest checking this one out.  I ended up using this turnkey solution for Graylog2 by running it in VM called PartyLog.  Another one that is note worthy, but I haven't played much of any with it is LogStash

I found these tools pretty helpful, at no cost. MONyog has a cost if you need to use it beyond the trial, but still worth a look.

Flashpanel for Google Apps

Need to be able to take more control of your Google Apps deployment?  Check out FlashPanel!  It provides all the necessary tools that you need to audit your domain in a quick fashion.

FlashPanel

Android Notifications Firewall Port

Having problems with getting notifications from Google Play, GMail and or applications on the wireless behind a firewall. Open the following:

TCP 5228

T-Mobile Wifi Calling Firewall Ports

I switched to T-Mobile yesterday and wanted to have calling enabled on specific IP's, discovered and tested that these are the ports needs for Wifi Calling

TCP 5060 (Unsure if this really required, but added it)

TCP 5061

UDP 52000-59999

Google Apps update alerts: Google Apps Password Sync for AD

Google Apps update alerts: New Product: Google Apps Password Sync for Active ...: Google Apps Password Sync allows Google Apps admins to synchronize their users' passwords from Active Directory to Google Apps as they are changed.

Edit: A comment on this, the utility only submit's password changes as they happen on the Active Directory Side, it does not provide a AD attribute that you can use with GADS to sync on a regular basis.  You'll want to use the utility in my other articles if you want it to also sync passwords on a regular basis as a fail-back.

Blackboard Connect 5 API with PHP

I've been working on connecting our Data Warehouse to the Blackboard Connect Service using the SOAP API's. For those interested, here is the quick and dirty way to do it on PHP 5.3

Create the SOAP client

$client = new SoapClient("https://Service.BlackboardConnect.com/Contact/v2/ContactService.asmx?wsdl",array ('trace' => 1));

Create Authorization Header

//Parameters
  $options = array(
       'DATE' => gmdate("Ymd"),
       'TIME' => gmdate("Hi"), 
       'API' => '*API KEY*',
       'SECRET => '*API SECRET*');

//Hash Parameters
$hash = md5(strtoupper($options['API']) . '|' . $options['SECRET'] . '|' . $options['DATE'] . '|' . $options['TIME']);

//Create Token
$authtoken = trim($hash . '|' . $options['API']);

$headerbody = array('Token' => $authtoken);

//Set SOAP Header
$header = new SOAPHeader('BBConnect.Service.Contact', 'AuthToken', $headerbody);
$client -> __setSoapHeaders($header);

I had to strip the header tag for the xml

$xml = simplexml_load_file(*path to file*);

$convert = $xml->asXML();
$xmldata = str_replace('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>', '', $convert);

Create SOAP Variable

$input = new SoapVar( $xmldata, XSD_ANYXML );

 Submit Request

try {   
            $request = new StdClass();
            $request->inputXml = (object) array('any' => $input );
            $response = $client->UpdateContact($request);
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            echo "<h2>Exception Error!</h2>";
            echo $e -> getMessage();
            }

Get Response

echo "<h3>RESPONSE:</h3>";
echo htmlspecialchars($client->__getLastResponse());

Debug Request/Header

echo "<h3>REQUEST:</h3>";
echo htmlspecialchars($client->__getLastRequest());
echo "<h3>REQUEST HEADERS:</h3>";
echo htmlspecialchars($client->__getLastRequestHeaders());

Blackboard Connect 5 API Documentation

Pretty straight forward, if you have any questions let me know.