Active Directory

• AD is essentially a large database accessible to all users within the domain, regardless of their privilege level

• A forest is the security boundary within which all objects are under administrative control.

  • A forest may contain multiple domains,

    • and a domain may include further child or sub-domains

      • A domain is a structure within which contained objects (users, computers, and groups) are accessible

        • It has many built-in Organizational Units (OUs), such as Domain Controllers, Users, Computers, and new OUs can be created as required.

          • OUs may contain objects and sub-OUs, allowing for the assignment of different group policies.

At a very (simplistic) high level, an AD structure may look as follows:

INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL/
├── ADMIN.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL
│   ├── GPOs
│   └── OU
│       └── EMPLOYEES
│           ├── COMPUTERS
│           │   └── FILE01
│           ├── GROUPS
│           │   └── HQ Staff
│           └── USERS
│               └── barbara.jones
├── CORP.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL
└── DEV.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL

• INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL is the root domain

  • contains the subdomains (either child or tree root domains)

    • ADMIN.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL

    • CORP.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL

    • DEV.INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL

• The graphic below shows two forests, INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL and FREIGHTLOGISTICS.LOCAL

• 
• The two-way arrow represents a bidirectional trust between the two forests, meaning

  • that users in INLANEFREIGHT.LOCAL can access resources in FREIGHTLOGISTICS.LOCAL and vice versa.

Active Directory Terminology

• Active Directory Terminology

Active Directory Objects

• Active Directory Objects