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

Time sync improvements

Time accuracy is important for AD infrastructures to maintain Kerberos authentication between users and domain controllers. Currently, the time accuracy between two parties should be less than 5 minutes. In an AD environment, domain members sync time with domain controllers (that is, the Primary Domain Controller (PDC), a domain controller in the root forest, or a domain controller with the good time server, or GTIMESERV, flag) to maintain accurate time across the environment.

However, sometimes, this doesn't work as expected. As an example, virtual servers sync time with their hosts, which can cause accuracy issues. Depending on the network topology, the reply packets for time requests can take longer to reach the requester. This can also cause accuracy issues between the domain controller and the client. Mobile devices and laptops may not connect...