An overview of Windows Active Directory
Active Directory (AD) is a directory service that Microsoft developed for Windows domain networks and is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services.
An AD domain controller authenticates and authorizes all users and computers in a Windows domain type network—assigning and enforcing security policies for all computers and installing or updating software. For example, when a user logs into a computer that is part of a Windows domain, Active Directory checks the submitted password and
determines whether the user is a system administrator or normal user.
Active Directory makes use of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) versions 2 and 3, Microsoft’s version of Kerberos, and DNS.
Logical Structure
As a directory service, an Active Directory instance consists of a database and corresponding executable code responsible for servicing requests and maintaining the database. The executable part, known as Directory System Agent, is a collection of Windows services and processes that run on Windows 2000 and later. Objects in Active Directory databases can be accessed via LDAP protocol, ADSI (a component object model interface), messaging API and Security Accounts Manager services.
Objects
An Active Directory structure is an arrangement of information about objects. The objects fall into two broad categories: resources (e.g., printers) and security principals (user or computer accounts and groups). Security principals are assigned unique security identifiers (SIDs).
Each object represents a single entity—whether a user, a computer, a printer, or a group—and its attributes. Certain objects can contain other objects. An object is uniquely identified by its name and has a set of attributes—the characteristics and information that the object represents— defined by a schema, which also determines the kinds of objects that can be stored in Active Directory.
The schema object lets administrators extend or modify the schema when necessary. However, because each schema object is integral to the definition of Active Directory objects, deactivating or changing these objects can fundamentally change or disrupt a deployment. Schema changes automatically propagate throughout the system. Once created, an object can only be deactivated—not deleted. Changing the schema usually requires planning. Sites are implemented as a set of well-connected subnets.
Forests, trees, and domains
The Active Directory framework that holds the objects can be viewed at a number of levels. The forest, tree, and domain are the logical divisions in an Active Directory network.
Within a deployment, objects are grouped into domains. The objects for a single domain are stored in a single database (which can be replicated). Domains are identified by their DNS name structure, the namespace. A domain is defined as a logical group of network objects (computers, users, devices) that share the same active directory database.
A tree is a collection of one or more domains and domain trees in a contiguous namespace, linked in a transitive trust hierarchy.
At the top of the structure is the forest. A forest is a collection of trees that share a common global catalog, directory schema, logical structure, and directory configuration. The forest represents the security boundary within which users, computers, groups, and other objects are accessible.
Organizational units
The objects held within a domain can be grouped into Organizational Units (OUs). OUs can provide hierarchy to a domain, ease its administration, and can resemble the organization’s structure in managerial or geographical terms. OUs can contain other OUs—domains are containers in this sense. Microsoft recommends using OUs rather than domains for structure and to simplify the implementation of policies and administration. The OU is the recommended level at which to apply group policies, which are Active Directory objects formally named Group Policy Objects (GPOs), although policies can also be applied to domains or sites. The OU is the level at which administrative powers are commonly delegated, but delegation can be performed on individual objects or attributes as well.
Organizational Units are an arrangement for the administrator and do not function as containers; the underlying domain is the true container. It is not possible, for example, to create user accounts with an identical username (sAMAccountName) in separate OUs, such as “fred.staff-ou.domain” and “fred.student-ou.domain”, where “staff-ou” and “student-ou” are the OUs. This is so because sAMAccountName, a user object attribute, must be unique within the domain. However, two users in different OUs can have the same Common Name (CN), the name under which they are stored in the directory itself.
In general the reason for this lack of allowance for duplicate names through hierarchical directory placement, is that Microsoft primarily relies on the principles of NetBIOS, which is a flat-file method of network object management that for Microsoft software, goes all the way back to Windows NT 3.1 and MS-DOS LAN Manager. Allowing for duplication of object names in the directory, or completely removing the use of NetBIOS names, would prevent backward compatibility with legacy software and equipment.
As the number of users in a domain increases, conventions such as “first initial, middle initial, last name” (Western order) or the reverse (Eastern order) fail for common family names like Li, Smith or Garcia. Workarounds include adding a digit to the end of the username. Alternatives include creating a separate ID system of unique employee/student id numbers to use as account names in place of actual user’s names, and allowing users to nominate their preferred word sequence within an acceptable use policy.
Because duplicate usernames cannot exist within a domain, account name generation poses a significant challenge for large organizations that cannot be easily subdivided into separate domains, such as students in a public school system or university who must be able to use any computer across the network.
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