Where I Go Spelunking into the Horizon View LDAP Database–Part 2

/ seanpmassey

In Part 1 of this series, I shared some of the resources that are currently available in the greater VMware View community that work directly with the View LDAP database.  Overall, there are some great things being done with these scripts, but they barely scratch the surface of what is in the LDAP database.

Connecting to the View LDAP Database

Connecting to the VIew LDAP database has been covered a few times, and VMware has a knowledgebase article that covers the steps to use ADSI edit on Windows Server. 

Any scripting language with an LDAP provider can also access the database.  Although they’re not View specific, there are a number of resources for using scripting languages, such as PowerShell or Python, with an LDAP database.

Top-Level LDAP Organizational Units

LDAP OUs

Like Active Directory or any other LDAP database, there are a number of top-level OUs where all the objects are stored.  Unlike many LDAP databases, though, the naming of these OUs doesn’t make it easy to navigate and find the objects that you’re looking for.

The OUs that are in the View LDAP Database are:

Organizational Unit Name

Purpose
Applications Pool, Application, and ThinApp settings
Data Disks Persistent Desktop Data Disks
Hosts ?? Possibly Terminal Server or Manual Pool members
Groups View Folders and Security Groups/Roles
ForeignSecurityPrincipals Active Directory SIDs used with View
Packages ?? Possibly ThinApp repositories or packages
People ??
Polices Various system properties stored in child container attributes
Properties VDM properties, child OU contains event strings
Roles Built-in security?
Servers Desktops
Server Groups Desktop Pools

You may notice that a few of the OUs have question marks under their purpose.  I wasn’t able to figure out what those OUs were used for based on how I had set up my home lab.  I normally don’t work with Terminal Server or Manual pools or ThinApp, and I suspect that the OUs that aren’t defined relate to those areas.

This series is going to continue at a slower pace over the next couple of months as I shift the focus to writing scripts against the LDAP database.