Friday, May 18, 2012

ADFS : There was a problem accessing the site - Reference number xxx

 

If you work with ADFS, you get pretty used to the error box with a GUID reference number. So what is this mythical number? It’s a reference to the Windows Event Viewer. To see these GUIDs: refer ADFS v2.0 : Finding errors referenced by the reference number.

To quote @Marnix in the above link:

“Open the Event Viewer. Navigate to 'Applications and Services Logs' -> 'AD FS 2.0' -> Admin. In the 'View' menu, using 'Add/Remove Columns...', add the 'Correlation Id' column. Look up the reference number “xxx” in the 'Correlation Id' column.”

Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

ADFS : Beware automatic WIA (Windows Integrated Authentication)

 

IE has the neat feature that if you are on the Intranet and you navigate to a site that requires authentication, IE checks if you have a Kerberos ticket (derived from when you logged into your desktop) and, if so, logs you in under the hood.

The problem when you are playing around with ADFS and WIA is that you can’t tell if the site you are going to logged you in automatically or if you have somehow removed or screwed up the authentication option!

There are a number of workarounds:

  • Use Firefox (which by default doesn’t do this).
  • IE / Tools / Internet Options / Security / Local Intranet Zone / Custom / Scroll down to User Authentication – Logon and ensure that “Automatic logon only in Intranet zone” is not enabled.

Note: You can configure Firefox to support WIA – refer Firefox supports Integrated Windows Authentication.

Enjoy!

Friday, May 04, 2012

Misc : Notepad++ and inserting a CR

 

Had a situation where I had a huge HTML file with no carriage returns and I wanted to place a CR at the end of every line after the <href …> specifically after the </a>.

The way to do this in Notepad++ is:

In the Search / Replace menu:

Find what:       </a>

Replace with:   \n

Select the “Regular Expression” button.

Check with a “Find Next: / “Replace” and then “Replace All”.

Ah – regex – don’t you just love them Smile

Enjoy!