Providers are COM objects that contain the programmatic procedures for making API calls to external applications such as Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft SQL Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Active Directory directory service, and DNS, to accomplish provisioning tasks. Each Provider is associated with an XML Provider namespace that is registered in the Configuration database during installation. This permits the mapping of Provider methods when they are invoked. Provider functionality is invoked by the namespaces and procedures contained in XML requests that you submit to MPF.

The MPF Providers included with MPS, along with the some of the tasks they perform are:

Computer Management

An MPF Provider that you can use to manage the following local object types on a Windows Server 2003 computer:

SAM account objects such as User and Group objects.
Local security policy objects.
File and printer shares.
Service manager objects.
General computer property information such as name, IP address, domain membership, and disk information.

NOTE
The Deployment Automation Namespace utilized by the MPS Deployment Tool also calls into the Computer Management Provider to perform various tasks.

For more information about method call parameters and properties for this component, see the .

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Active Directory

An MPF provider that implements provisioning of all directory services:

Creates, deletes, moves, renames, and gets or sets properties of Active Directory objects.
Modifies passwords, access control lists (ACLs), group memberships, and so on.

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DNS

Consists of the DNS Provider component and the DNS Provider Client that are implemented in a distributed architecture, as described in the Distributed Components in MPS Architecture topic in this section. Provides the capability to provision tasks such as the following on a DNS server:

Create, modify, pause, resume, reload, refresh, and delete zones.
Establish zone delegations and rescind them.
Build zone files.
Add, examine, and remove resource records (RRs) and other pertinent data.

For more information about method call parameters and properties for this component, see the .

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DNS Client Component

An MPS component that is part of the DNS Provider assembly and is implemented in a distributed architecture with the DNS Provider component. The DNS Client performs the actual work of the DNS Provider assembly by implementing provisioning requests that make changes to DNS. The DNS Provider component communicates with the DNS Client using .NET Remoting technology.

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Windows SharePoint

An MPF provider that implements various permissions, site, user and groups, Web, and administrative methods for hosted Windows SharePoint Services. Some of the provisioning tasks that this Provider can implement are as follows:

Returning permissions collections for a SharePoint site.
Adding, modifying, or removing permissions to a list for a specified collection of existing users, site groups, and cross-site groups.
Creating and deleting sites.
Returning properties of a collection of sites.
Returning information about files and folders within a folder on a SharePoint site.
Gathering information about memberships in sites, subsites, cross-site groups, and groups.
Adding a site or cross-site group to a SharePoint site.
Adding one or more user accounts to a specified cross-site group.
Removing specified users from the current site or current site collection.
Returning information about the collection of users for the current site.
Updating information for a specified user.
Returning the URLs of sites and subsites.
Returning the URL of the parent site for the specified page URL.

For more information about method call parameters for this component, see the .

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SQL Admin

An MPF provider that implements an abstraction layer to the direct T-SQL calls used to create SQL Server databases and other database-related objects through MPS. This Provider has the capability of executing low-level SQL calls without exposing anything outside of a basic call such as ExecuteSQL. Namespaces are layered on top of this Provider to create different layers of functional encapsulation. The higher layers provide support for integration with SQL Resource Manager and other hosting-specific business processes.

The update to this provider now enables you to manipulate database files by calling the ModifyDatabaseFile method to configure elements such as the file growth increment and file size specification. The following list includes most of the methods supported by the SQL Admin Provider:

Adding a SQL user account to the database server.
Adding a user to a database role.
Backing up a database to a file.
Changing the password for a SQL user.
Creating a database on a SQL server.
Deleting a database from a SQL server.
Removing a SQL user account from the database server.
Allowing a user to access a database.
Adding a Microsoft Windows NT/Windows 2003 Server account to the database server.
Listing all of the databases on a particular server.
Listing information about a backup file.
Modifying a database file (data or log) on a SQL Server.
Removing a user from a database role.
Restoring a database from a file.
Removing a user's ability to access a database.
Removing a Windows NT/Windows 2003 Server account from the database server.
Setting the password for a SQL user.

For more information about method call parameters for this component and important issues regarding the T-SQL Provider, see the .

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IIS Provider 6.0

An MPF provider that has the capability to manipulate the IIS Metabase for IIS version 6.0. This includes method calls that can do the following:

Delete an IIS path object.
Create a Web site.
Create an FTP site.
Set properties that control the running status of a Web site, FTP site, Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), or Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) service.
Create a virtual directory for a Web or FTP site.
Create an application pool.

For more information about method call parameters for this component, see the .

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FrontPage

The FrontPage Provider allows for configuration and management of FrontPage Extension functions on a Web server with methods that perform tasks such as:

Enabling or disabling authoring and administration from the FrontPage client.
Installing FrontPage Server Extensions 2002 on the specified port of a virtual server and creating a sub-Web with the provided name.
Creating, setting, or deleting FrontPage properties.
Creating and managing user roles.
Setting FrontPage user rights.
Adding or deleting users from a FrontPage Web site and importing files to a Web site.

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FrontPage Provider Client

A Web service called by the FrontPage Provider, which communicates with the FrontPage Client through remote Web service calls over an SSL protected connection. The Web service then invokes a command shell that executes the Owsadm.exe application to perform specific provisioning tasks for FrontPage administration functions.

For more information about the distributed architecture of the FrontPage Provider, see the .

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Additional core providers

SQL — Passes Structured Query Language (SQL) and Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) commands to an OLE DB Provider on a database server, initiated by the ExecSQL procedure of the SQL Provider low-level namespace.
Scripting — Enables you to run scripts on the local computer where provisioning requests are executed. Supports the use of VBScript and Microsoft JScript code.
SOAP ISAPI — Enables you to submit requests into MPS through the SOAP ISAPI, which is a filter for the MPF client. Supports communication between data centers for remote requests submitted over the Internet.
Core RMO — Implements all Resource Manager functions except those based on fixed-block allocation, which is implemented by the BlockModelRMO namespace.
File System — Automates common file system tasks involving files, directories, and shares. Includes tasks such as moving, copying, and deleting files.
Windows Registry — Allows you to update, query, and enumerate the registry keys and values on a local or remote computer.
Windows Installer — Installs or uninstalls a Microsoft Windows Installer package file (.msi) associated with a provisioning request.
Error— Allows you to write specific errors and send them to the Microsoft Windows application Event log, send them to MPF for returning them to the calling procedure, or to translate errors into more meaningful messages that are returned to the user.

See the MPS Operations Guide "Provider Namespaces Available in Microsoft Provisioning System" topic for more information about MPF Providers, including the procedures that MPF Provider namespaces can implement. You can locate the MPS Operations Guide on your solution distribution CD at: \Service Provisioning\MPS\MPF\help\opsguide.chm.

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