Book Image

Mastering Active Directory. - Second Edition

By : Dishan Francis
Book Image

Mastering Active Directory. - Second Edition

By: Dishan Francis

Overview of this book

Active Directory (AD) is a centralized and standardized system that automates networked management of user data, security, and distributed resources and enables inter-operation with other directories. This book will first help you brush up on the AD architecture and fundamentals, before guiding you through core components, such as sites, trust relationships, objects, and attributes. You will then explore AD schemas, LDAP, RMS, and security best practices to understand objects and components and how they can be used effectively. Next, the book will provide extensive coverage of AD Domain Services and Federation Services for Windows Server 2016, and help you explore their new features. Furthermore, you will learn to manage your identity infrastructure for a hybrid cloud setup. All this will help you design, plan, deploy, manage operations, and troubleshoot your enterprise identity infrastructure in a secure and effective manner. You’ll later discover Azure AD Module, and learn to automate administrative tasks using PowerShell cmdlets. All along, this updated second edition will cover content based on the latest version of Active Directory, PowerShell 5.1 and LDAP. By the end of this book, you’ll be well versed with best practices and troubleshooting techniques for improving security and performance in identity infrastructures.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Active Directory Planning, Design, and Installation
8
Section 2: Active Directory Administration
13
Section 3: Active Directory Service Management
18
Section 4: Best Practices and Troubleshooting

Implementing fine-grained password policies

Complex passwords are a basic security setting that any administrator uses. In the AD environment, password complexity settings and account lockout settings can be configured by using GPO settings, which are located at Computer Configuration | Policies | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Account Policies. Before Windows Server 2008, there was only one password policy and account lockout policy setting that could be applied to the users. With Windows Server 2008, Microsoft introduced fine-grained password policies, which allow administrators to apply different password and account lockout policy settings to individual users or groups. This allows you to protect privileged accounts using stronger policies than regular user accounts. This feature continued with every AD DS version after 2008 and is available with AD DS 2016 as well...