IDM driver for MAD errors when trying to set password with errors

  • 7011991
  • 19-Mar-2013
  • 20-Mar-2013

Environment

NetIQ Identity Manager (IDM)
Microsoft Active Directory (MAD) driver

Situation

When synchronizing a password from eDirectory to a Microsoft Active Directory (MAD) environment with multiple domain controllers, the password synchronization fails with an error stating "user not found" or "access denied" while other changes synchronize normally to the same user.  Running the `gpupdate /force` command on a domain controller (DC) may resolve the issue temporarily, for about ten minutes.

The driver config (in eDirectory, usually viewed in Designer or iManager) has the Authentication Context field configured to point to the domain name, rather than being left blank or pointing to a specific domain controller.

Resolution

The MAD driver is designed to point to a single DC at a time unless manually and explicitly reconfigured to point to a new DC.  If the authentication context is not configured for a specific DC but instead has the domain name in the Authentication Context field then it may switch between DCs unpredictably causing some types of synchronization to fail.

The only alternative to explicitly pointing to a DC in the Authentication Context field is to leave the field blank with no value, which implicitly configures the driver to point to the local machine; this is the most common configuration and is usually used when the Remote Loader (RL) is correctly running on a DC.