1.3 Overview

The Active Directory Web Services: Custom Action Protocol is one of the protocols that make up the set of Active Directory Web Services (ADWS) protocols. The Active Directory Web Services: Custom Action Protocol permits access to Active Directory [MS-ADTS] via the use of common SOAP-based Web services.

This protocol adds a protocol to ADWS to permit it to do such operations as changing passwords, expanding groups, retrieving domain, forest and site information, and translating names.

To do so, this protocol defines the following Web Services Description Language (WSDL) operations:<1>

• ChangeOptionalFeature

• ChangePassword

• GetADDomain

• GetADDomainController

• GetADForest

• GetADGroupMember

• GetADPrincipalAuthorizationGroup

• GetADPrincipalGroupMembership

• GetVersion

• MoveADOperationMasterRole

• SetPassword

• TranslateName

Requests that make use of the Active Directory Web Services: Custom Action Protocol can be identified by the presence of a protocol-specific SOAP header.

The Active Directory Web Services: Custom Action Protocol specifies a set of SOAP faults that a server is permitted to return to the client to indicate that an error occurred while processing the request. The intent is to allow interoperability between clients and servers by providing a standardized set of errors that both sides of the communication session can understand. This protocol specifies SOAP faults for the custom actions as specified in section 3.