Haiku #47

[NextHop_Team]

First published on TECHNET on Feb 15, 2011

Sex, drugs, rock and roll!

Celebrities! Big scandals!

CsClientAuth.

The theme for today's haiku (and, believe it or not, the daily haiku sometimes does have a theme) is SEO: Search Engine Optimization. If you aren't familiar with SEO, it's a process used by Web sites to try to increase their visibility in search engine results. For example, when someone searches for celebrities and big scandals , you want your site to be one of the first 4 or 5 sites returned by the search engine; no one wants to be the 1,345,218 ^th site returned by the search engine. After all, no one ever looks at the 1,345,218 ^th site returned when you search for celebrities and big scandals.

Note . Or even worse, site number 8,050,000, which is the number of hits we got back when searching for celebrities and big scandals . If you show 100 search results per page and can get through a page of results every 30 seconds, it will take you 28 days to finally get to hit number 8,050,000.

Hence the need for Search Engine Optimization.

So how do you increase the chances that your site will be one of the first sites returned by a search engine? One tried-and-true method is to include numerous references to commonly-searched for terms such as celebrities and big scandals , even if the article you're writing has nothing to do with celebrities and big scandals. But, then again you don't care whether you're really giving people information about celebrities and big scandals; all you care about is that enough people visit your Web site so you can start charging more for advertising posted in the site. Did people visit your site because of the articles on celebrities and big scandals ? Who cares if you they came because of the articles on celebrities and big scandals ? All that matters is that they came.

Up until a week or so ago, the authors of the Lync Server PowerShell blog had no interest either in Search Engine Optimization or in celebrities and big scandals. However, that was before we learned that the Huffington Post (which, fairly or unfairly, has been accused of engaging in Search Engine Optimization, primarily by doing such things as randomly including popular search terms such as celebrities and big scandals in their articles) had been purchased by AOL for $315 million. To be honest, we're still not all that interested in Search Engine Optimization. However, we are interested in $315 million.

Very interested.

Which explains why we decided to look at the Test-CsClientAuth cmdlet today; we wanted to quickly hammer out an article on Test-CsClientAuth before the Huffington Post could hammer out an article on Test-CsClientAuth. We didn't have time to research this, but we assume that Test-CsClientAuth is one of the more popular search terms used these days. That meant we needed an article on Test-CsClientAuth in order to capitalize on the Test-CsClientAuth frenzy that's no doubt sweeping the world.

Note . But just in case we're wrong about the Test-CsClientAuth mania, we have this, too: celebrities and big scandals. Just in case.

If it turns out that Test-CsClientAuth isn't sweeping the world, well, maybe it should be: it's a handy little cmdlet to know about. After all, Test-CsClientAuth provides a way for you to verify that a user can log on to Microsoft Lync Server 2010 using a client certificate. For example, suppose a user calls and says, "I can't log on to Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Oh: and did you hear about the celebrities and big scandals ?" As long as you know the user's password, you can try logging on to the system by using the Test-CsClientAuth cmdlet:

$credential = Get-Credential "litwareinckenmyer"

Test-CsClientAuth -TargetFqdn atl-cs-001.litwareinc.com -UserSipAddress "sip:kenmyer@litwareinc.com" -UserCredential $credential

What we're doing in the first line of this example is using the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Get-Credential to create a credentials object for the user litwareinckenmyer. When you run that line of code, a Windows PowerShell Credential Request dialog box will appear and ask you to enter the password for the user litwareinckenmyer. Enter the password and press ENTER, and Ken Myer's credentials (user name and password) will be safely stashed away in the variable $credential.

After that all you have do is call Test-CsClientAuth, making sure to specify the FQDN of Ken Myer's Registrar pool (the TargetFqdn parameter); Ken's SIP address (UserSipAddress); and the credentials object you just created (UserCredential). In turn, Test-CsClientAuth will contact the certificate provisioning service and download a copy of any client certificates for the specified user. If a client certificate can be found and downloaded, Test-CsClientAuth will then attempt to log on using that certificate. If logon succeeds, Test-CsClientAuth will log off and report that the test succeeded.

And what if a certificate cannot be found or downloaded, or what if the cmdlet is unable to logon using that certificate? Well, as you might expect, in cases like that Test-CsClientAuth will report that the test failed.

That's pretty much all Test-CsClientAuth does. But, then again, that's pretty much all that Test-CsClientAuth needs to do.

And that's all we're going to be able to do, too, at least for now; after all, we have to go yacht shopping this afternoon. If you're interested in purchasing the Lync Server PowerShell blog for $315 million ($310 million if you pay cash), well, just give us a call. We'll be waiting to hear from you.