Monday, January 5, 2004
Expand Beyond's Mobile Suite for Microsoft 2.3 reviewed
Posted by Philip Colmer in "SOFTWARE" @ 02:05 PM
PocketAdmin
If, when you connect to the XBanywhere server, you want to log into PocketAdmin instead of PocketDBA, a valid login presents you with a list of the domains that can be managed from the gateway server selected or you can choose a "non-directory machine". This phrase describes a server or workstation that is not a member of an Active Directory domain. This allows you to manage, for example, NT 4 servers.
If you choose a domain, the page will change to something like Figure 22.
Figure 22: The facilities within PocketAdmin.
As you can see from the previous screenshot, PocketAdmin works on two levels - the domain and the computer. The domain configuration affects those entities stored in Active Directory. The computer configuration affects entities that are local to the selected computer. This can include additional functionality such as Exchange and IIS. The process to select objects such as users or computers is done through the OU browser, as shown in Figure 23. This is a flexible interface that allows you to step down into the OU tree structure to find the object you are looking for.
Figure 23: Browsing organisational units & containers.
As with PocketDBA, the screens produced by PocketAdmin follow a similar structure. The top portion of the screen consists of the domain link (allowing you to choose a different domain or a non-directory computer), the computer link (allowing you to choose a different computer within the current domain), the logout button (allowing you to log off from PocketAdmin) and the Shell button (giving you access to the command line interface. Following the structure set down by PocketDBA, the rest of the screen contains the crumb trail and the content, with pagination buttons if required.
The functionality provided by the various icons shown in Figure 22 will now be looked at in more detail.
Domain Users Browser
Figure 24: Domain users.
This browser allows you to add users to the currently selected domain, or manage existing users. Drilling down the OU to select a user provides you with details on that user including mailbox information if Exchange is being used in your organisation. An example is shown in Figure 25.
Figure 25: Managing a user.
From here, you can change the user's password, see what groups the user is in, create, move or delete the user's mailbox, allow or reject email from specified addresses or set mail size limitations. You can also enable, disable or delete the user. Note that you cannot change group membership here. You have to do that with the next tool.
Domain Groups Browser
Figure 26: Domain groups.
From here, you can manage the membership of existing groups. It is not possible to add or delete groups.
Domain Printers Browser
I could not get this feature to work on my test installation. That said, when it does work, you see what printers have been published in Active Directory. From there, you can see what jobs are in the queue for a given printer and, if there are any, restart, pause or cancel a job.
Domain Shares Browser
Figure 27: Domain shares.
This feature allows you to see a list of all shares that have been published to the Active Directory. It also allows you to publish further shares. There is no facility for removing published shares.
