Active Directory Domain Services
- Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) is a directory service from Microsoft which allows you to store objects. Objects are nothing but users, computers, printers, groups, OUs etc.
- When ADDS is installed it creates its own database with the name NTDS.dit and is stored in C:\Windows\NTDS\ folder.
Components of Active Directory
Components are divided into 2 parts viz, Logical and Physical
Logical Components
- Domain
- Tree
- Forest
- Organizational Unit
Physical Components
- Domain Controller
- Site
- Global Catalog
Domain
- A domain is a logical representation of network.
- Domain is denoted by triangle symbol
Tree
- A tree is a hierarchical structure of one or more domains
- It follows a parent-child relationship.
- The first domain in the tree is the root domain. The rest of the domains attached to the root domain are called child domains.
- It follows a contagious namespace. i.e. it shares a same root name to other child domains.
Forest
- A forest is a collection of one or more domain or domain trees
- It is a boundary to one logical representation of domain network
Trust Relationship
- It is a connectivity between two or more forests.
- It creates a trust relationship between two different name-spaces.
Domain Controller
- Any computer hardware where ‘Active Directory Domain Services’ is installed and promoted becomes Domain Controller (DC).
Global Catalog
- The Global Catalog (GC) allows users and applications to find objects in an Active Directory domain tree, given one or more attributes of the target object.
- A global catalog is a multi-domain catalog that allows for faster searching of objects without the need for a domain name.
- It helps in locating an object from any domain by using its partial, read-only replica stored in a domain controller.
- Partial information means it uses the set of attributes that are most commonly used for searching, the objects from all domains, even in a large forest, can be represented by a single database of a global catalog server.