{"id":49390,"date":"2022-11-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.networkworld.com\/article\/3680552\/mastering-active-directory-groups-can-streamline-management-pave-way-for-automation.html#tk.rss_security"},"modified":"2022-11-21T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T11:00:00","slug":"mastering-active-directory-groups-can-streamline-management-pave-way-for-automation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/mastering-active-directory-groups-can-streamline-management-pave-way-for-automation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering Active Directory groups can streamline management, pave way for automation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the surface, Active Directory groups are a simple and straightforward way to manage identities (users and\/or computers) and assign permissions. Users or computers are added as group members, and the group is referenced in access control lists (ACL) on file shares, mailboxes, applications, or other corporate resources. But experienced admins know that this simplicity quickly goes out the window as environments scale. As group memberships grow, management of memberships becomes increasingly complex.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Microsoft and others have developed best practices for managing groups and permissions in an Active Directory environment. These strategies are something of a lost art, but there\u2019s value to be gained by leveraging these layers of sophistication.<\/p>\n

Active Directory technical refresher<\/h2>\n

Before digging into technical nuances with Active Directory, let\u2019s do a quick refresher on some terminology and structural components.<\/p>\n

Active Directory is built as a hierarchy of domains, the entirety of which is known as a forest. Domains primarily define the scope for replication, which is a major reason why multi-domain forests exist. Active Directory is made up of many types of objects: users, computers, groups, organizational units (OU), etc. These objects and all their attributes are replicated between the domain controllers within that domain. As more objects are added to a domain, the network traffic necessary for replication grows, which can potentially become an issue if your domain spans multiple physical locations.<\/p>\n

Forests allow you to subdivide Active Directory into domains to optimize both the security and replication scope for objects. Objects are replicated to a subset of domain controllers (those configured as global catalog servers) in other domains within the forest, but only with a subset of object attributes. Global catalog servers allow you to tune the balance between the need for replication versus the need to reach back across the domain boundary to resolve object attributes.<\/p>\n

In cases where two domains from different forests need to share resources, domain trusts can be used to authenticate users and provide permissions for users from the foreign domain. Trusts are typically used for the purposes of a business partnership or as a first step in a merger.<\/p>\n