IdFix - Directory Error Remediation Guide

PREPARATION AND OPERATIONS

Published: January 2018

MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under
copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose,
without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering
subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, our
provision of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other
intellectual property.

The descriptions of other companies’ products in this document, if any, are provided only as a convenience to you.
Any such references should not be considered an endorsement or support by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot guarantee
their accuracy, and the products may change over time. In addition, the descriptions are intended as brief highlights
to aid understanding, rather than as thorough coverage. For authoritative descriptions of these products, please
consult their respective manufacturers.

© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Any use or distribution of these materials without express
authorization of Microsoft Corp. is strictly prohibited.

Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States
and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

Contents

Preparation and Operations.........................................................................................................1

1 Overview................................................................................................................................... 5
2 Preparation............................................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Functionality....................................................................................................................................................... 6
2.2 Requirements..................................................................................................................................................... 7
2.2.1 Hardware Requirements........................................................................................................................ 7
2.2.2 Software Requirements.......................................................................................................................... 7
2.2.3 Identity Management Systems Conflicts......................................................................................... 8
2.3 Active Directory Impacts................................................................................................................................ 8
2.3.1 Multi-tenant................................................................................................................................................ 8
2.3.1.1 Attributes that may be updated................................................................................................. 8
2.3.1.2 Attribute Synchronization Rules................................................................................................. 9
2.3.1.3 Active Directory Attribute Values............................................................................................... 9
2.3.2 Dedicated.................................................................................................................................................... 9
2.3.2.1 Attributes that may be updated................................................................................................. 9
2.4 Installation........................................................................................................................................................... 9
3 Operation................................................................................................................................ 10
3.1 Running the Tool........................................................................................................................................... 10
3.2 Error Explanations.......................................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.1 Character................................................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.2 Format........................................................................................................................................................ 14
3.2.3 TopLevelDomain..................................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.4 DomainPart............................................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.5 LocalPart.................................................................................................................................................... 14
3.2.6 Length........................................................................................................................................................ 14
3.2.7 Duplicate................................................................................................................................................... 15
3.2.8 Blank............................................................................................................................................................ 15
3.2.9 MailMatch................................................................................................................................................. 15
3

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

4 Appendix................................................................................................................................ 16
4.1 New Functionality in this Release............................................................................................................ 16
4.1.1 New Error Types..................................................................................................................................... 16
4.1.1.1 topleveldomain – the top level domain is not internet routable; e.g. .local..............16
4.1.1.2 domainpart – the domain portion of the value does not comply with rfc2822.......16
4.1.1.3 localpart – the local portion of the value does not comply with rfc2822..................16
4.1.2 Suggested Update Values.................................................................................................................. 16
4.1.2.1 Suggestions for duplicates.......................................................................................................... 16
4.1.2.2 Suggestions for format errors.................................................................................................... 17
4.2 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.............................................................................................. 17
4.2.1 Feedback................................................................................................................................................... 17
4.2.2 Performance............................................................................................................................................. 17
4.2.3 Number of errors shown..................................................................................................................... 17
4.2.4 Temporary files....................................................................................................................................... 17
4.2.5 Directory Exceptions............................................................................................................................. 18
4.2.6 Don’t see updates in other domains.............................................................................................. 18
4.2.7 FAIL (ACTION).......................................................................................................................................... 18
4.2.8 Double Byte Characters....................................................................................................................... 18
4.2.9 Filtering...................................................................................................................................................... 18
4.2.10 Sorting........................................................................................................................................................ 19
4.2.11 Export Data............................................................................................................................................... 19
4.2.12 Import Data.............................................................................................................................................. 19
4.3 Supported Errors............................................................................................................................................ 19
4.3.1 Multi-Tenant Errors............................................................................................................................... 19
4.3.2 Dedicated Errors..................................................................................................................................... 21

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

1 Overview
The Office 365 Customer Experience (CXP) team is working to reduce the time required to
remediate Identity issues when on-boarding to Office 365. A portion of this effort is intended to
address the time involved in remediating the Active Directory errors reported by the directory
synchronization tools. The focus of IdFix is to enable the customer to accomplish this task in a
simple, expedient fashion without relying on subject matter experts.

To date, processes used to remediated Active Directory issues in customer environments have
been inconsistent at best. Each customer has relied upon interpretations of the guidance,
expensive consulting, and the varied skill sets they have local to their organizations. The result
has been long delays in correcting errors with corresponding delays in deployment and
associated customer dissatisfaction. Microsoft has recognized that customers need a basic tool to
alleviate this pain.

The Microsoft Office 365 IdFix tool provides customers the ability to identify and remediate the
majority of object synchronization errors in their Active Directory forests in preparation for
deployment to Office 365. Analysis from the Support cases per month shows that roughly 60%
of all errors seen daily fall into duplicate or malformed proxyAddresses and userPrincipalName.
The utility does not fix all errors, but it does find and fix the majority. This remediation will then
allow them to more successfully synchronize users, contacts, and groups from the on-premises
Active Directory into the Microsoft Office 365 environment.

Note: IdFix may identify errors beyond those that emerge during synchronization. The most
common example is compliance with rfc 2822 for smtp addresses. Although invalid
attribute values can be synchronized to the cloud the best practice recommendation
from the product group is that these errors be corrected.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

2 Preparation
Depending on the number of objects in the on-premises Active Directory, there may be a large
number of objects to synchronize. Even a low failure rate can result in a large number of objects
that must be manually corrected. This can significantly delay a deployment and increase project
expense.

The remediation effort is focused on directory synchronization errors which may be raised even
if the on-premises environment seems to be operating normally. Remember that the directory
synchronization tools check for values that could potentially cause issues with cloud services
that may not cause issues in the on-premises environment.

2.1 Functionality
This document describes how to use the IdFix tool to perform the discovery and remediation of
the objects and their attributes from the on-premises Active Directory environment and is
intended for the Active Directory administrators responsible for supporting the Office 365
service. The Administrator using the tool should understand the implications of modifying
directory objects and attributes.

IdFix queries all domains in the currently authenticated forest and displays object attribute
values which would be reported as errors by the supported directory synchronization tool. The
datagrid supports the ability to scroll, sort, and edit those objects in a resulting table to produce
compliant values. Confirmed values can then be applied to the forest with the ability to undo
updates. Transaction rollback is supported.

In the case of invalid characters, a suggested “fix” is displayed where it can be determined from
the existing value. Changes are applied only to records for which the customer has set an
ACTION value. Customer confirmation of each change is enforced.

Note: Suggested values for formatting errors start with the removal of invalid characters and
then the value must be updated by the user. It is beyond the scope of this utility to
determine what the user really wanted when a mistake in formatting is detected.

Not all objects should be made available for editing as some could cause harm to the source
environment; e.g. critical system objects. These objects are excluded from the IdFix datagrid.
Well Known Exclusions as defined by the Deployment Guide are supported.

Data can be exported into CSV or LDF format for offline editing or investigation. Save to File is
supported.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

Import of CSV is supported. There are caveats with this feature. The function relies upon the
distinguishedName and attribute to determine the value to update. The best way to do this is
to export from a query and change the Update. Keep the other columns as they were and do
not introduce escape characters into the values. See section 4.2.12 for additional details.

Since IdFix makes changes in the customer environment, logging is included. Verbose logging is
enabled by default.

Support for both Multi-Tenant and Dedicated versions of Office 365 are enabled in this release.
The rule sets are selected via the Settings icon on the menu.

Note: Additional functionality will be considered for future releases, and suggestions for
improvement are very much appreciated.

2.2 Requirements
The hardware, software, and other requirements and considerations for running IdFix are
covered in this section.

2.2.1 Hardware Requirements

A physical or virtual machine is required in order to run IdFix. The computer should meet the
following specifications:

 4 GB ram (minimum)
 2 GB of hard disk space (minimum)

2.2.2 Software Requirements

Table 2 shows the software requirement for the workstation running the tool, as well as the
target Active Directory forest. Note that IdFix does not need to be installed on the Exchange or
Active Directory server. It merely needs to be installed on a workstation in the forest and have
access to a Global Catalog server.

Table 2. IdFix Software Requirements

Software Description
IdFix Workstation
Operating System The application has been tested on Windows Server 2008 R2 and
Windows 7 for x64 bit versions.
.NET Framework 4.0 or higher must be installed on the workstation
.NET Framework 4.0
running the application.

Queries are via native LDAP and have been tested with Windows
Active Directory
Server 2008 R2, but all versions should be expected to work.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 Software Description
IdFix Workstation
The messaging attributes retrieved are version independent and
Exchange Server
should work with Exchange 2003 or newer.

The application runs in the context of the authenticated user which

means that it will query the authenticated forest and must have rights
Permissions
to read the directory. If you wish to apply changes to the directory the
authenticated user needs write permission to the desired objects.

2.2.3 Identity Management Systems Conflicts

It is important that any identity management system in the on-premises Active Directory
environment be evaluated to determine if it creates any conflicts with IdFix. The risk is after
correcting an error, an on-premises identity management system may update the attribute
again, returning it to its original error state. Before implementing directory synchronization, it
may be necessary to review or modify portions of existing identity management systems if they
are repeatedly generating invalid attribute values.

2.3 Active Directory Impacts

This section describes the updates that may be applied to attributes in the customer's on-
premises Active Directory environment.

2.3.1 Multi-tenant

2.3.1.1 Attributes that may be updated

 displayName
 givenName
 mail
 mailNickName
 proxyAddresses
 sAMAccountName
 sn
 targetAddress
 userPrincipalName

2.3.1.2 Attribute Synchronization Rules

See the following support article for information on the attributes that can be included in
synchronization.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

List of attributes that are synchronized to Office 365 and attributes that are written back to the
on-premises Active Directory Domain Services

2.3.1.3 Active Directory Attribute Values

IdFix checks several Active Directory attributes for the types of errors included in the Planning
Directory Synchronization – Active Directory Cleanup.

2.3.2 Dedicated

2.3.2.1 Attributes that may be updated

 displayName
 mail
 mailNickName
 proxyAddresses
 targetAddress

2.4 Installation
►To install the IdFix tool

Extract the zip, copy all the files in the IdFix folder to a folder on the local hard drive of a
workstation that meets all stated requirements.. Rename the executable file to end in an EXE
extension. There are no other dependencies. The location of the program files is arbitrary.

 A new verbose log is created each time you run the application.
 All changes applied to the forest are saved in separate Undo files with a date and time
stamp.

Note: Although IdFix tracks its own updates, it is not able to track updates made by other
machines or applications.

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

3 Operation
3.1 Running the Tool

1) Log-on to the workstation where you installed IdFix using an account which can read and, if
desired, write changes to your on-premises Active Directory objects.
2) Directory synchronization rule sets are different depending on which version of Office 365 is
in use. The Settings icon allows you to choose between running the Multi-Tenant or
Dedicated/ITAR rule sets in order to detect attribute values known to cause directory
synchronization errors relevant to the version of Office 365 in use.
3) The scope of the query can be limited by selecting the Filter icon and entering a valid
directory path to use as a start for the subtree search. Only one starting point can be
designated at a time. The subtree point will be used for all successive queries until changed.

10

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 Deleting the value will reset the query to the whole forest. The value must be entered in the
format OU=myOu,DC=Contoso,DC=com in order to function.
4) Query for relevant directory synchronization errors. IdFix queries all objects with a filter for
applicable attributes. IdFix updates the status line on the bottom of the dataGridView and
writes all values to the log.
5) Cancel terminates a running query if the user does not wish to continue.
6) IdFix applies rules against the required AD attributes to determine which objects must be
remediated and presents you with any detected error conditions.
a. IdFix displays items with information related to the object in question and the error
conditions. Objects are identified by the distinguishedName with the associated error
type and value that is in error.
b. Where feasible, IdFix presents a recommendation for corrective data in the UPDATE
column.
Note: Recommendations are based on a “best effort” approach for the specific
object in question. Since recommendations are object specific, they are not checked
against the existing data set and may introduce additional errors.
c. For certain types of errors (duplicates and format errors), a recommendation for
correction is NOT provided. Corrective information must be manually entered to
correct the issue.
d. In the event multiple errors are associated with a single attribute, errors are
combined into a single line item.
e. If a blank datagrid is displayed after execution, then no errors were returned. This is
a good thing.
7) To correct the object attribute values, select one of the following ACTION options from the
drop down list:
 COMPLETE - The original value is acceptable and should not be changed despite being
identified as being in an error state. For example, two users may have a proxyAddress
identified as duplicate. Only one can use the value for mail delivery. The user with the
correct value should be marked as COMPLETE, while the other user is marked as
REMOVE.
 REMOVE - The attribute value will be cleared from the source object. In the case of a
multi-valued attribute; e.g. proxyAddresses, only the individual value shown will be
cleared.
 EDIT - The information in the UPDATE column will be used to modify the attribute value
for the selected object. In many cases, a valid update value has been predetermined. In
these cases, you can mark the ACTION as EDIT and go on to the next error. If the
predetermined update value is not desired, you can manually input the new value.
 UNDO – This value is only shown if the user has loaded a previously saved Update file.
11

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 The sole operation that can be executed is to restore the original value.
 FAIL – This value is only shown if an update value has an unknown conflict with the
directory rules. In this case, you may attempt to edit the value again. It may be necessary
to analyze the values in the object using ADSIEDIT.
Note: on empty ACTION - Only errors with a customer selected Action will be
considered for update. To reiterate; unless a specific choice is made IdFix will not
perform any operation on the error.
8) The option to Accept all suggested updates is available.
Note: Adding suggested updates for duplicate and format errors is under consideration for
inclusion in a future release.
9) After selecting the ACTION for one or more errors, choose the Apply menu item to write the
values to Active Directory. Successful writes are indicated by displaying “COMPLETE” in the
ACTION column.
10) IdFix writes all UPDATE transactions to a transaction log. The following is an example.
7/22/2013 6:36:44 AM INITIALIZED - IDFIX VERSION 1.04 - MULTI-TENANT

7/22/2013 6:36:47 AM QUERY AD

7/22/2013 6:36:47 AM FOREST:E2K10.COM SERVER:DC1.E2K10.COM FILTER:(|(OBJECTCATEGORY=PERSON)

(OBJECTCATEGORY=GROUP))

7/22/2013 6:36:47 AM PLEASE WAIT WHILE THE LDAP CONNECTION IS ESTABLISHED.

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM QUERY COUNT: 140 ERROR COUNT: 29 DUPLICATE CHECK COUNT: 191

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM ELAPSED TIME: AD QUERY - 00:00:02.3890432

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM WRITE SPLIT FILES

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM MERGE SPLIT FILES

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM COUNT DUPLICATES

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM WRITE FILTERED DUPLICATE OBJECTS

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM READ FILTERED DUPLICATE OBJECTS

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM READ ERROR FILE

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM ELAPSED TIME: DUPLICATE CHECKS - 00:00:00.0780785

7/22/2013 6:36:49 AM POPULATING DATAGRID

7/22/2013 6:36:50 AM ELAPSED TIME: POPULATE DATAGRIDVIEW - 00:00:00.0780785

7/22/2013 6:36:50 AM QUERY COUNT: 140 ERROR COUNT: 53

12

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 7/22/2013 6:37:34 AM APPLY PENDING

7/22/2013 6:37:34 AM UPDATE: [CN=USER000001,OU=E2K10OU1,DC=E2K10,DC=COM][USER]

[MAILNICKNAME][CHARACTER][USER?^|000001][USER000001][EDIT]

7/22/2013 6:37:34 AM UPDATE: [CN=USER000008,OU=E2K10OU1,DC=E2K10,DC=COM][USER]

[TARGETADDRESS][DUPLICATE][SMTP:[email protected]][][REMOVE]

7/22/2013 6:37:34 AM COMPLETE

7/22/2013 6:37:40 AM LOADING UPDATES

7/22/2013 6:37:40 AM ACTION SELECTION

7/22/2013 6:37:57 AM APPLY PENDING

7/22/2013 6:37:57 AM UPDATE: [CN=USER000001,OU=E2K10OU1,DC=E2K10,DC=COM][USER]

[MAILNICKNAME][CHARACTER][USER?^|000001][USER000001][UNDO]

7/22/2013 6:37:57 AM UPDATE: [CN=USER000008,OU=E2K10OU1,DC=E2K10,DC=COM][USER]

[TARGETADDRESS][DUPLICATE][SMTP:[email protected]][][UNDO]

7/22/2013 6:37:57 AM COMPLETE

11) In the event of an unwanted correction, you may perform a transaction update undo one
level deep per UPDATE transaction.
 Apply generates a LDF file for the transactions that are applied
 To Undo a transaction, select the LDF file that contains the appropriate transaction and
reload it into the table

Note: IdFix cannot track updates to objects or attributes that occur outside of the
application. If you and someone else edit the same attribute, then the last change is the one
committed to the object.

12) You have the ability to Export what’s in the table to review with others before taking
corrective action, or to use as the source of a later bulk import using a separate utility like
CSVDE or LDIFDE. Testing is strongly recommended, no matter which tool you use.
13) You have the ability to Import data from a CSV file to allow offline manual edits to be
applied. Be very careful with manually edited files and use an Exported CSV file as a
template. Testing is strongly recommended and there is no guarantee that what you do
offline will be correctly recognized by IdFix. Use the best practices in 4.1.1 as a guideline in
your efforts.
14) If the query returns more than 50,000 errors the menu items Next Block and Previous
Block are displayed. The number of errors that can be displayed on the screen at one time
is limited to avoid application exceptions resulting from exceeding physical memory.
15) You may always submit suggestions for improvement or support requests via the Feedback
13

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 icon which will go directly to [email protected].

1.1 Error Explanations

For details on the errors that apply to each attribute see the Supported Errors section in the
Appendix.

3.1.1 Character
The Value contains a character which is invalid. The suggested Update will show the value with
the character removed.

3.1.2 Format
The Value violates the format requirements for the attribute usage. The suggested Update will
show the Value with any invalid characters removed. If there are no invalid characters the
Update and Value will appear the same. It is up to the user to determine what they really want
in the Update. For example SMTP addresses must comply with rfc 2822 and mailNickName
cannot start or end with a period.

3.1.3 TopLevelDomain
This applies to values subject to rfc2822 formatting. If the top level domain is not internet
routable then this will be identified as an error. For example a smtp address ending in .local is
not internet routable and would cause this error.

3.1.4 DomainPart
This applies to values subject to rfc2822 formatting. If the domain portion of the value is invalid
beyond the top level domain routing this will be generated.

3.1.5 LocalPart
This applies to values subject to rfc2822 formatting. If the local portion of the value is invalid
this will be generated.

3.1.6 Length
The Value violates the length limit for the attribute. This is most commonly encountered when
the schema has been altered. The suggested Update will truncate the value to the attribute
standard length.

3.1.7 Duplicate
The Value has a duplicate within the scope of the query. All duplicate values will be displayed as
errors. The user can Edit or Remove values to eliminate duplication.

14

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

3.1.8 Blank
The Value violates the null restriction for attributes to be synchronized. Only a few values must
contain a value. The suggested Update will leverage other attribute values in order to generate
a likely substitute.

3.1.9 MailMatch
This applies to Dedicated only. The Value does not match the mail attribute. The suggested
Update will be the mail attribute value prefixed by “SMTP:”.

15

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

4 Appendix
4.1 New Functionality in this Release
o Updated to follow validations using this doc.

4.2 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

4.2.1 Feedback
Bug reports and desired feature requests can be sent to [email protected]
where it will reviewed. The address can also be found in a dialog box launched from the
Feedback menu (smiley face) icon.

4.2.2 Performance
IdFix performance will vary based on the hardware utilized and the network latency to the
Active Directory global catalog (GC) server. Machines should have the minimum RAM
specified and will benefit by using faster hard drives since temporary files are written to
disk during the AD Query. High latency connections to a DC are discouraged and the best
performance will be experienced by running the application on a DC.

4.2.3 Number of errors shown

Customers with more than 50,000 errors returned faced the possibility of exceeding
physical memory in attempting to display all data at one time. To alleviate this issue,
errors are broken into blocks of 50,000. Exceeding the block size enables the More Errors
options of View Next Block and View Previous Block.

4.2.4 Temporary files

Large volumes of data may be parsed in the search for duplicate values. For instance a
user may have up to six (6) attributes that must be checked and the proxyAddresses field
can have many values. The duplicate check count may routinely exceed five (5) times the
number of objects returned. For this reason, data must be written to disk to avoid the out
of memory exception on most workstations. Do not delete the temporary files while
running. This will trigger an exception and may cause unpredictable results.

4.2.5 Directory Exceptions

There are 60 separate LDAP return codes and four (4) types of directory exceptions that
can occur when contacting a directory server. These should be gracefully handled with a
16

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 message box and an error written to the log. Client-server timeout is one example where
the condition may be sporadic. To alleviate this issue, the default LDAP timeout interval
has been increased from 30 seconds to two (2) minutes. This is a server side limitation, and
the application respects all server side limits. If this should occur, then wait for a period of
time when the GC is not so heavily utilized and/or launch the application from a lower
latency location. For example, directly on a global catalog server.

4.2.6 Don’t see updates in other domains

If the response to an update was COMPLETE, then the value has been applied to the
directory. However, you may need to wait for replication to complete. Attempting to
apply the update multiple times in a row may result in an exception stating the server is
unwilling to process the request. Run Query AD again and you should observe the error
has been resolved.

4.2.7 FAIL (ACTION)

Extensive efforts have been made to make the schema and value limits of the Active
Directory unobtrusive. With that caveat, it is still possible for the value entered in the
UPDATE column to conflict with a directory rule within AD. If the ACTION value on a row
turns to FAIL then there is an unknown conflict between the UPDATE column and the
attribute values stored in the directory. These conflicts will require that the attribute
values currently stored be examined more closely and may require ADSIEDIT in order to
resolve.

4.2.8 Double Byte Characters

IdFix has not been localized and double byte characters have not been tested in the
application. Please send any errors of this type to [email protected] for further
investigation.

4.2.9 Filtering
The application allows the user to specify a directory branch to use to begin the subtree
search for errors. Multiple subtrees are not supported and the start point will be used by
the Query function until changed in the Filter Subtree dialog. Filtering of values within the
column is not supported as they can already be sorted. Selecting Import to use a
manually edited file will reset the filter to the whole forest for the Query option.

4.2.10 Sorting
The data columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header as is standard in
dataGridView UX behavior. Clicking again will reverse the sort.

17

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

4.2.11 Export Data
Exporting of data is facilitated via the Export icon.

4.2.12 Import Data

The ability to Import a CSV file is now supported. This feature is a use at your own risk
option. While we’ve created error and format handling functions in order to help populate
the datagrid correctly there is no way to insure that incorrect errors are not introduced by
manually editing the file.
Consider these best practice recommendations:
 Use Excel to view and edit the source file.
 Do not change the number of columns, headings, or any field values other than
Update or Action.
 Do not save the file with any format other than CSV.
 Do not use escape characters in the field values.

4.3 Supported Errors

4.3.1 Multi-Tenant Errors

 All objects
Well known exclusions
 Admini*
 CAS_{*
 DiscoverySearchMailbox*
 FederatedEmail*
 Guest*
 HTTPConnector*
 krbtgt*
 iusr_*
 iwam*
 msol*
 support_*
 SystemMailbox*

18

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

  WWIOadmini*
 *$
distinguishedName contains “\0ACNF:”
contains IsCriticalSystemObject
 mail
no duplicates
 mailNickName
may not begin with a period
no duplicates
 proxyAddresses
invalid chars whitespace < > ( ) ; , [ ] “
rfc2822 & routable namespace (smtp only)
no duplicates
single value maximum number of characters: 256
 sAMAccountName (only if no userPrincipalName value)
invalid chars [ \ “ | , / : < > + = ; ? * ]
no duplicates
maximum number of characters: 20
 targetAddress
invalid chars whitespace \ < > ( ) ; , [ ] “
rfc2822 & routable namespace (smtp only)
no duplicates
maximum number of characters: 255
 userPrincipalName
invalid chars whitespace \ % & * + / = ?  { } | < > ( ) ; : , [ ] “ and umlaut
rfc2822 & routable namespace format
no duplicates
maximum number of characters: 113
less than 64 before @
less than 48 after @

19

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

4.3.2 Dedicated Errors
 All objects
Well known exclusions
 Admini*
 CAS_{*
 DiscoverySearchMailbox*
 FederatedEmail*
 Guest*
 HTTPConnector*
 krbtgt*
 iusr_*
 iwam*
 msol*
 support_*
 SystemMailbox*
 WWIOadmini*
 *$
distinguishedName contains “\0ACNF:”
contains IsCriticalSystemObject
 displayName
not blank (group)
no leading or trailing white space
less than 256
 mail
no white space
rfc2822 & routable namespace
no duplicates
less than 256
 mailNickName
not blank (contact and user)
invalid chars whitespace \ ! # $ % & * + / = ? ^ ` { } | ~ < > ( ) ' ; : , [ ] " @
20

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018

 may not begin or end with a period
less than 64
 proxyAddresses
DEPRECATED - no leading or trailing white space
rfc2822 & routable namespace (smtp only)
no duplicates
single value maximum number of characters: 256
 targetAddress
not blank (contact and user without homeMdb)
DEPRECATED - invalid chars whitespace
rfc2822 & routable namespace (smtp only)
DEPRECATED - no duplicates
less than 256
value = mail (contact and user [if no homeMdb])

21

Directory Error Remediation Guide | January 2018