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Active Directory ('''AD''') is an implementation of LDAP Directory Service s by Microsoft for use primarily in Windows environments. The main purpose of Active Directory is to provide central authentication and authorization services for Windows based computers. Active Directory also allows administrators to assign policies, deploy software, and apply critical updates to an entire organization. Active Directory stores information and settings relating to an organization in a central, organized, accessible database. Active Directory networks can vary from a small installation with a few hundred objects, to a large installation with millions of objects. Active Directory was previewed in 1996, released first with Windows 2000 Server edition, and revised to extend functionality and improve administration in Windows Server 2003 . Active Directory was called NTDS ( NT Directory Service) in older Microsoft documents. This name remains in some AD binaries as well. STRUCTURE Objects Active Directory is a Directory Service used to store information about the network resources across a Domain . An ''Active Directory'' (AD) structure is a hierarchical framework of ), services (e.g. E-mail ) and users (accounts, or users and groups). The AD provides information on the objects, organizes the objects, controls access and sets security. Each object represents a single entity — whether a user, a computer, a printer, or a group — and its attributes. Certain objects can also be containers of other objects. An object is uniquely identified by its name and has a set of attributes — the characteristics and information that the object can contain — defined by a schema, which also determines the kind of objects that can be stored in the AD. Each attribute object can be used in several different schema class objects. These schema objects exist to allow the schema to be extended or modified when necessary. However, because each schema object is integral to the definition of AD objects, deactivating or changing these objects can have serious consequences because it will fundamentally change the structure of AD itself. A schema object, when altered, will automatically propagate through Active Directory and once it is created it can only be deactivated — not deleted. Changing the schema usually requires a fair amount of planning.1 Forests, trees, and domains The framework that holds the objects is viewed at a number of levels. At the top of the structure is the Forest - the collection of every object, its attributes and rules (attribute syntax) in the AD. The forest holds one or more Transitive , trust-linked Trees. A tree holds one or more Domain and domain trees, again linked in a Transitive trust hierarchy. Domains are identified by their DNS name structure, the namespace. A domain has a single DNS name. The objects held within a domain can be grouped into containers called Organizational Unit s (OUs). OUs give a domain a hierarchy, ease its administration, and can give a semblance of the structure of the AD's company in organizational or geographical terms. OUs can contain OUs - indeed, domains are containers in this sense - and can hold multiple nested OUs. Microsoft recommends as few domains as possible in AD and a reliance on OUs to produce structure and improve the implementation of policies and administration. The OU is the common level at which to apply Group Policies , which are AD objects themselves called Group Policy Objects (GPOs), although policies can also be applied to domains or sites (see below). The OU is the level at which administrative powers are commonly delegated, but granular delegation can be performed on individual objects or attributes as well. AD also supports the creation of ''Sites'', which are physical, rather than logical, groupings defined by one or more IP subnets. Sites distinguish between locations connected by low-speed (e.g. WAN , VPN ) and high-speed (e.g. LAN ) connections. Sites are independent of the domain and OU structure and are common across the entire forest. Sites are used to control network traffic generated by replication and also to refer clients to the nearest domain controllers. Exchange 2007 also uses the site topology for mail routing. Policies can also be applied at the site level. The actual division of the company's information infrastructure into a hierarchy of one or more domains and top-level OUs is a key decision. Common models are by business unit, by geographical location, by IT Service, or by object type. These models are also often used in combination. OUs should be structured primarily to facilitate administrative delegation, and secondarily, to facilitate group policy application. Although OUs form an administrative boundary, the only true security boundary is the forest itself and an administrator of any domain in the forest must be trusted across all domains in the forest. Physical structure and replication Physically the AD information is held on one or more equal peer Domain Controller s (DCs), replacing the NT PDC/BDC format. Each DC has a copy of the AD; changes on one computer being synchronized (converged) between all the DC computers by '' Multi-master Replication ''. Servers joined in to AD, which are not domain controllers, are called Member Servers. The AD database is split into different stores or ''partitions''. Microsoft often refers to these partitions as 'naming contexts'. The 'Schema' partition contains the definition of object classes and attributes within the Forest. The 'Configuration' partition, contains information on the physical structure and configuration of the forest (such as the site topology). The 'Domain' partition holds all objects created in that domain. The first two partitions replicate to all domain controllers in the Forest. The Domain partition replicates only to Domain Controllers within its domain. A subset of objects in the domain partition are also replicated to domain controllers that are configured as global catalogs. Unlike earlier versions of Windows which used NetBIOS to communicate, Active Directory is fully integrated with DNS and TCP/IP — indeed DNS is ''required''. To be fully functional, the DNS server must support SRV Resource Records or service records. AD replication is 'pull' rather than 'push'. The ''Knowledge Consistency Checker'' (KCC) creates a replication topology of ''site links'' using the defined ''sites'' to manage traffic. Intrasite replication is frequent and automatic as a result of change notification, which triggers peers to begin a pull replication cycle. Intersite replication intervals are less frequent and do not use change notification by default, although this is configurable and can be made identical to intrasite replication. A different 'cost' can be given to each link (e.g. DS3 , T1 , ISDN etc.) and the site link topology will be altered accordingly by the KCC. Replication between domain controllers may occur transitively through several site links on same-protocol ''site link bridges'', if the 'cost' is low, although KCC automatically costs a direct site-to-site link lower than transitive connections. Site-to-site replication can be configured to occur between a ''bridgehead server'' in each site, which then replicates the changes to other DCs within the site. In a multi-domain forest the AD database becomes partitioned. That is, each domain maintains a list of only those objects that belong in that domain. So, for example, a user created in Domain A would be listed only in Domain A's domain controllers. Global catalog (GC) servers are used to provide a global listing of all objects in the Forest. The Global catalog is held on domain controllers configured as global Catalog Server s. Global Catalog servers replicate to themselves all objects from all domains and hence, provide a global listing of objects in the forest. However, in order to minimize replication traffic and to keep the GC's database small, only selected attributes of each object are replicated. This is called the partial attribute set (PAS). The PAS can be modified by modifying the schema and marking attributes for replication to the GC. Replication of Active Directory uses Remote Procedure Call s. Between Sites you can also choose to use SMTP for replication, but only for changes in the Schema or Configuration. SMTP cannot be used for replicating the Domain partition. In other words, if a domain exists on both sides of a WAN connection, you must use RPCs for replication. The AD Database , the ''directory store'', in Windows 2000 uses the JET Blue-based Extensible Storage Engine (ESE98), limited to 16 terabytes and 1 billion objects in each domain controller's database. Microsoft has created NTDS databases with more than 2 billion objects. (NT4's Security Account Manager could support no more than 40,000 objects). Called NTDS.DIT, it has two main tables: the ''data table'' and the ''link table''. In Windows 2003 a third main table was added for security descriptor single instancing. {Link without Title} Active Directory is a necessary component for many Windows services in an organization such as Exchange. FSMO ROLES Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles are also known as operations master roles. Although the AD domain controllers operate in a multi-master model, i.e. updates can occur in multiple places at once, there are several roles that are necessarily single instance: NAMING AD supports UNC (\), URL (/), and LDAP URL names for object access. AD internally uses the LDAP version of the X.500 naming structure. Every object has a ''Distinguished name'' (DN), so a printer object called ''HPLaser3'' in the OU ''Marketing'' and the domain ''foo.org'', would have the DN: ''CN=HPLaser3,OU=Marketing,DC=foo,DC=org'' where ''CN'' is common name and ''DC'' is domain object class, DNs can have many more than four parts. The object can also have a '''''Canonical name''''', essentially the DN in reverse, without identifiers, and using slashes: ''foo.org/Marketing/HPLaser3''. To identify the object within its container the '''''Relative distinguished name''''' (RDN) is used: ''CN=HPLaser3''. Each object also has a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), a unique and unchanging 128-bit string which is used by AD for search and replication. Certain objects also have a '''''User principal name''''' (UPN), an ''objectname''@''domain name'' form. TRUST Trusts in Windows 2000 (native mode)
Windows 2000 - supports the following types of trusts:
Additional trusts can be created by administrators. These trusts can be:
Windows 2003 offers a new trust type - the forest root trust. This type of trust can be used to connect Windows 2003 forests if they are operating at the 2003 forest functional level. Authentication across this type of trust is Kerberos based (as opposed to NTLM ). Forest trusts are also transitive for all the domains in the forests that are trusted. ADAM Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) is a light-weight implementation of Active Directory. ADAM is capable of running as a simple user service. Due to its small resource requirements, multiple ADAM instances are able to run on the same server. The API is identical to that of a full-blown Active Directory implementation, so developers do not need to learn new skills to utilize it. Active Directory and ADAM share the same code base, so performance of ADAM is nearly identical to Active Directory when comparing like operations. ALTERNATIVES There is a common misconception that Active Directory provides software distribution. Software distribution is run by a separate service that uses additional proprietary schema attributes that work in conjunction with the LDAP protocol. Active Directory does not automate software distribution, but provides a mechanism in which other services can provide software distribution. The . The free software Linbox Directory Server offers a Web-based user interface to manage the Samba Domain Controller and the LDAP Directory Service . Alternative LDAP servers include the Oracle Internet Directory , OpenLDAP , Apache Directory Server , Sun Java ES Directory Server , Novell EDirectory server, and Fedora Directory Server . OpenDS is in development as an open source alternative to Active Directory and other LDAP servers. Apple Inc. 's Open Directory is another alternative to Active Directory which is primarily targeted towards Mac OS X servers. INTEGRATING UNIX INTO ACTIVE DIRECTORY Many commercial vendors now offer Active Directory integration for UNIX platforms (including UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X, and a number of Java- and UNIX-based applications). Some of these vendors include Centrify (DirectControl), Quest Software (Vintela Authentication Services), and Centeris (Likewise). Microsoft is also in this market with their free "Services for UNIX" product. Recent versions of Linux and UNIX operating systems provide varying levels of interoperability with Active Directory but lack advanced Active Directory capabilities such as Group Policy and support for one-way trusts. Another alternate option is to use another directory service such as Fedora Directory Server which can perform a two-way synchronization with Active Directory and thus provide a "deflected" integration with Active Directory as Unix and Linux clients will authenticate to FDS and Windows Clients will authenticate to Active Directory SEE ALSO
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