AD Domain ServicesArchitecture & Design

DNS delegation architectures for multi-forest environments

October 3, 2025
Multi-forest Active Directory environments rarely fail because “DNS is down.” They fail because the DNS namespace was delegated without a clear model of authority, replication boundaries, referral behavior, and the operational ownership that follows. Delegation is not just about who answers a zone; it’s about where the “truth” of a name lives, how that truth is discovered from other…
Read more
GPO FundamentalsGroup Policy & Endpoint Policy

Automating inactive user account cleanup: beyond “run a script every 90 days”

September 19, 2025
A production-grade playbook for hybrid Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) inactive user account cleanup: signals, staged actions, reversibility, and governance—backed by copy‑paste runbooks. On this page Quick definition Why the usual approach breaks First principles Production-ready technical core Implications & trade-offs Expert mental models Misunderstandings &amp…
Read more
AD Domain ServicesArchitecture & Design

SID filtering in complex AD layouts: the one-bit boundary that decides what crosses your forest

September 9, 2025
Quick definition: SID filtering is a trust-side control that removes foreign SIDs—including values in SIDHistory—from a user’s authorization data as it traverses a trust. It prevents privilege escalation by honoring only the SIDs the trusting side expects. Answer box (at a glance) External/domain trusts: Quarantine=Yes by default → accept only SIDs from the directly trusted…
Read more
Identity News & UpdatesNews & Updates

FIDO Downgrade Attack Hits Microsoft Entra ID

September 2, 2025
Researchers show how spoofing unsupported browsers can force users off passkeys, exposing Entra ID accounts to phishing and session hijack.  Who/What/When: On August 13, 2025, security researchers detailed a FIDO downgrade attack against Microsoft Entra ID that manipulates login flows to sidestep passkeys. Where/Why: By spoofing an unsupported browser, attackers trigger an error that removes…
Read more
AD Domain ServicesArchitecture & Design

How to raise AD forest functional level

May 29, 2024
What are Functional Levels? An Active Directory functional level determines what capabilities of Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) are available for a particular forest or domain. The functional levels are specified in terms of Windows Server versions, as each version update brings with it a host of new AD DS functionalities. Functional levels have to be specified because their…
Read more
AD Domain ServicesDirectory Objects & Identity Data

Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) - An introduction and installation guide

February 4, 2021
Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) is a common tool used by administrators to carry out daily tasks and much more in Active Directory AD. Some of the tasks an administrator can perform with the help of this MMC snap-in are as follows: Create and manage AD objects, such as users, computers, groups, and contacts, along with their attributes. Create Organizational Units (OU)…
Read more
GPO FundamentalsGroup Policy & Endpoint Policy

Group Policy Backup

February 4, 2021
What you will learn: Group policies are critical pieces of instructions in an Active Directory environment used to configure a variety of advanced settings that can be applied to objects in the network. A set of Group Policy configurations are bundled as Group Policy Objects (GPO) which can then be applied to objects. IT administrators take weeks and months to create GPOs that are customized to…
Read more
AD Domain ServicesArchitecture & Design

Active Directory Maintenance Checklist

February 4, 2021
What you will learn from this article: There are so many moving parts related to Active Directory (AD). So, it is important to know how to monitor, report, fix and diagnose issues related to the different supporting technologies. Identifying bottlenecks and resolving them before they cause much harm improves productivity, ensures efficient usage of resources, maintains consistency in data and…
Read more
GPO FundamentalsGroup Policy & Endpoint Policy

Local Group Policy Editor

February 4, 2021
Group Policy in Active Directory (AD) simplifies the administrative burden and makes management a whole lot easier. When an administrator needs to control and configure settings on a local computer that is not part ofAD,settingsspecific to that computer can beconfigured in the Local Group Policy. Multiple Local Group Policy objects are an enhancement to Local Group…
Read more