ManageEngine ADManager Plus :: Help Documentation

Active Directory Overview
ManageEngine ADManager Plus :: Help Documentation
The Windows Active Directory is a hierarchical framework of objects. This provides
information of the various Active Directory objects, such as resources, services, user
accounts, groups, and so on, and sets the access permission and security on these
objects. The structure of the Active Directory network components are:
• Domains: A group of computers that share a common directory database.
• Domain Trees: One or more domains that share a contiguous namespace.
• Domain Forests: One or more domain trees that share common directory
information.
• Organization Units: A container or a subgroup of domains that is used to
organize the objects within a domain into a logical administrative group.
• Objects: The objects represent single entities, such as computers, resources,
users, applications, and so on, with their attributes.
Active Directory Groups
Groups are the Active Directory objects that can contain the users, computers, and other
groups (nested groups). There are two types of groups, namely, Security Groups and
Distribution Groups. While a security group is used to group users, computers, and other
groups to assign permissions to resources, the distribution group is used only to create
e-mail distribution lists. The scope of the group can be Local, Domain Local, Global, or
Universal.
• Local Groups: Its scope is limited only to the machine on which it exists. It can
be used to grant permissions to access the machine resources.
• Domain Local Groups: It has domain-wide scope, meaning, it can grant
resource permissions on any of the windows machines in that domain.
• Global Groups: It also has domain-wide scope, but, can be granted permissions
in any domain.
• Universal Groups: This group can be granted permissions in any domain.
including domains in other forests (based on trust relationship).
Active Directory Users
A User, in order to logon to a computer or a domain, requires an user account in the
Active Directory, which establishes an identity for him/her. Based on this identity, the
operating system authenticates the user and grant access to the domain resources.
There are two pre-defined user accounts, administrator and guest, that are used to logon
initially to make the necessary configurations.
Active Directory Computers
Similar to user accounts, the computer accounts are used to provide necessary
authorization to the computers for using the network and domain resources.
Managing Security Permissions
The basic security permissions supported by Windows, such as Read, Write, and Full
Control, are available to each and every objects on the Active Directory. Apart form
these standard permissions, AD also provides some special permissions based on the
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