7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention1 Pushing the Envelope With Perl: Using Perl With Microsoft Exchange Rick Tatem Systems Programmer SAS

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention2 About the speaker… Started in the UNIX world (’92-99)  Perl user since ~ ’94 Moved into NT by choice (’96)  Something new  Not backups No Guru…

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention3 Microsoft Exchange Exchange version 5.5  Information Store  transactional database  Private (mailboxes) and Public  Directory Service  LDAP compliant  Separate from the accounts database

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention4 Perl and Windows NT/2000 Windows/UNIX issues Binary distribution from ActiveState  Key modules  Win32::OLE  Win32::OLE::Enum  Perl Development Kit  PerlCtrl – create COM objects  Visual debugger Perl2exe

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention5 Perl and Windows NT/2000 Most example code is VBScript  Don’t reinvent the wheel  Translation is easy

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention6 Perl and Windows NT/2000 VB to Perl example  All perl scripts begin with: use strict; use Win32::OLE;  Methods vs. Properties  Dot notation ADO Connection example Listing 1Listing 2

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention7 Perl and Windows NT/2000 VB Set conn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") conn.Provider = "ADSDSOObject" conn.Open "ADsProvider;CN=uid,DC=domain;pwd" Perl my $conn = Win32::OLE->new("ADODB.Connection"); $conn->{'Provider'} = "ADsDSOObject"; $conn->Open("ADs Provider;CN=uid,DC=domain;pwd"); Listing 1Listing 2

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention8 Exchange-related Tasks Message Tracking Information Stores Directory Services

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention9 Message Tracking Logs Simple tab delimited text Exchange Admin GUI tool for following messages throughout site Usefulness (find source of virus outbreak)

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention10 Message Tracking Logs Perl featured in Exchange Admin newsletter article (July, 2000) Good  Used Perl  Useful concept – overall message flow Not good for multiple-server Code Example

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention11 Directory Services Most tools High visibility Even more important after transition to Active Directory Major projects  Rules-based Distribution Lists  DLManager

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention12 Rules-based Distribution Lists Examples lacking  Only creation shown  No concept of ‘update’ Perl makes it easier  Easy to compare lists  Win32::OLE gives you access to ADSI

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention13 Rules-based Distribution Lists Membership rules are in Perl syntax (($unit eq ‘DEPT’) && ($loc eq ‘City’)) For each list…  Rule is eval’ed for each employee  Current membership compared to eval’ed membership  Adds/Deletes/Creates as necessary

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention14 DLManager Requirements  Decommission ListServ on VM  Provide same functionality (80/20) 2/3 already done  “Closed” lists – regular DLs  Automated lists – autodl.pl  “OPEN” lists – not available

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention15 DLManager Available solutions lacking in one way or another  Microsoft’s EXLIST  Reddfish ListServer  NTP ListManager

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention16 DLManager Major features  Actually USES the existing directory  Leverages security  Written in Perl PerlCtrl – part of Perl Development Kit from ActiveState

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention17 DLManager Sample code Demo

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention18 Exchange 2000/Active Directory MAJOR changes/improvements Directory  NT Account (SAM)/Exchange Directory consolidation  Distribution List = Security Group + mail  Extensible Schema

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention19 Exchange 2000/Active Directory Information Store  IFS – ‘cd’ into your mailbox!  WebDAV  XML  Store Events/Sinks  Synchronous events  More robust

7/27/2001O'Reilly Open Source Convention20 Conclusion Currently updating code for Windows2000 Active Directory and Exchange2000 Code available from me  PerlCtrl available as part of Perl Development Kit from ActiveState Q&A… Thank you!