Book Image

Active Directory Administration Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Sander Berkouwer
Book Image

Active Directory Administration Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Sander Berkouwer

Overview of this book

Updated to the Windows Server 2022, this second edition covers effective recipes for Active Directory administration that will help you leverage AD's capabilities for automating network, security, and access management tasks in the Windows infrastructure. Starting with a detailed focus on forests, domains, trusts, schemas, and partitions, this book will help you manage domain controllers, organizational units, and default containers. You'll then explore Active Directory sites management as well as identify and solve replication problems. As you progress, you'll work through recipes that show you how to manage your AD domains as well as user and group objects and computer accounts, expiring group memberships, and Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSAs) with PowerShell. Once you've covered DNS and certificates, you'll work with Group Policy and then focus on federation and security before advancing to Azure Active Directory and how to integrate on-premise Active Directory with Azure AD. Finally, you'll discover how Microsoft Azure AD Connect synchronization works and how to harden Azure AD. By the end of this AD book, you’ll be able to make the most of Active Directory and Azure AD Connect.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)

Configuring the PDC Emulator to synchronize time with a reliable source

The domain controller holding the PDC Emulator FSMO role in the forest root domain is the authoritative source for time in an Active Directory domain in the default time synchronization hierarchy.

Getting ready

Before a Windows Server installation can synchronize time, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) should be available. By default, NTP is allowed inbound to domain controllers through their Windows Firewalls. However, NTP traffic toward the internet might not be available.

When an organization has deployed a reliable time source within the network, with, for instance, a GPS-enabled network time appliance, then the IP address or the hostname for this appliance can be used to configure the domain controller holding the PDC Emulator FSMO role to synchronize time with a reliable source.

In other scenarios, synchronizing time with a reliable source depends on the availability of a reliable internet-based...