Author: rzomerman

  • Windows 2008R2 features part III: Managed Service Accounts

    Password policies can help administrators secure their environment, letting users change their passwords on regular basis makes it harder for hackers to get in to a system by guessing a password. There is one group of accounts though that usually do not have the password policy applied to.. they almost never change their password and…

  • Tourist office and Google Maps combined

    The strength new media is best showed when it’s simplified and usable by anyone.. take google maps, most people know about it, use it on their computer but if you’re on the go.. they prefer a Tom Tom or other simple device during the trip.. 

  • Securing Wireless with WHS Part II

    Some of you might be using Windows 7 already and have noticed that the Wireless solution for Windows Home Server does work well with Windows 7. In fact, the computer does not challenge the user for a username or password, but just tells you it cannot connect. This is because Windows 7 has a different…

  • Windows 2008 Features (DFSRMIG)

      The introduction of Windows 2008 brought us the famous Read-Only domain controller, the domain controller without passwords (unless explicitly approved) and one-way replication. That one-way replication also applied to the SYSVOL share. Sysvol is replicated by either FRS or DFSR depending on the initial setup of the domain. If you have upgraded your domain…

  • Windows 2008R2 features part II: Recycle Bin

    Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory introduces the Recycle Bin option. If you deployed Windows 2008 R2 or upgraded your domain to the Windows 2008 R2 schema and you think the recycle bin is active, you are wrong. You have to specifically enable the recycle bin feature. So upgrade your forestlevel and run the following command…

  • Windows 2008R2 features part I: Offline domain join

    Since Windows NT4, clients who wanted to join a domain always needed a direct connection to the domain, either via VPN, dial-in or direct connection. New in Windows 2008R2 is the option for an offline domain join.. how does this work.. ? read on! A new program is introduced called djoin.exe. We can use this…

  • Delegate the right to start/stop replication

    Let’s say you want to isolate a domain controller for a certain time, you would issue the command: repadmin /options +DISABLE_INBOUND_REPL or/and +DISABLE_OUTBOUND_REPL normally this command requires Domain Admin/Enterprise Admin privileges. Why and how to change that below.. first the usual warnings: Playing with ADSIEDIT could damage your domain, please test everything in a lab…

  • Repadmin /expert

    Repadmin is the tool used to troubleshoot replication in an Active Directory forest.. commands like repadmin /replsum (to view replication summary) or repadmin /showutdvec (to view USN per domain controller).. are common commands.. it get’s tougher when we want to create or modify links during troubleshooting.. then we use /add to add replication links between…

  • Deleted DN's in attribute fields

    Let’s say an object in AD has an attribute that is a reference to another object based on DN The targeted object is deleted.. and the attribute field changes to the deleted objects CN like: CN=nameADEL:ff920d6f-d823-4fff-9448-b645bd40d5e2,CN=Deleted Objects,DC=child,DC=ROOTDOMAIN,DC=LOCAL Now when we try to clone that object to create a new object (for example user copy) the AD U&C…

  • Microsoft Certified Master: Windows 2008 – Directory

    !PASSED! As one of the first (now 27 worldwide), I can now call myself an MCM:Windows 2008-Directory!.. Congrats to all others!The Microsoft Certified Master: Windows Server 2008, Active Directory program provides the most in-depth and comprehensive training that is available today for the latest version of Windows Server 2008 with a focus on Active Directory.…

  • Next RID number

    So let’s say you want to know how many objects are created on a domain controller, you want to see shen it’s receiving a new RID pool? checkout the RID-SET Set ObjRid= GetObject (“LDAP://CN=RID Set,CN=DC01,OU=Domain Controllers,DC=fabrikam,DC=com”) it lists all the properties that the LOCAL! DC uses to handout RID numbers.. if the rIDPreviousAllocationPool and rIDAllocationPool…

  • Kerberos multiple hops

    You all remember the maximum 2 hops for Kerberos right.. well in Microsoft land it works a little different and it is possible to create a multiple tier Kerberos delegation structure.   Basically we want the following to happen:   Client->IIS1->IIS2->IIS3->IIS4 where all hops require Kerberos authentication   In this case, IIS1, IIS2 and IIS3…