Active Directory is a centralized database used in Windows domains to store information about networks and domains. It was created in 1996 and first used with Windows 2000. Active Directory provides a hierarchical structure to organize objects like users, printers, and security settings for easy access and administration. Objects can contain other objects and have attributes that characterize the information they contain. The highest level of Active Directory structure is the forest, with trees and domains at lower levels.
Active Directory is a centralized database used in Windows domains to store information about networks and domains. It was created in 1996 and first used with Windows 2000. Active Directory provides a hierarchical structure to organize objects like users, printers, and security settings for easy access and administration. Objects can contain other objects and have attributes that characterize the information they contain. The highest level of Active Directory structure is the forest, with trees and domains at lower levels.
Active Directory is a centralized database used in Windows domains to store information about networks and domains. It was created in 1996 and first used with Windows 2000. Active Directory provides a hierarchical structure to organize objects like users, printers, and security settings for easy access and administration. Objects can contain other objects and have attributes that characterize the information they contain. The highest level of Active Directory structure is the forest, with trees and domains at lower levels.
Active Directory is a centralized database used in Windows domains to store information about networks and domains. It was created in 1996 and first used with Windows 2000. Active Directory provides a hierarchical structure to organize objects like users, printers, and security settings for easy access and administration. Objects can contain other objects and have attributes that characterize the information they contain. The highest level of Active Directory structure is the forest, with trees and domains at lower levels.
System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and Answers Uncategorized March 14, 2012 Comments: 43 1) What is Active Directory? ACTIVE DIRECTORY (h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory) IS A (h p://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Inheritance_%28object-oriented_programming%29) CENTRALIZED DATABASE (h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralized_database) WHICH IS USED IN DOMAIN (h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_domain) FOR ADMINISTRATIVE PURPOSES An active directory is a directory structure used on Microsoft Windows based (h p://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS) computers and servers to store information and data about networks and domains. It is primarily used for online information and was originally created in 1996 and rst used with Windows 2000 (h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb643141). An active directory (sometimes referred to as an AD) does a variety of functions including the ability to provide information on objects, helps organize these objects for easy retrieval and access, allows access by end users and administrators and allows the administrator to set security up for the directory. An active directory can be dened as a hierarchical structure and this structure is usually broken up into three main categories, the resources which might include hardware such as printers, services for end users such as web email servers and objects which are the main functions of the domain and network. It is interesting to note the framework for the objects. Remember that an object can be a piece of hardware such as a printer, end user or security se ings set by the administrator. These objects can hold other objects within their le structure. All objects have an ID, usually an object name (folder name). In addition to these objects being able to hold other objects, every object has its own a ributes which allows it to be characterized by the information which it contains. Most IT professionals (h p://www.infosecinstitute.com) call these se ing or characterizations schemas. Depending on the type of schema created for a folder, will ultimately determine how these objects are used. For instance, some objects with certain schemas can not be deleted, they can only be deactivated. Others types of schemas with certain a ributes can be deleted entirely. For instance, a user object can be deleted, but the administrator object can not be deleted. When understanding active directories, it is important to know the framework that objects can be viewed at. In fact, an active directory can be viewed at either one of three levels; these levels are About these ads (h p://en.wordpress.com/about-these-ads/) System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 1 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 called forests, trees or domains. The highest structure is called the forest becauseyou can see all objects included within the active directory. Within theForeststructure are trees, these structures usually hold one or more domains, going further down the structure of an active directory are single domains. To put the forest, trees and domains into perspective, consider the following example. A large organization has many dozens of users and processes. The forest might be the entire network of end users and specic computers at a set location. Within this forest directory are now trees that hold information on specic objects such as domain controllers, program data, system, etc. Within these objects are even more objects which can then be controlled and categorized Another Answer Active Directory in Windows Server 2003 (h p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2003) The Active Directory is the one of the important part of Windows Server 2003 networking .First need to know and understand Active directory. How does it work? It makes information easy for the administrator and the users. You can use the Active Directory to design an organizations structure according to the requirement. If you are using the Active Directory then you can scale active directory from a single computer to a single network or too many networks. In activedirectory you can include every object server and domain in a network. Logical Component In the organization you set up in Windows Server 2003 and the organization you set up in Exchange Server 2003 (h p://www.microsoft.com/exchange) are the same and the same is the case with Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 as well. Now I am going to tell you its advantage oneuser administrator manage all aspects of user conguration. These logical constructs which are described in the following subsections allow you to dene and group resources so that they can be located and administered by the name rather than by physical location. Objects Object is the basic unit in the Active Directory. It is an apocarpous named set of features that represents something adjective such as a user, printer and the application. A user is also an object. In Exchange a users features include its name and location, surrounded by other things. Organization Unit Organization Unit is a persona in which you can keep objects such as user accounts, groups, computer, and printer. Applications and other (OU). In organization unit you can assign specic permission to the users. Organization unit can also be used to create departmental limitation. Domains Domains is a group of computers and other resources that are part of a network and share a common directory database .Once a server has been installed, you can use the Active Directory Wizard to install Active Directory in order to install Active directory on the rst server on the network, that server must have the access to a server running DNS (Domain Name Service (h p://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Domain_Name_System)). If you dont have installed this service on your server then you will have to install this service during the Active Directory installation Active Directory in Windows Server 2003 System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 2 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 The Active Directory is the one of the important part of Windows Server 2003 networking .First need to know and understand Active directory. How does it work? It makes information easy for the administrator and the users. You can use the Active Directory to design an organizations structure according to the requirement. If you are using the Active Directory then you can scale active directory from a single computer to a single network or too many networks. In activedirectory you can include every object server and domain in a network. Logical Component In the organization you set up in Windows Server 2003 and the organization you set up in Exchange Server 2003 are the same and the same is the case with Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000 as well. Now I am going to tell you its advantage one user administrator manage all aspects of user conguration. These logical constructs which are described in the following subsections allow you to dene and group resources so that they can be located and administered by the name rather than by physical location. Objects Object is the basic unit in the Active Directory. It is an apocarpous named set of features that represents something adjective such as a user, printer and the application. A user is also an object. In Exchange a users features include its name and location, surrounded by other things. Organization Unit Organization Unit is a persona in which you can keep objects such as user accounts, groups, computer, and printer. Applications and other (OU). In organization unit you can assign specic permission to the users. Organization unit can also be used to create departmental limitation. Domains Domains is a group of computers and other resources that are part of a network and share a common directory database .Once a server has been installed, you can use the Active Directory Wizard to install Active Directory in order to install Active directory on the rst server on the network, that server must have the access to a server running DNS (Domain Name Service). If you dont have installed this service on your server then you will have to install this service during the Active Directory installation Another Answer An active directory is a directory structure used on Microsoft Windows based computers and servers to store information and data about networks and domains. It is primarily used for online information and was originally created in 1996 and rst used with Windows 2000. An active directory (sometimes referred to as an AD) does a variety of functions including the ability to provide information on objects, helps organize these objects for easy retrieval and access, allows access by end users and administrators and allows the administrator to set security up for the directory. An active directory can be dened as a hierarchical structure and this structure is usually broken up into three main categories, the resources which might include hardware such as printers, services for end users such as web email servers and objects which are the main functions of the domain and network. It is interesting to note the framework for the objects. Remember that an object can be a piece of System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 3 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 hardware such as a printer, end user or security se ings set by the administrator. These objects can hold other objects within their le structure. All objects have an ID, usually an object name (folder name). In addition to these objects being able to hold other objects, every object has its own a ributes which allows it to be characterized by the information which it contains. Most IT professionals call these se ing or characterizations schemas. Depending on the type of schema created for a folder, will ultimately determine how these objects are used. For instance, some objects with certain schemas can not be deleted, they can only be deactivated. Others types of schemas with certain a ributes can be deleted entirely. For instance, a user object can be deleted, but the administrator object can not be deleted. When understanding active directories, it is important to know the framework that objects can be viewed at. In fact, an active directory can be viewed at either one of three levels; these levels are called forests, trees or domains. The highest structure is called the forest becauseyou can see all objects included within the active directory. Within theForeststructure are trees, these structures usually hold one or more domains, going further down the structure of an active directory are single domains. To put the forest, trees and domains into perspective, consider the following example. A large organization has many dozens of users and processes. The forest might be the entire network of end users and specic computers at a set location. Within this forest directory are now trees that hold information on specic objects such as domain controllers, program data, system, etc. Within these objects are even more objects which can then be controlled and categorized. 2) What is LDAP? LDAP means Light-Weight Directory Access Protocol. It determines how an object in an Active directory should be named. LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a proposed open standard for accessing global or local directory services over a network and/or the Internet. A directory, in this sense, is very much like a phone book. LDAP can handle other information, but at present it is typically used to associate names with phone numbers and email addresses. LDAP directories are designed to support a high volume of queries, but the data stored in the directory does not change very often. It works on port no. 389. LDAP is sometimes known as X.500 Lite. X.500 is an international standard for directories and full-featured, but it is also complex, requiring a lot of computing resources and the full OSI stack. LDAP, in contrast, can run easily on a PC and over TCP/IP. LDAP can access X.500 directories but does not support every capability of X.500 ANSWER B: The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol or LDAP is an application protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP. [1]A directory is a set of objects with a ributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. The most common example is the telephone directory, which consists of a series of names (either of persons or organizations) organized alphabetically, with each name having an address and phone number a ached. An LDAP directory tree often reects various political, geographic, and/or organizational boundaries, depending on the model chosen. LDAP deployments today tend to use Domain name system (DNS) names for structuring the topmost levels of the hierarchy. Deeper inside the directory might appear entries representing people, organizational units, printers, documents, groups of people or anything else that represents a given tree entry (or multiple entries). Its current version is LDAPv3, which is specied in a series of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Standard Track Requests for comments (RFCs) as detailed in RFC 4510. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 4 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 3) Can you connect Active Directory to other 3rd-party Directory Services? Name a few options. Yes, you can use dirXML or LDAP to connect to other directories (ie. E-directory fromNovell). Novell eDirectory, formerly called Novell Directory Services (NDS) 4) Where is the AD database held? What other folders are related to AD? AD Database is saved in/ntds. You can see other les also in this folder. These are the main les controlling the AD structure ntds.dit edb.log res1.log res2.log edb.chk SysVOl folder is also created which is used for replication When a change is made to the Win2K database, triggering a write operation, Win2K records the transaction in the log le (edb.log). Once wri en to the log le, the change is then wri en to the AD database. System performance determines how fast the system writes the data to the AD database from the log le. Any time the system is shut down; all transactions are saved to the database. During the installation of AD, Windows creates two les: res1.log and res2.log. The initial size of each is 10MB. These les are used to ensure that changes can be wri en to disk should the system run out of free disk space. The checkpoint le (edb.chk) records transactions commi ed to the AD database (ntds.dit). During shutdown, a shutdown statement is wri en to the edb.chk le. Then, during a reboot, AD determines that all transactions in the edb.log le have been commi ed to the AD database. If, for some reason, the edb.chk le doesnt exist on reboot or the shutdown statement isnt present, AD will use the edb.log le to update the AD database. The last le in our list of les to know is the AD database itself, ntds.dit. By default, the le is located in\ NTDS, along with the other les weve discussed 5) What is the SYSVOL folder? All active directory data base security related information store in SYSVOL folder and its only created on NTFS partition. B: The Sysvol folder on a Windows domain controller is used to replicate le-based dataamong domain controllers. Because junctions are used within the Sysvol folder structure, Windows NT le system (NTFS) version 5.0 is required on domain controllers throughout a Windows distributed le system (DFS) forest. This is a quote from Microsoft themselves; basically the domain controller info stored in les like your group policy stu is replicated through this folder structure 6) Name the AD NCs and replication issues for each NC *Schema NC, *Conguration NC, * DomainNC Schema NC This NC is replicated to every other domain controller in the forest. It contains information about the Active Directory schema, which in turn denes the dierent object classes and a ributes within Active Directory. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 5 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Conguration NC Also replicated to every other DC in the forest, this NC contains forest-wide conguration information pertaining to the physical layout of Active Directory, as well as information about display species and forest-wide Active Directory quotas. Domain NC This NC is replicated to every other DC within a single Active Directory domain. This is the NC that contains the most commonly-accessed Active Directory data: the actual users, groups, computers, and other objects that reside within a particular Active Directory domain. 7) What are application partitions? When do I use them? Application directory partitions: These are specic to Windows Server 2003 domains. An application directory partition is a directory partition that is replicated only to specic domain controllers. A domain controller that participates in the replication of a particular application directory partition hosts a replica of that partition. Only Domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 can host a replica of an application directory partition. 8) How do you create a new application partition? When you create an application directory partition, you are creating the rst instance of this partition. You can create an application directory partition by using the create nc option in the domain management menu of Ntdsutil. When creating an application directory partition using LDP or ADSI, provide a description in the description a ribute of the domain DNS object that indicates the specic application that will use the partition. For example, if the application directory partition will be used to store data for a Microsoft accounting program, the description could be Microsoft accounting application. Ntdsutil does not facilitate the creation of a description. To create or delete an application directory partition 1. Open Command Prompt. 2. Type: Ntdsutil 3. At the Ntdsutil command prompt, type: Domain management 4. At the domain management command prompt, do one of the following: To create an application directory partition, type: Create ncApplicationDirectoryPartitionDomainController Answer: Start >>RUN>>CMD >>type there NTDSUTIL Press Enter Ntdsutil: domain management Press Enter Domain Management: Create NC dc=, dc=, dc=com <> ANSWER B Create an application directory partition by using the DnsCmd command System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 6 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Use the DnsCmd command to create an application directory partition. To do this, use the following syntax: DnsCmd ServerName /CreateDirectoryPartition FQDN of partition To create an application directory partition that is named CustomDNSPartition on a domain controller that is named DC-1, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. 2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:dnscmd DC-1 /createdirectorypartition CustomDNSPartition.contoso.com When the application directory partition has been successfully created, the following information appears: DNS Server DC-1 created directory partition: CustomDNSPartition.contoso.com Command completed successfully. Congure an additional domain controller DNS server to host the application directory partition Congure an additional domain controller that is acting as a DNS server to host the new application directory partition that you created. To do this, use the following syntax with the DnsCmd command: DnsCmd ServerName /EnlistDirectoryPartition FQDN of partition To congure the example domain controller that is named DC-2 to host this custom application directory partition, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. 2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:dnscmd DC-2 /enlistdirectorypartition CustomDNSPartition.contoso.com The following information appears: DNS Server DC-2 enlisted directory partition: CustomDNSPartition.contoso.com Command completed successfully. 9) How do you view replication properties for AD partitions and DCs? By using replication monitor go to start >run >typerepadmin go to start >run >typereplmon 10) What is the Global Catalog? The global catalog contains a complete replica of all objects in Active Directory for its Host domain, and contains a partial replica of all objects in Active Directory for every other domain in the forest. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 7 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 ANSWER B: The global catalog is a distributed data repository that contains a searchable, partial representation of every object in every domain in a multidomain Active Directory forest. The global catalog is stored on domain controllers that have been designated as global catalog servers and is distributed through multimaster replication. Searches that are directed to the global catalog are faster because they do not involve referrals to dierent domain controllers. In addition to conguration and schema directory partition replicas, every domain controller in a Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 forest stores a full, writable replica of a single domain directory partition. Therefore, a domain controller can locate only the objects in its domain. Locating an object in a dierent domain would require the user or application to provide the domain of the requested object. The global catalog provides the ability to locate objects from any domain without having to know the domain name. A global catalog server is a domain controller that, in addition to its full, writable domain directory partition replica, also stores a partial, read-only replica of all other domain directory partitions in the forest. The additional domain directory partitions are partial because only a limited set of a ributes is included for each object. By including only the a ributes that are most used for searching, every object in every domain in even the largest forest can be represented in the database of a single global catalog server. 11) How do you view all the GCs in the forest? C:\ >repadmin /showreps domain_controller OR You can use Replmon.exe for the same purpose. OR AD Sites and Services and nslookup gc._msdcs. To nd the in GC from the command line you can try using DSQUERY command. dsquery server -isgc to nd all the GCs in the forest you can try dsquery server -forest -isgc. 12) Why not make all DCs in a large forest as GCs? The reason that all DCs are not GCs to start is that in large (or even Giant) forests the DCs would all have to hold a reference to every object in the entire forest which could be quite large and quite a replication burden. For a few hundred, or a few thousand users even, this not likely to ma er unless you have really poor WAN lines. 13) Trying to look at the Active Directory Schema, how can I do that? Option to view the schema Register schmmgmt.dll using this command System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 8 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 c:\ windows\ system32>regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll Open mmc >add snapin >add Active directory schema name it as schema.msc Open administrative tool >schema.msc 14) What are the Support Tools? Why do I need them? Support Tools are the tools that are used for performing the complicated tasks easily. These can also be the third party tools. Some of the Support tools include DebugViewer, DependencyViewer, RegistryMonitor, etc. -edit by Casquehead I believe this question is referring to the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools, which are included with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. They are also available for download here: h p://www.Microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=96A35011-FD83-419D- 939B-9A772EA2DF90&displaylang=en (h p://www.Microsoft.com/downloads /details.aspx?familyid=96A35011-FD83-419D-939B-9A772EA2DF90&displaylang=en) you need them because you cannot properly manage an Active Directory network without them. Here they are, it would do you well to familiarize yourself with all of them. Acldiag.exe Adsiedit.msc Bitsadmin.exe Dcdiag.exe Dfsutil.exe Dnslint.exe Dsacls.exe Iadstools.dll Ktpass.exe Ldp.exe Netdiag.exe Netdom.exe Ntfrsutl.exe Portqry.exe Repadmin.exe Replmon.exe Setspn.exe 15) What is LDP? What is REPLMON? What is ADSIEDIT? What is NETDOM? What is REPADMIN? What is LDP? A: The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP is an application protocol for querying and modifying directory services running over TCP/IP.[1] A directory is a set of objects with a ributes organized in a logical and hierarchical manner. The most System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 9 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 common example is the telephone directory, which consists of a series of names (either of persons or organizations) organized alphabetically, with each name having an address and phone number a ached. An LDAP directory tree often reects various political, geographic, and/or organizational boundaries, depending on the model chosen. LDAP deployments today tend to use Domain name system (DNS) names for structuring the topmost levels of the hierarchy. Deeper inside the directory might appear entries representing people, organizational units, printers, documents, groups of people or anything else that represents a given tree entry (or multiple entries). Its current version is LDAPv3, which is specied in a series of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Standard Track Requests for comments (RFCs) as detailed in RFC 4510. LDAP means Light-Weight Directory Access Protocol. It determines how an object in an Active directory should be named. LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a proposed open standard for accessing global or local directory services over a network and/or the Internet. A directory, in this sense, is very much like a phone book. LDAP can handle other information, but at present it is typically used to associate names with phone numbers and email addresses. LDAP directories are designed to support a high volume of queries, but the data stored in the directory does not change very often. It works on port no. 389. LDAP is sometimes known as X.500 Lite. X.500 is an international standard for directories and full-featured, but it is also complex, requiring a lot of computing resources and the full OSI stack. LDAP, in contrast, can run easily on a PC and over TCP/IP. LDAP can access X.500 directories but does not support every capability of X.500 What is REPLMON? A: Replmon is the rst tool you should use when troubleshooting Active Directory replication issues. As it is a graphical tool, replication issues are easy to see and somewhat easier to diagnose than using its command line counterparts. The purpose of this document is to guide you in how to use it, list some common replication errors and show some examples of when replication issues can stop other network installation actions. For more go to h p://www.techtutorials.net/articles/replmon_howto_a.html (h p://www.techtutorials.net/articles/replmon_howto_a.html) What is ADSIEDIT? A: Adsiedit.msc is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that acts as a low-level editor for Active Directory. It is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool. Network administrators can use it for common administrative tasks such as adding, deleting, and moving objects with a directory service. The attributes for each object can be edited or deleted by using this tool. Adsiedit.msc uses the ADSI application programming interfaces (APIs) to access System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 10 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Active Directory. The following are the required files for using this tool: ADSIEDIT.DLL ADSIEDIT.MSC Regarding system requirements, a connection to an Active Directory environment and Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is necessary What is NETDOM? A: NETDOM is a command-line tool that allows management of Windows domains and trust relationships. It is used for batch management of trusts, joining computers to domains, verifying trusts, and secure channels A: Enables administrators to manage Active Directory domains and trust relationships from the command prompt. Netdom is a command-line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) server role installed. To use Netdom, you must run the Netdom command from an elevated command prompt. To open an elevated command prompt, click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. You can use Netdom to: Join a computer that runs Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista to a Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0 domain. Provide an option to specify the organizational unit (OU) for the computer account. Generate a random computer password for an initial Join operation. Manage computer accounts for domain member workstations and member servers. Management operations include: Add, Remove, Query. An option to specify the OU for the computer account. An option to move an existing computer account for a member workstation from one domain to another while maintaining the security descriptor on the computer account. Establish one-way or two-way trust relationships between domains, including the following kinds of trust relationships: From a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 domain to a Windows NT 4.0 domain. From a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 domain to a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 domain in another enterprise. Between two Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 domains in an enterprise (a shortcut trust). The Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server half of an interoperable Kerberos protocol realm. Verify or reset the secure channel for the following congurations: Member workstations and servers. Backup domain controllers (BDCs) in a Windows NT 4.0 domain. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 11 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Specic Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 replicas. Manage trust relationships between domains, including the following operations: Enumerate trust relationships (direct and indirect). View and change some a ributes on a trust. 16) What are sites? What are they used for? One or more well-connected (highly reliable and fast) TCP/IP subnets. A site allows administrators to congure Active Directory access and replication topology to take advantage of the physical network. B: A Site object in Active Directory represents a physical geographic location that hosts networks. Sites contain objects called Subnets. [3] Sites can be used to Assign Group Policy Objects, facilitate the discovery of resources, manage active directory replication, and manage network link trac. Sites can be linked to other Sites. Site-linked objects may be assigned a cost value that represents the speed, reliability, availability, or other real property of a physical resource. Site Links may also be assigned a schedule 17) Whats the dierence between a site links schedule and interval? Schedule enables you to list weekdays or hours when the site link is available for replication to happen in the give interval. Interval is the re occurrence of the inter site replication in given minutes. It ranges from 15 10,080 mins. The default interval is 180 mins. 18) What is the KCC? Knowledge consistency checker- it generates the replication topology by specifying what domain controllers will replicate to which other domain controllers in the site. The KCC maintains a list of connections, called areplication topology, to other domain controllers in the site. The KCC ensures that changes to any object are replicated to all site domain controllers and updates go through no more than three connections. Also an administrator can congure connection objects. 19) What is the ISTG? Who has that role by default? Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG), which is responsible for the connections among the sites. By default Windows 2003 Forestlevel functionality has this role. By Default the rst Server has this role. If that server can no longer perform this role then the next server with the highest GUID then takes over the role of ISTG. 20) What are the requirements for installing AD on a new server? An NTFS partition with enough free space (250MB minimum) An Administrators username and password The correct operating system version A NIC Properly congured TCP/IP (IP address, subnet mask and optional default gateway) A network connection (to a hub or to another computer via a crossover cable) System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 12 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 An operational DNS server (which can be installed on the DC itself) A Domain name that you want to use The Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 CD media (or at least the i386 folder) 20) What can you do to promote a server to DC if youre in a remote location with slow WAN link? First available in Windows 2003, you will create a copy of the system state from an existing DC and copy it to the new remote server. Run Dcpromo /adv. You will be prompted for the location of the system state les =================================== Answer B: Backup system state as; Click Start, click Run, type ntbackup, and then click OK. (If the Backup utility starts in wizard mode, click theAdvanced Mode hyperlink.) 1. From theBackup tab, click to select theSystem State check box in the left pane. Do not back up the le system part of the SYSVOL tree separately from the system state backup. 2. In theBackup media or le name box, specify the drive, path, and le name of the system state backup. 3. Name the le .bak (recommended and general) Restore system stat as below on the target computer; Log on to the Windows Server 2003-based computer that you want to promote. You must be a member of the local administrators group on this computer. 1. Click Start, click Run, type ntbackup, and then click OK. (If the Backup utility starts in wizard mode, click theAdvanced Mode hyperlink.) 2. In the Backup utility, click theRestore and Manage Media tab. In theTools menu, click Catalog a backup le, and then locate the .bkf le that you created earlier. Click OK. 3. Expand the contents of the .bkf le, and then click to select theSystem State check box. 4. In Restore les to: click Alternate Location. To restore the system state, type the logical drive and the path. We suggest that you typeX:\ Ntdsrestore. In this command, X is the logical drive that will ultimately host the Active Directory database when the member computer is promoted. The nal location for the Active Directory database is selected when you run the Active Directory Installation Wizard. This folder must be dierent from the folder that contains the restored system state. 5. Now Last stage is Promoting an additional domain controller Verify that the domain controller that is to be promoted has DNS name resolution and network connectivity to existing domain controllers in the domain controllers target domain. 1. Click Start, click Run, type dcpromo /adv, and then click OK. 2. Click Next to bypass theWelcome to the Active Directory Installation Wizard and Operating 3. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 13 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 System Compatibility dialog boxes. On theDomain Controller Type page, click Additional domain controller for an existing domain, and then click next. 4. On theCopying Domain Information page, click from these restored backup les: and then type the logical drive and the path of the alternative location where the system state backup was restored. Click Next. 5. In Network Credentials, type the user name, the password, and the domain name of an account that is a member of the domain administrators group for the domain that you are promoting in. 6. Continue with the remainder of the Active Directory Installation Wizard pages as you would with the standard promotion of an additional domain controller. 7. After the SYSVOL tree has replicated in, and the SYSVOL share exists, delete any remaining restored system les and folders. 8. 21) How can you forcibly remove AD from a server, and what do you do later? Can I get user passwords from the AD database? Demote the server using dcpromo /forceremoval, and then remove the metadata from Active directory using Ntdsutil. There is no way to get user passwords from AD that I am aware of, but you should still be able to change them. Another way out too Restart the DC is DSRM mode a. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ ProductOptions b. In the right-pane, double-click ProductType. c. TypeServerNT in theValue data box, and then click OK. Restart the server in normal mode its a member server now but AD entries are still there. Promote the server to a fake domain say ABC.com and then remove gracefully using Dcpromo. Else after restart you can also use Ntdsutil to do metadata as told in the earlier post 22) Name some OU design considerations OU design requires balancing requirements for delegating administrative rights independent of Group Policy needs and the need to scope the application of Group Policy. The following OU design recommendations address delegation and scope issues: Applying Group Policy An OU is the lowest-level Active Directory container to which you can assign Group Policy se ings. Delegating administrative authority Usually dont go more than 3 OU levels 23) What is tombstone lifetime a ribute? The number of days before a deleted object is removed from the directory services. This assists in removing objects from replicated servers and preventing restores from reintroducing a deleted object. This value is in the Directory Service object in the conguration NIC By default 2000 (60 days) 2003 (180 days) System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 14 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 24) How would you nd all users that have not logged on since last month? Using only native commands, JSILLD.bat produces a sorted/formated report of Users who have not logged on since YYYYMMDD. The report is sorted by UserName and list the users full name and last logon date. The syntax for usingJSILLD.bat is: JSILLD \Folder\OutputFile.Ext YYYYMMDD [/N] where: YYYYMMDD will report all users who have not logged on since this date. /N is an optional parameter that will bypass users who have never logged on. JSILLD.bat contains: @echo o setlocal if {%2}=={}goto syntax if %3== goto begin if /i %3==/n goto begin :syntax @echo Syntax: JSILLD File yyyymmdd [/N] endlocal goto :EOF :begin if /i %2==/n goto syntax set dte=%2 set XX=%dte:~0,4% if %XX% LSS 1993 goto syntax set XX=%dte:~4,2% if %XX% LSS 01 goto syntax if %XX% GTR 12 goto syntax set XX=%dte:~6,2% if %XX% LSS 01 goto syntax if %XX% GTR 31 goto syntax set never=X if /i %3==/n set never=/n set le=%1 if exist %le% del /q %le% for /f Skip=4 Tokens=* %%i in (net user /domain^| ndstr /v /c:-^| ndstr /v /i /c:The command completed) do ( do call :parse %%i ) endlocal goto :EOF :parse set str=#%1# set str=%str:#=% set str=%str:#=% set substr=%str:~0,25%# System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 15 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 set substr=%substr: =% set substr=%substr: #=% set substr=%substr:#=% if %substr%== goto :EOF for /f Skip=1 Tokens=* %%i in (net user %substr% /domain) do call :parse1 %%i set substr=%str:~25,25%# set substr=%substr: =% set substr=%substr: #=% set substr=%substr:#=% if %substr%== goto :EOF for /f Skip=1 Tokens=* %%i in (net user %substr% /domain) do call :parse1 %%i set substr=%str:~50,25%# set substr=%substr: =% set substr=%substr: #=% set substr=%substr:#=% if %substr%== goto :EOF for /f Skip=1 Tokens=* %%i in (net user %substr% /domain) do call :parse1 %%i goto :EOF :parse1 set ustr=%1 if %ustr%==The command completed successfully. goto :EOF set ustr=%ustr:=% if /i %ustr:~0,9%==Full Name set fullname=%ustr:~29,99% if /i not %ustr:~0,10%==Last logon goto :EOF set txt=%ustr:~29,99% for /f Tokens=1,2,3 Delims=/ %%i in (@echo %txt%) do set MM=%%i&set DD=%%j&set YY=%%k if /i %MM%==Never goto tstnvr goto year :tstnvr if /i %never%==/n goto :EOF goto report :year if %YY% GTR 1000 goto mmm if %YY% GTR 92 goto Y19 set /a YY=100%YY%%%100 set YY=%YY% +2000 goto mmm :Y19 set YY=19%YY% :mmm set /a XX=100%MM%%%100 if %XX% LSS 10 set MM=0%XX% set /a XX=100%DD%%%100 if %XX% LSS 10 set DD=0%XX% set YMD=%YY%%MM%%DD% if %YMD% GEQ %dte% goto :EOF :report set fullname=%fullname% # set fullname=%fullname:~0,35% set substr=%substr% # set substr=%substr:~0,30% @echo %substr% %fullname% %txt% >>%le% System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 16 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 25) What are the DS commands? New DS (Directory Service) Family of built-in command line utilities for Windows Server 2003 Active Directory A: New DS built-in tools for Windows Server 2003 The DS (Directory Service) group of commands are split into two families. In one branch are DSadd, DSmod, DSrm and DSMove and in the other branch are DSQuery and DSGet. When it comes to choosing a scripting tool for Active Directory objects, you really are spoilt for choice. The DS family of built-in command line executables oers alternative strategies to CSVDE, LDIFDE and VBScript. Let me introduce you to the members of the DS family: DSadd add Active Directory users and groups DSmod modify Active Directory objects DSrm to delete Active Directory objects DSmove to relocate objects DSQuery to nd objects that match your query a ributes DSget list the properties of an object DS Syntax These DS tools have their own command structure which you can split into ve parts: 1 2 3 4 5 Tool object DN (as in LDAP distinguished name) -switch value For example: DSadd user cn=billy, ou=managers, dc=cp, dc=com -pwd cX49pQba This will add a user called Billy to the Managers OU and set the password to cx49Qba Here are some of the common DS switches which work with DSadd and DSmod -pwd (password) -upn (userPrincipalName) -fn (FirstName) -samid (Sam account name). The best way to learn about this DS family is to logon at a domain controller and experiment from the command line. I have prepared examples of the two most common programs. Try somesample commands for DSadd. Two most useful Tools: DSQuery and DSGet The DSQuery and DSGet remind me of UNIX commands in that they operate at the command line, use powerful verbs, and produce plenty of action. One pre-requisite for ge ing the most from this DS family is a working knowledge of LDAP. If you need to query users or computers from a range of OUs and then return information, for example, oce, department manager. Then DSQuery and DSGet would be your tools of choice. Moreover, you can export the information into a text le 26) What is the dierence between ldifde and csvde usage considerations? System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 17 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Ldifde Ldifde creates, modies, and deletes directory objects on computers running Windows Server 2003 operating systems or Windows XP Professional. You can also use Ldifde to extend the schema, export Active Directory user and group information to other applications or services, and populate Active Directory with data from other directory services. The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) is a draft Internet standard for a le format that may be used for performing batch operations against directories that conform to the LDAP standards. LDIF can be used to export and import data, allowing batch operations such as add, create, and modify to be performed against the Active Directory. A utility program called LDIFDE is included in Windows 2000 to support batch operations based on the LDIF le format standard. This articleis designed to help you be er understand how the LDIFDE utility can be used to migrate directories. h p://support.microsoft.com/kb/237677 (h p://support.microsoft.com/kb/237677) Csvde Imports and exports data from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) using les that store data in the comma-separated value (CSV) format. You can also support batch operations based on the CSV le format standard. Csvde is a command-line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008 in the/system32 folder. It is available if you have the AD DS or Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) server role installed. To usecsvde, you must run thecsvde command from an elevated command prompt. To open an elevated command prompt, click Start, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732101.aspx (h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library /cc732101.aspx) DIFFERENCE USAGE WISE Csvde.exe is a Microsoft Windows 2000 command-line utility that is located in the SystemRoot\ System32 folder after you install Windows 2000. Csvde.exe is similar to Ldifde.exe, but it extracts information in a comma-separated value (CSV) format. You can use Csvde to import and export Active Directory data that uses the comma-separated value format. Use a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel to open this .csv le and view the header and value information. See Microsoft Excel Help for information about functions such as Concatenate that can simplify the process of building a .csv le. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 18 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Note Although Csvde is similar to Ldifde, Csvde has a signicant limitation: it can only import and export Active Directory data by using a comma-separated format (.csv). Microsoft recommends that you use the Ldifde utility for Modify or Delete operations. Additionally, the distinguished name (also known as DN) of the item that you are trying to import must be in the rst column of the .csv le or the import will not work. The source .csv le can come from an Exchange Server directory export. However, because of the dierence in a ribute mappings between the Exchange Server directory and Active Directory, you must make some modications to the .csv le. For example, a directory export from Exchange Server has a column that is named obj-class that you must rename to objectClass. You must also rename Display Name to displayName. h p://support.microsoft.com/kb/327620 (h p://support.microsoft.com/kb/327620) 27) What are the FSMO roles that have them by default what happens when each one fails? FSMO stands for the Flexible single Master Operation It has 5 Roles: - Schema Master: The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modications to the schema. Once the Schema update is complete, it is replicated from the schema master to all other DCs in the directory. To update the schema of a forest, you must have access to the schema master. There can be only one schema master in the whole forest. Domain naming master: The domain naming master domain controller controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest. This DC is the only one that can add or remove a domain from the directory. It can also add or remove cross references to domains in external directories. There can be only one domain naming master in the whole forest. Infrastructure Master: When an object in one domain is referenced by another object in another domain, it represents the reference by the GUID, the SID (for references to security principals), and the DN of the object being referenced. The infrastructure FSMO role holder is the DC responsible for updating an objects SID and distinguished name in a cross-domain object reference. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain. Note: The Infrastructure Master (IM) role should be held by a domain controller that is not a Global Catalog server (GC). If the Infrastructure Master runs on a Global Catalog server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. As a result, cross- domain object references in that domain will not be updated and a warning to that eect will be logged on that DCs event log. If all the domain controllers in a domain also host the global catalog, all the domain controllers have the current data, and it is not important which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role. Relative ID (RID) Master: The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain. When a DC creates a security principal object such as a user or group, it a aches a System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 19 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 unique Security ID (SID) to the object. This SID consists of a domain SID (the same for all SIDs created in a domain), and a relative ID (RID) that is unique for each security principal SID created in a domain. Each DC in a domain is allocated a pool of RIDs that it is allowed to assign to the security principals it creates. When a DCs allocated RID pool falls below a threshold, that DC issues a request for additional RIDs to the domains RID master. The domain RID master responds to the request by retrieving RIDs from the domains unallocated RID pool and assigns them to the pool of the requesting DC. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the RID master in the domain. PDC Emulator: The PDC emulator is necessary to synchronize time in an enterprise. Windows 2000/2003includes the W32Time (Windows Time) time service that is required by the Kerberos authentication protocol. All Windows 2000/2003-based computers within an enterprise use a common time. The purpose of the time service is to ensure that the Windows Time service uses a hierarchical relationship that controls authority and does not permit loops to ensure appropriate common time usage. The PDC emulator of a domain is authoritative for the domain. The PDC emulator at theroot of the forest becomes authoritative for the enterprise, and should be congured to gather the time from an external source. All PDC FSMO role holders follow the hierarchy of domains in the selection of their in-bound time partner. :: In a Windows 2000/2003 domain, the PDC emulator role holder retains the followingfunctions: :: Password changes performed by other DCs in the domain are replicated preferentially to the PDC emulator. Authentication failures that occur at a given DC in a domain because of an incorrect password are forwarded to the PDC emulator before a bad password failure message is reported to the user. Account lockout is processed on the PDC emulator. Editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy found in the PDC Emulators SYSVOL share, unless congured not to do so by the administrator. The PDC emulator performs all of the functionality that a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server-based PDC or earlier PDC performs for Windows NT 4.0-based or earlier clients. This part of the PDC emulator role becomes unnecessary when all workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or earlier are all upgraded to Windows 2000/2003. The PDC emulator still performs the other functions as described in a Windows 2000/2003 environment. 28) What FSMO placement considerations do you know of? Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domains utilize a Single Operation Master method called FSMO (Flexible Single Master Operation), as described in Understanding FSMO Roles in Active System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 20 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Directory. In most cases an administrator can keep the FSMO role holders (all 5 of them) in thesame spot (or actually, on the same DC) as has been congured by the Active Directory installation process. However, there are scenarios where an administrator would want to move one or more of the FSMO roles from the default holder DC to a dierent DC. Windows Server 2003 Active Directory is a bit dierent than the Windows 2000 version when dealing with FSMO placement. In this article I will only deal with Windows Server 2003 Active Directory, but you should bear in mind that most considerations are also true when planning Windows 2000 AD FSMO roles 29) I want to look at the RID allocation table for a DC. What do I do? 1.install support tools from OS disk(OS Inst: Disk=>support=>tools=>suptools.msi) 2.In Command prompt type dcdiag /test:ridmanager /s:system1 /v (system1 is the name of our DC) 30) Whats the dierence between transferring a FSMO role and seizing one? Which one should you NOT seize? Why? Seizing an FSMO can be a destructive process and should only be a empted if the existing server with the FSMO is no longer available. If the domain controller that is the Schema Master FSMO role holder is temporarily unavailable, DO NOT seize the Schema Master role. If you are going to seize the Schema Master, you must permanently disconnect the current Schema Master from the network. If you seize the Schema Master role, the boot drive on the original Schema Master must be completely reforma ed and the operating system must be cleanly installed, if you intend to return this computer to the network. NOTE: The Boot Partition contains the system les (\ System32). The System Partition is the partition that contains the startup les, NTDetect.com, NTLDR, Boot.ini, and possibly Ntbootdd.sys. The Active Directory Installation Wizard (Dcpromo.exe) assigns all 5 FSMO roles to the rst domain controller in the forest root domain. The rst domain controller in each new child or tree domain is assigned the three domain-wide roles. 31) How do you congure a stand-by operation master for any of the roles? Open Active Directory Sites and Services. 1. Expand the site name in which the standby operations master is located to display theServers folder. 2. Expand theServers folder to see a list of the servers in that site. 3. Expand the name of the server that you want to be the standby operations master to display its NTDS Se ings. 4. Right-click NTDS Se ings, click New, and then click Connection. 5. In theFind Domain Controllers dialog box, select the name of the current role holder, and then click OK. 6. In theNew Object-Connection dialog box, enter an appropriate name for the Connection object or accept the default name, and click OK. 7. 32) How do you backup & restore AD. Backing up Active Directory is essential to maintain an Active Directory database. You can back up Active Directory by using the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and command-line tools that the System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 21 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Windows Server 2003 family provides. You frequently backup the system state data on domain controllers so that you can restore the most current data. By establishing a regular backup schedule, you have a be er chance of recovering data when necessary. To ensure a good backup includes at least the system state data and contents of the system disk, you must be aware of the tombstone lifetime. By default, the tombstone is 60 days. Any backup older than 60 days is not a good backup. Plan to backup at least two domain controllers in each domain, one of at least one backup to enable an authoritative restore of the data when necessary. SystemStateData Several features in the windows server 2003 family make it easy to backup Active Directory. You can backup Active Directory while the server is online and other network function can continue to function. System state data on a domain controller includes the following components: Active Directory system state data does not contain Active Directory unless the server, on which you are backing up the system state data, is a domain controller. Active Directory is present only on domain controllers. The SYSVOL shared folder: This shared folder contains Group policy templates and logon scripts. The SYSVOL shared folder is present only on domain controllers. The Registry: This database repository contains information about the computers conguration. System startup les: Windows Server 2003 requires these les during its initial startup phase. They include the boot and system les that are under windows le protection and used by windows to load, congure, and run the operating system. The COM+Class Registration database: The Class registration is a database of information about Component Services applications. The Certicate Services database: This database contains certicates that a server running Windows server 2003 uses to authenticate users. The Certicate Services database is present only if the server is operating as a certicate server. System state data contains most elements of a systems conguration, but it may not include all of the information that you require recovering data from a system failure. Therefore, be sure to backup all boot and system volumes, including theSystemState, when you back up your server. Restoring Active Directory In Windows Server 2003 family, you can restore the Active Directory database if it becomes corrupted or is destroyed because of hardware or software failures. You must restorethe Active Directory database when objects in Active Directory are changed or deleted. Active Directory restore can be performed in several ways. Replication synchronizes the latest changes from every other replication partner. Once the replication is nished each partner has an updated version of Active Directory. There is another way to get these latest updates by Backup utility to restore replicated data from a backup copy. For this restore you dont need to congure again your domain controller or no need to install the operating system from scratch. Active Directory Restore Methods You can use one of the three methods to restore Active Directory from backup media: primary restore, normal (non authoritative) restore, and authoritative restore. Primary restore: This method rebuilds the rst domain controller in a domain when there is no other way to rebuild the domain. Perform a primary restore only when all the domain controllers in the domain are lost, and you want to rebuild the domain from the backup. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 22 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Members of Administrators group can perform the primary restore on local computer, or user should have been delegated with this responsibility to perform restore. On a domain controller only Domain Admins can perform this restore. Normal restore: This method reinstates the Active Directory data to the state beforethe backup, and then updates the data through the normal replication process. Perform a normal restore for a single domain controller to a previously known good state. Authoritative restore: You perform this method in tandem with a normal restore. An authoritative restore marks specic data as current and prevents the replication from overwriting that data. The authoritative data is then replicated through the domain. Perform an authoritative restore individual object in a domain that has multiple domain controllers. When you perform an authoritative restore, you lose all changes to the restore object that occurred after the backup. Ntdsutil is a command line utility to perform an authoritative restore along with windows server 2003 system utilities. The Ntdsutil command-line tool is an executable le that you use to mark Active Directory objects as authoritative so that they receive a higher version recently changed data on other domain controllers does not overwrite system state data during replication. 33) Why cant you restore a DC that was backed up 4 months ago? Because of the tombstone life which is set to only 60 days 34) What are GPOs? Group Policy Objects 35) What is the order in which GPOs are applied? Local, Site, Domain, OU Group Policy se ings are processed in the following order: 1:- Local Group Policy object-each computer has exactly one Group Policy object that is stored locally. This processes for both computer and user Group Policy processing. 2:- Site-Any GPOs that have been linked to the site that the computer belongs to are processed next. Processing is in the order that is specied by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the site in Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. 3:- Domain-processing of multiple domain-linked GPOs is in the order specied by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the domain in GPMC. The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. 4:- Organizational units-GPOs that are linked to the organizational unit that is highest in the Active Directory hierarchy are processed rst, then GPOs that are linked to its child organizational unit, and so on. Finally, the GPOs that are linked to the organizational unit that contains the user or computer are processed. At the level of each organizational unit in the Active Directory hierarchy, one, many, or no GPOs can be linked. If several GPOs are linked to an organizational unit, their processing is in the order that is specied by the administrator, on the Linked Group Policy Objects tab for the organizational unit in GPMC. The GPO with the lowest link order is processed last, and therefore has the highest precedence. This order means that the local GPO is processed rst, and GPOs that are linked to the organizational System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 23 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 unit of which the computer or user is a direct member are processed last, which overwrites se ings in the earlier GPOs if there are conicts. (If there are no conicts, then the earlier and later se ings are merely aggregated.) 36) Name a few benets of using GPMC. Easy administration of all GPOs across the entireActiveDirectoryForest View of all GPOs in one single list Reporting of GPO se ings, security, lters, delegation, etc. Control of GPO inheritance with Block Inheritance, Enforce, and Security Filtering Delegation model Backup and restore of GPOs Migration of GPOs across dierent domains and forests With all of these benets, there are still negatives in using the GPMC alone. Granted, the GPMC is needed and should be used by everyone for what it is ideal for. However, it does fall a bit short when you want to protect the GPOs from the following: Role based delegation of GPO management Being edited in production, potentially causing damage to desktops and servers Forge ing to back up a GPO after it has been modied Change management of each modication to every GPO 37) What are the GPC and the GPT? Where can I nd them? A GPO is a collection of Group Policy se ings, stored at the domain level as a virtual object consisting of a Group Policy container (GPC) and a Group Policy template (GPT). The GPC, which contains information on the properties of a GPO, is stored in Active Directory on each domain controller in the domain. The GPT contains the data in a GPO and is stored in the Sysvol in the /Policies sub-directory. 38) What are GPO links? What special things can I do to them? Linking GPOs To apply the se ings of a GPO to the users and computers of a domain, site, or OU, you need to add a link to that GPO. You can add one or more GPO links to each domain, site, or OU by using GPMC. Keep in mind that creating and linking GPOs is a sensitive privilege that should be delegated only to administrators who are trusted and understand Group Policy. Linking GPOs to the Site If you have a number of policy se ings to apply to computers in a particular physical location only certain network or proxy conguration se ings, for example these se ings might be appropriate for inclusion in a site-based policy. Because domains and sites are independent, it is possible that computers in the site might need to cross domains to link the GPO to the site. In this case, make sure there is good connectivity. If, however, the se ings do not clearly correspond to computers in a single site, it is be er to assign System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 24 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 the GPO to the domain or OU structure rather than to the site. Linking GPOs to the Domain Link GPOs to the domain if you want them to apply to all users and computers in the domain. For example, security administrators often implement domain-based GPOs to enforce corporate standards. They might want to create these GPOs with the GPMC Enforce option enabled to guarantee that no other administrator can override these se ings. Important If you need to modify some of the se ings contained in theDefault Domain Policy GPO, it is recommended that you create a new GPO for this purpose, link it to the domain, and set the Enforce option. In general, do not modify this or theDefault Domain Controller Policy GPO. If you do, be sure to back up these and any other GPOs in your network by using GPMC to ensure you can restore them. As the name suggests, theDefault Domain Policy GPO is also linked to the domain. TheDefault Domain Policy GPO is created when the rst domain controller in the domain is installed and the administrator logs on for the rst time. This GPO contains the domain-wide account policy se ings, Password Policy, Account Lockout Policy, and Kerberos Policy, which is enforced by the domain controller computers in the domain. All domain controllers retrieve the values of these account policy se ings from theDefault Domain Policy GPO. In order to apply account policies to domain accounts, these policy se ings must be deployed in a GPO linked to the domain, and it is recommended that you set these se ings in the Default Domain Policy. If you set account policies at a lower level, such as an OU, the se ings only aect local accounts (non-domain accounts) on computers in that OU and its children. Before making any changes to the default GPOs, be sure to back up the GPO using GPMC. If for some reason there is a problem with the changes to the default GPOs and you cannot revert back to the previous or initial states, you can use the Dcgpox.exe tool to recreate the default policies in their initial state. Dcgpox.exe is a command-line tool that completely restores the Default Domain Policy GPO and Default Domain Controller GPO to their original states in the event of a disaster where you cannot use GPMC. Dcgpox.exe restores only the policy se ings that are contained in the default GPOs at the time they are generated. The only Group Policy extensions that include policy se ings in the default GPOs are RIS, Security, and EFS. Dcgpox.exe does not restore other GPOs that administrators create; it is only intended for disaster recovery of the default GPOs. Note that Dcgpox.exe does not save any information created through applications, such as SMS or Exchange. The Dcgpox.exe tool is included with Windows Server 2003 and only works in a Windows Server 2003 domain. Dcgpox.exe is located in the C:\ Windows\ Repair folder. The syntax for Dcgpox.exe is as follows: Copy Code DCGPOFix [/Target: Domain | DC | BOTH] System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 25 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Table 2.1 describes the options you can use with the command line parameter /Target: when using the Dcgpox.exe tool. Table 2.1 Dcgpox.exe Options for Using the /Target Parameter /Target option: Description of option DOMAINSpecies that the Default Domain Policy should be recreated.DCSpecies that the Default Domain Controllers Policy should be recreated.BOTHSpecies that both the Default Domain Policy and the Default Domain Controllers Policy should be recreated.For more information about Dcgpox.exe, in Help and Support Centerfor Windows Server 2003 click Tools, and then click Command-line reference A-Z Linking GPOs to the OU Structure Most GPOs are normally linked to the OU structure because this provides the most exibility and manageability: You can move users and computers into and out of OUs. OUs can be rearranged if necessary. You can work with smaller groups of users who have common administrative requirements. You can organize users and computers based on which administrators manage them. Organizing GPOs into user- and computer-oriented GPOs can help make your Group Policy environment easier to understand and can simplify troubleshooting. However, separating the user and computer components into separate GPOs might require more GPOs. You can compensate for this by adjusting theGPO Status to disable the user or computer conguration portions of the GPO that do not apply and to reduce the time required to apply a given GPO. Changing the GPO Link Order Within each domain, site, and OU, the link order controls the order in which GPOs areapplied. To change the precedence of a link, you can change the link order, moving each link up or down in the list to the appropriate location. Links with the lowest number have higher precedence for a given site, domain, or OU. For example, if you add six GPO links and later decide that you want the last one that you added to have the highest precedence, you can adjust the link order of the GPO link so it has link order of 1. To change the link order for GPO links for a domain, OU, or site, use GPMC h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc736813.aspx (h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library /cc736813.aspx) h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757050.aspx (h p://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library /cc757050.aspx) 39) What can I do to prevent inheritance from above? System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 26 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 You can block policy inheritance for a domain or organizational unit. Using block inheritance prevents GPOs linked to higher sites, domains, or organizational units from being automatically inherited by the child-level. By default, children inherit all GPOs from the parent, but it is sometimes useful to block inheritance. For example, if you want to apply a single set of policies to an entire domain except for one organizational unit, you can link the required GPOs at the domain level (from which all organizational units inherit policies by default), and then block inheritance only on the organizational unit to which the policies should not be applied. 40) How can I override blocking of inheritance? A. Group Policies can be applied at multiple levels (Sites, domains, organizational Units) and multiple GPs for each level. Obviously it may be that some policy se ings conict hence the application order of Site Domain Organization Unit and within each layer you set order for all dened policies but you may want to force some polices to never be overridden (No Override) and you may want some containers to not inherit se ings from a parent container (Block Inheritance). A good denition of each is as follows: No Override This prevents child containers from overriding policies set at higher levels Block Inheritance Stops containers inheriting policies from parent containers No Override takes precedence over Block Inheritance so if a child container has Block Inheritance set but on the parent a group policy has No Override set then it will get applied. Also the highest No Override takes precedence over lower No Overrides set. To block inheritance perform the following: Start the Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in (Start Programs Administrative Tools Active Directory Users and Computers) 1. Right click on the container you wish to stop inheriting se ings from its parent and select Properties 2. Select the Group Policy tab 3. Check the Block Policy inheritance option Click here to view image (h p://www.windowsitpro.com/content/content/15420 /blockinher.gif) 4. Click Apply then OK 5. To set a policy to never be overridden performs the following: Start the Active Directory Users and Computer snap-in (Start Programs Administrative Tools Active Directory Users and Computers) 1. Right click on the container you wish to set a Group Policy to not be overridden and select Properties 2. Select the Group Policy tab 3. Click Options 4. Check the No Override option 5. Click OK 6. Click Apply then OK 7. 41) How can you determine what GPO was and was not applied for a user? Name a few ways to do that. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 27 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) can provide assistance when you need to troubleshoot GPO behavior. It allows you to examine the se ings of a specic GPO, and is can also be used to determine how your GPOs are linked to sites, domains, and OUs. TheGroup Policy Results report collects information on a computer and user, to list the policy se ings which are enabled. To create a Group Policy Results report, right-click Group Policy Results, and select Group Policy Results Wizard on the shortcut menu. This launches the Group Policy Results Wizard, which guides you through various pages to set parameters for the information that should be displayed in the Group Policy Results report. 1. Gpresult.exe Click Start >RUN >CMD >gpresult, this will also give you information of applied group policies. 2. 3. RSOP.MSC 1. 42) A user claims he did not receive a GPO, yet his user and computer accounts are inthe rightOU, and everyone else there gets the GPO. What will you look for? Here interviewer want to know the troubleshooting steps what GPOs is applying? If it applying in all user and computer? What GPOs are implemented on ou? Make sure user not is member of loopback policy as in loopback policy it doesnt aect user se ings only computer policy will applicable. If he is member of GPOs lter grp or not? You may also want to check the computers event logs. If you nd event ID 1085 then you may want to download the patch to x this and reboot the computer. =============================================== Answer 2: Start troubleshooting by running RSOP.MSC (Resultant Set of Policy) or gpresult /z to verify whether relevant GPO actually applies to that user? This also can be a reason of slow network; you can change the default se ing by usingthe Group Policy MMC snap-in. This feature is enabled by default, but you can disable it by using the following policy: Administrative Templates\ System\ Logon\ Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon. Identify which GPOs they correspond to; verify that they are applicable to the computer/user (based on the output of RSOP.MSC/gpresult) 43) What are administrative templates? The GPO se ings are divided between the Computer se ings and the User se ings. In both parts of the GPO you can clearly see a large section called Administrative Templates. Administrative Templates are a large repository of registry-based changes (in fact, over 1300 individual se ings) that can be found in any GPO on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. By using the Administrative Template sections of the GPO you can deploy modications to machine (called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in the registry) and user (called HKEY_CURRENT_USER in the registry) portions of the Registry of computers that are inuenced by the GPO. The Administrative Templates are Unicode-forma ed text les with the extension .ADM and are used to create the Administrative Templates portion of the user interface for the GPO Editor. System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 28 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 44) Whats the dierence between software publishing and assigning? An administrator can either assign or publish software applications. Assign Users the software application is advertised when the user logs on. It is installed when the user clicks on the software application icon via the start menu, or accesses a le that has been associated with the software application. Assign Computers The software application is advertised and installed when it is safe to do so, such as when the computer is next restarted. Publish to users the software application does not appear on the start menu or desktop. This means the user may not know that the software is available. The software application is made available via the Add/Remove Programs option in control panel, or by clicking on a le that has been associated with the application. Published applications do not reinstall themselves in the event of accidental deletion, and it is not possible to publish to computers. 45) You want to standardize the desktop environments (wallpaper, My Documents, Start menu, printers etc.) on the computers in one department. How would you do that? Yes Through Group Policy You May Like 1. Tagged: Active Directory (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/active-directory/), ActiveDirectory (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/activedirectory/), Domain Name System (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/domain-name-system/), LDAP (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/ldap/), Microsoft Exchange Server (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/microsoft-exchange-server/), Microsoft Windows (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/microsoft-windows/), Operating system (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/operating-system/), Operating Systems (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/operating-systems/), Windows 2000 (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/windows-2000/), Windows domain (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/windows-domain/), Windows Server (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/windows-server/), Windows Server 2003 (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/windows-server-2003/), Windows Server 2008 R2 (h p://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/tag/windows-server-2008-r2/) System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and An... http://sandeshvidhate.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/active-directory-inter... 29 of 41 27-01-2014 13:28 43 thoughts on System Administrator Active Directory Interview Questions and Answers Samuel Nob_1983May 15, 2012 at 2:19 pmReply Nice collection of questions and Answers.Thanks dude! 15 1 i Rate This 1. mahesh pejgudeJuly 4, 2012 at 11:54 amReply very helpfulll. 6 1 i Rate This 2. 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