Active Directory PHP interaction and POLITICS

[VinylxScratches]

Hello everyone.

I am a Network Admin Intern. There is some downtime sometimes and i want to do some development. Our department is trying to reduce the amount of traffic tickets we get. One of them is VPN access. We have a distribution list called #VPN and Security Group called VPN and the Dial-in Tab the Allow radio button is selected to give users VPN access. We submit them two files that have informations.

We have a lot of steps that we have to manually do. I want to automate them all using a MySQL backend with a PHP or ASP.NET/C# front-end.

I am kind of afraid to bring this up to my boss. I did some programming at my old internship and am confident I can come up with a full blown solution but.....

I'm just afraid that maybe he will shoot it down, or we weary of a app interacting with AD. How would you approach him?

Has anyone here ever used PHP to do some simple AD functions? I am more of a C#/ASP.NET guy but to waste money on a server that does something so simple well it's a waste.

 

[KB]

I have been in the same position. Your boss isn't likely to say NO to your idea. Either they will be excited or they will pay little attention waiting instead for something concrete. When I wrote automation scripts as an intern for a previous job I did not ask permission instead I just built them and then showed them to the team. My boss would not have understood the process or the technology, but was happy to see the productivity increase. Phrases like "turnaround time would increase by 50%" really sold the boss on using my automation scripts.

It is important that in development you have a test environment. This will be your most difficult task as many companies don't have a test AD environment. Making unintended changes through bugs to production environments can get you axed.

I have not used PHP, but .Net/C# has loads of examples of doing everything you mentioned.

 

[GeekDrew]

As far as ASP.NET goes, why would it require its own server? Run it on a virtual server, or (depending on the environment security configs and corporate policy) just run IIS on a domain controller.

And if your interface is only going to be exposed to administrators, why not just create some VBS or PowerShell scripts to take care of it, rather than going through the hassle of making a PHP website and etc?

 

[VinylxScratches]

Cost the of the windows server license.

No admins will be touching it. Desktop Support will and Networking does not want Desktop to deal with anything backend.

Anyways, I brought it up and he is def for it so looks like I'll be doing some development in the future.

Running a script won't cut it.

Our VPN users have a limited time and I want to automate a email telling them that their VPN account has expired and to request a new activation. I want this all automated. Right now we add it in as a even in outlook to remind ourselves.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

i did this at my last job. We couldnt tie users' laptops for various reasons so in order to pass our audit, I had to create a PHP script to modify user's account. This included, disabling/enabling accounts, modifying password and reminding them when their passwords will expire. It was easy once you get AD to talk to the Linux box.