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Active Directory Administration Cookbook
Active Directory Administration Cookbook

Active Directory Administration Cookbook: Actionable, proven solutions to identity management and authentication on servers and in the cloud

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Active Directory Administration Cookbook

Managing Domain Controllers

Active Directory domain controllers are your network's castles of identity. They offer services, such as LDAP, Kerberos, and NTLM, to people using devices, appliances, and servers. The previous chapter introduced the concepts of forests, trees, and domains. In this chapter, we are going to provide some more tangible things, such as server machines. But please don't take that literally; domain controllers these days are found to be virtual machines, more than physical machines.

I'll walk through creating new domain controllers and show you which type of domain controller to implement. I'll also show you how to create domain controllers quickly, even when there's only a slow connection between the location with existing domain controllers and the location where you want to implement a new domain controller. We'll also look...

Preparing a Windows Server to become a domain controller

To make Active Directory a reliable service in any networking environment, the domain controllers need to be available with high integrity. Any changes an administrator needs to make to a deployed domain controller might diminish the availability. Any component or configuration that is misbehaving might diminish the integrity. Therefore, let's look at how to properly prepare a Windows Server installation to become a domain controller, before we actually promote it to becoming a domain controller.

The following steps are my time-tested recommended practices for production domain controllers within enterprises. I highly recommend these steps to create highly reliable domain controllers.

Intending to do the right thing

...

Promoting a server to a domain controller

There are three ways to promote a Windows Server installation to a domain controller:

  • Using Server Manager and the Active Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard
  • Using dcpromo.exe with an answer file
  • Using the Install-DDSDomainController, Install-ADDSDomain or Install-ADDSForest cmdlets from the Active Directory module for Windows PowerShell

In this recipe, we will cover the steps to promote a server using the preceding three ways.

Getting ready

In some organizations, changes can only be made using scripts and must be accompanied by roll-back scripts. In these cases, the answer file and the PowerShell cmdlets offer the best method. On Server Core installations of Windows Server...

Promoting a server to a read-only domain controller

Read-only domain controllers were introduced with Windows Server 2008. They have been hugely popular for providing Active Directory Domain Services to branch offices and small perimeter networks.

Read-only domain controllers are the ideal type of domain controllers for environments with the following:

  • Poor physical security
  • Relatively few user accounts and/or devices
  • Relatively poor bandwidth to central datacenters with domain controllers
  • Little local IT knowledge and/or experience

These characteristics are typically true for branch offices. Before read-only domain controllers, administrators had to make the hard choice between doing nothing, placing fully (read-write) domain controllers in these locations, or upgrading the available bandwidth and/or resiliency of the networking connections between the branch offices and the...

Using Install From Media

For Active Directory environments with really low bandwidth or networking resiliency between locations with domain controllers, regardless of whether these are read-only domain controllers or fully-writable domain controllers, promoting a Windows Server installation to a domain controller can take a long time or even fail.

In these kinds of scenarios, for adding an additional domain controller or read-only domain controller to an existing domain, Microsoft offers the Install From Media (IFM) option.

How to do it...

IFM consists of two steps:

  • Creating the IFM package
  • Leveraging the IFM package

Creating...

Using domain controller cloning

The IFM feature for promoting domain controllers leverages the fact that the contents of the Active Directory database and the Active Directory SYSVOL are largely identical throughout all domain controllers within the domain. The domain controller cloning feature takes this one step further, and leverages the fact that all domain controllers are largely identical; not just the Active Directory-related files, but all operating system files, most agent installations, information security measures, and most configuration items.

When a domain controller is properly prepared and promoted, it can serve as a template.

Getting ready

The domain controller cloning feature requires the following:

  • A hypervisor...

Determining whether a virtual domain controller has a VM-GenerationID

One of the requirements for Active Directory Virtualization Safeguards and domain controller cloning is the ability of the hypervisor platform to provide the VM-GenerationID to the virtual domain controller.

How to do it...

To determine whether a virtual domain controller has the VM-GenerationID, perform these steps:

  1. Sign in to the virtual domain controller.
  2. Open Device Manager (devmgmt.msc).
  3. In the taskbar of Device Manager, open the View menu and select Show hidden devices.
  4. In the main pane of Device Manager, expand System devices.
  5. Search for the Microsoft Hyper-V Generation Counter system device. The existence of such a device means the virtual domain...

Demoting a domain controller

Every domain controller has a life cycle. After a certain period of time, it should make room for newer, better, more agile, or even more cost-efficient, domain controllers or other solutions, such as Azure Active Directory (Domain Services).

Getting ready

Before you can demote a domain controller, you should make sure of the following:

  • It no longer hosts any FSMO roles.
  • It no longer offers networking services, such as DNS, LDAP, RADIUS, or WINS. These protocols are largely manually configured on networking devices and other servers. Demoting a domain controller that offers these services might negatively impact the networking infrastructure. Reconfigure networking devices and servers to use alternative...

Demoting a domain controller forcefully

It's also an option to forcefully remove a domain controller from Active Directory. While graciously demoting should be the preferred option, you might have to resort to this option.

The process of demoting a domain controller forcefully, consists of these steps:

  1. Performing a metadata cleanup
  2. Deleting the domain controller from DNS
  3. Deleting the computer object for the domain controller
  4. Deleting the SYSVOL replication membership
  1. Deleting the domain controller from Active Directory Sites and Services
  2. Seizing any FSMO roles that were hosted by the domain controller (you can do this first to ensure no impacts for domain members)
  3. Taking care of the existence of global catalog servers

If the domain controller was the last domain controller for a domain in an existing forest, the domain will need to be removed as it is now an orphaned...

Inventory domain controllers

It's a good thing to know all of the domain controllers throughout an Active Directory domain. This activity doesn't just show the management burden for Active Directory administrators; it also allows them to make smart choices, especially when the environment is breached.

Although it's not recommended practice, administrators may place domain controllers outside the domain controller OU. In that case, simply checking the computer accounts in that OU will not provide a 100% view of the domain controller in use.

How to do it...

There are two ways to get a good overview of the domain controllers in an Active Directory domain:

  • Using Active Directory Users and Computers to inventory...

Decommissioning a compromised read-only domain controller

One of the benefits of deploying read-only domain controllers is their ability to recover quickly from an information security breach.

Since only the passwords for a subset of users is cached on the read-only domain controller when these users signed on through the read-only domain controller and the passwords for really sensitive accounts weren't allowed to be cached on the read-only domain controller, the impact of a stolen read-only domain controller is small, compared to a fully-writable domain controller.

How to do it...

To render the read-only domain controller useless to an attacker or thief, perform these steps:

  1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers...
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Key benefits

  • Expert solutions for the federation, certificates, security, and monitoring with Active Directory
  • Explore Azure AD and AD Connect for effective administration on cloud
  • Automate security tasks using Active Directory and PowerShell

Description

Active Directory is an administration system for Windows administrators to automate network, security and access management tasks in the Windows infrastructure. This book starts off with a detailed focus on forests, domains, trusts, schemas and partitions. Next, you'll learn how to manage domain controllers, organizational units and the default containers. Going forward, you'll explore managing Active Directory sites as well as identifying and solving replication problems. The next set of chapters covers the different components of Active Directory and discusses the management of users, groups and computers. You'll also work through recipes that help you manage your Active Directory domains, manage user and group objects and computer accounts, expiring group memberships and group Managed Service Accounts (gMSAs) with PowerShell. You'll understand how to work with Group Policy and how to get the most out of it. The last set of chapters covers federation, security and monitoring. You will also learn about Azure Active Directory and how to integrate on-premises Active Directory with Azure AD. You'll discover how Azure AD Connect synchronization works, which will help you manage Azure AD. By the end of the book, you have learned about Active Directory and Azure AD in detail.

Who is this book for?

This book will cater to administrators of existing Active Directory Domain Services environments and/or Azure AD tenants, looking for guidance to optimize their day-to-day effectiveness. Basic networking and Windows Server Operating System knowledge would come in handy.

What you will learn

  • Manage new Active Directory features, such as the Recycle Bin, group Managed Service Accounts, and fine-grained password policies
  • Work with Active Directory from the command line and use Windows PowerShell to automate tasks
  • Create and remove forests, domains, and trusts
  • Create groups, modify group scope and type, and manage memberships
  • Delegate control, view and modify permissions
  • Optimize Active Directory and Azure AD in terms of security
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Publication date : May 03, 2019
Length: 620 pages
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ISBN-13 : 9781789806984
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Table of Contents

15 Chapters
Optimizing Forests, Domains, and Trusts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Domain Controllers Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Active Directory Roles and Features Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Containers and Organizational Units Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Active Directory Sites and Troubleshooting Replication Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Active Directory Users Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Active Directory Groups Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Active Directory Computers Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Getting the Most Out of Group Policy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Securing Active Directory Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Managing Federation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Authentication in a Hybrid World (AD FS, PHS, PTA, and 3SO) Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Synchronization in a Hybrid World (Azure AD Connect) Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Hardening Azure AD Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
(2 Ratings)
5 star 100%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Erdal Oct 10, 2022
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I catch myself picking up this book way more than I ever anticipated! This book's guidance is so good that I basically perform all my one-off Active Directory tasks with it next to my keyboard.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Harro Penk Dec 30, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Clear, concise, actionable info. Professional writing, zero fluff.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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