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)

Differences between OUs and containers

Before we get into the recipes, it's important for us to understand the differences between OUs and containers. OUs and containers play different roles and act differently in Active Directory.

Containers

Containers are created by default. Creating or deleting containers using the built-in tools is not supported. Containers don't support delegation or Group Policy either. Creating 
an OU is not possible in a container.

OUs

OUs can be created and deleted by Active Directory admins. They support delegation of control, using the Delegation of Control Wizard and the built-in tools. Group Policy objects and managers can be applied to OUs. OUs can be nested.

OUs versus Active Directory domains

One of the most heated discussions when setting up and/or extending Active Directory environments is to create OUs for departments, locations, and/or organizations. Please refer to the Choosing between a new domain or forest recipe...