What are the fundamental concepts of Active Directory?
Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for managing and organizing network resources in a Windows environment. It is a distributed database system that allows centralized management and control of users, computers, organizational units (OUs), groups, and other network resources.
The fundamental concepts of Active Directory include:
- Directory Services: Active Directory is a service that stores information about various objects in the network (such as users, computers, printers, etc.) and provides access and management of these objects.
- Domain: The domain is the fundamental organizational unit of Active Directory, consisting of a collection of computers and users that trust each other. Each domain has a unique name and resources can be accessed within it through the domain name.
- A forest is a collection of one or more domains linked together by trust relationships. Each forest has a globally unique name and a common security policy.
- Tree: A tree is a collection of domains with a hierarchical structure, connected through a one-way trust relationship. Each domain in the tree has a parent domain, with the exception of the root domain, which has no parent domain.
- Objects in Active Directory, such as users, computers, organizational units, and groups, all have a set of properties that are used to describe their characteristics and actions.
- Organizational Unit (OU): OU is a container used to organize and manage objects, grouping them according to their function, location, or other attributes.
- A Domain Controller is a server that runs Active Directory services, it is responsible for storing and managing the Active Directory database, and providing authentication and access control to network resources.
Through Active Directory, administrators can centrally manage and control users, computers, permissions, and policies in the network, achieving unified identity authentication, access control, and resource management. It also offers a flexible organizational structure and permission model that allows administrators to customize and configure according to the organization’s needs.
