How to Add a Secondary DNS Server
It is recommended that at least two DNS servers be used to host a Domain Name System (DNS) zone. Having at least two servers hosting a zone provides a highly …
The Domain Naming Master
The Domain Naming Master is one of the five Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles found in an Active Directory (AD) forest. There is only one Domain Controller (DC) in …
Configuring DNS Forwarding in Windows 2003
The concept of DNS forwarding is not a new feature in Windows Server 2003 but remains a very important one in your design. Forwarding can be used in instances where …
Designing Active Directory for a SOHO Network
If you are unfamiliar with the term SOHO, it is just an acronym for the phrase, Small Office/Home Office. This article will summarize some high-level considerations with regard to an …
AdminCount, AdminSDHolder, and SDProp
Have you noticed that some of your Active Directory user objects’ Access Control List (ACL) seem to be “resetting” on a continuous basis back to default settings? If so, it’s …
Windows 2008 Read-Only Domain Controllers
Read-Only Domain Controllers (RODC) is another type of domain controller that can be used in a Windows 2008 Active Directory (AD) Domain. RODCs host a read-only version of the AD …
Object Naming Convention
Active Directory is an LDAP-compliant directory service. Network clients use the LDAP protocol to query Active Directory for information. Every object in Active Directory is identified by one or more …
DNS Resolver Cache and Time-to-Live (TTL)
When you visit a website or access another computer on the network, the Windows Operating System will use a DNS Server to translate the hostname into an IP address. Since …
Modifying the Behavior of Inter-Site Replication
There are situations for many Active Directory administrators who want to be able to replicate changes between Active Directory sites almost instantly but are frustrated because of the minimum limit …
The Infrastructure Master
The Infrastructure Master is one of the five Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles found in an Active Directory (AD) forest. There is only one Domain Controller (DC) in each …
DNS Conditional Forwarding in Server 2008
Conditional forwarding was a new feature of DNS in Windows Server 2003. It is also available and improved for Windows Server 2008. Conditional forwarding can be used to speed up …
Restoring the Default Domain GPOs
If you have reached this article, you probably have made changes to the Default Domain and/or Default Domain Controller group policy object and know you want to restore them back …