The YubiKey Minidriver is designed to function in a Windows Server and Client environment configured for smart card authentication. Ensuring your deployment is set up properly is a crucial element of the initial planning for the YubiKey Minidriver deployment.
security windows active directory 2fa yubikeyThe primary reason for enabling this functionality is to allow third-party applications that aren’t capable of performing secure binds or encrypted LDAP sessions (over TCP 389) to connect securely.
active directory security windowsThe core of the issue is this, when an application performs a simple LDAP bind, the username and password is transmitted in clear text in the very first packet. The DC doesn't even have a chance to prevent this exposure from occurring. If this connection is not encrypted at a lower layer such as TLS or IPSec, it may be intercepted and a bad day may soon follow.
active directory security windows ldapLAPS is easy to deploy and works great. The challenge comes in knowing if it’s actually working. How do you know if your machines have ever set the password? Or maybe they set it once and haven’t updated it since even though it’s past the designated expiration date? It’s definitely worth monitoring to ensure that your machines are operating as expected. Jiri Formacek (the creator of LAPS), threw together a small PowerShell script to provide that capability.
windows active directory securityLocal Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) has been around for a while and last year it became an official supported tool by Microsoft. Since there are so many articles about it, I would like to share my tweaks. I decided to create my own LDF file to extend the schema with this two attributes because I feel that a few things are missing.
active directory security windowsStarting in Windows Server 2008 R2, Active Directory now implements a true recycle bin. No longer will you need an authoritative restore to recover deleted users, groups, OU’s, or other objects. Instead, it is now possible to use PowerShell commands to bring back objects with all their attributes, backlinks, group memberships, and metadata.
active directory sysadminA Failover Cluster does not update the lastLogonTimeStamp the same way as a real computer. A cluster updates the lastLogonTimeStamp when it brings a clustered network name resource online. Once online, it caches the authentication token. Therefore, a clustered network named resource working in production for months will never update the lastLogonTimeStamp. This appears as a stale computer account to the AD administrator.
Global auditing lets you create System Access Control Lists (SACL) for the entire computer, based on file and registry. This means that instead of manually altering and maintaining SACLs on 10TB of shared files, you can instead define them implicitly and not actually modify the files at all. You can then troubleshoot an unexplained file deletion, see who keeps changing permissions on a folder, or satisfy an auditor.
active directory security windows group policyYou should not trust any of the Group Policy reporting tools when it comes to audit settings. There’s only one safe bet and it’s this command: auditpol.exe /get /category:*
Most of the events in the Group Policy operational log appear in pairs. For each start event, there is an end event. End events can be successful, warning, or error events. Usually these events share the last two digits in their event ids. For example, a 4017 event appears in the event log, which represents a Group Policy component beginning a specific action. If the action completes successfully, then the Group Policy service records a 5017 event. If the action completes with errors or fails then the Group Policy service records a 6017 or 7017 event, respectively. Policy processing events use the same numbering scheme for warning and error events messages in the 8000–8007 range for Group Policy success events. You can use these numbering patterns to quickly identify warning and failure events in the Group Policy operational log.
active directory windows group policyHere is a quick run-down of how Create, Replace, Update and Delete behave in Group Policy Preferences.
active directory windows group policyThe order of Client Side Extensions are the order you see in the registry, and that is the order you see in my list as well. But, yes normally there is a but as well Smile the first CSE to be applied is {35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}, this is the one for Registry/Administrative Templates this also includes if you write an ADMX template on your own, this will be applied first.
function Get-GPClientSideExtensions {
Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\GPExtensions" | foreach {
$guid = ($_.Name).Split("\") | Select -Last 1
$props = Get-ItemProperty $_.PSPath
# Guessing CSE name in order (default), ProcessGroupPolicy, ProcessGroupPolicyEx
if ($props.'(default)') {
$description = $props.'(default)'
} elseif ($props.ProcessGroupPolicy) {
$description = $props.ProcessGroupPolicy
} elseif ($props.ProcessGroupPolicyEx) {
$description = $props.ProcessGroupPolicyEx
} elseif ($gpeGuid = "{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}") {
$description = "Administrative Templates"
} else {
$description = "Error guessing CSE name"
}
[PSCustomObject] @{
GUID = $guid
Description = $description
}
}
}
List of links to core documentation for all major AD components.
active directory windowsOptimising AD inter-site transport settings.
active directory powershellWhen you install Active Directory on a member server, the member server is promoted to a domain controller. Active Directory uses DNS as the location mechanism for domain controllers, enabling computers on the network to obtain IP addresses of domain controllers.
During the installation of Active Directory, the service (SRV) and address (A) resource records are dynamically registered in DNS, which are necessary for the successful functionality of the domain controller locator (Locator) mechanism.
active directory dnsActive Directory uses DNS as its domain controller location mechanism and leverages the namespace design of DNS in the design of Active Directory domain names. As a result, DNS is positioned within the discoverability and logical structure components of Active Directory technology components.
active directory dnsSelf Service Password is a PHP application that allows users to change their password in an LDAP directory.
active directory ldap free toolsBecause Active Directory is a multi-master database, changes can be processed at any given domain controller (DC), regardless of whether the DC is connected or disconnected from the network. A limited number of operations are not permitted to occur at different places at the same time and must be the responsibility of only one domain controller in a domain or forest. All domain controllers are capable of performing these single master operations. The domain controller that actually performs a single-master operation is the domain controller that currently holds the operation’s token, also known as the “role holder”.The operation's token, and thus the role, can be transferred easily to another domain controller without a reboot. Because the role is not bound to a single DC, it is referred to as a Flexible Single Master Operation (FSMO) role.
active directory windowsThe tombstone lifetime in an Active Directory forest determines how long a deleted object (called a “tombstone”) is retained in Active Directory Domain Services. The tombstone lifetime is determined by the value of the tombstoneLifetime attribute on the Directory Service object in the configuration directory partition. You can use this procedure to determine the tombstone lifetime for the forest.
Typically when a USN goes backwards, it is due to a supported restore from backup. When this process occurs, the invocation ID changes. Since all replica partners track replication based on DC GUID, Invocation ID, and USNs, a supported restore method keeps the previous invocation ID as “retired” and effectively ignores it. The new database Invocation ID & associated USN are used to get AD changes from the DC… except when the USN rolls back with NO change in Invocation ID. This means that when a DC is in a state of USN Rollback, AD updates can be performed on that DC with none of the changes replicated to its replication partners.
active directory windows