What is delegation of administration in Active Directory?

An IT infrastructure is typically comprised of many IT assets such as user accounts, computers, files and databases, applications and services all of which need to be administered. In such IT infrastructures, it is not possible for a handful of administrators to adequately administer all aspects of the IT infrastructure.

 

Thus, in most IT infrastructures, administrative responsibilities for managing the various IT assets that together comprise the IT infrastructure are distributed (or delegated) amongst an adequate and typically greater number of less-privileged administrators, who are then responsible for managing smaller specific portions of the IT infrastructure.

 

Delegation of administration is the act of distributing and delegating an administrative task for various aspects of IT management amongst an adequate number of administrators.

 

The act of delegating administration involves granting one or more users or Active Directory security groups the necessary Active Directory security permissions as appropriate so as to able to allow the delegated administrator to carry out these tasks.

 

In the interest of security, after delegating an administrative task, IT personnel should always also verify delegation in Active Directory, so as to be sure that the task was delegated accurately. The process of verifying a delegation in Active Directory is rather complicated but with the right Active Directory Reporting Tool, IT personnel can accomplish this task efficiently and reliably.

 

Done right, Active Directory's powerful administrative delegation capabilities let organizations securely, efficiently and cost-effectively delegate administrative authority for identity and access management in their IT infrastructures thereby reducing cost and enhancing security.

 

Source - Active Directory Security Technical Reference


A Guide to the Active Directory Security Model

Active Directory's security model secures and protects every object stored in Active Directory, including domain user accounts and domain computer accounts, domain security groups and group policies. The Active Directory Security model allows administrators to specify who has what access to which object to a high degree of control. It also allows administrators to specify access for an entire group of users so as to simply security management.

 

The following is an overview of how Active Directory's security model protects stored content –

  1. Each object is protected by a component known as a Security Descriptor

  2. Each security descriptor contains amongs other compronents, an Access Control List (ACL)

  3. Each ACL contains one or more Access Control Entries (ACEs)

  4. Each ACE allows or denies specific security permissions to some security principal

  5. Security groups can be specified and be part of security groups

  6. ACEs can be explicit or inherited; explicit ACEs override inherited ACEs

  7. Access is specified in the form of low–level technical permissions

  8. These low-level permissions can be standard permissions, or special permissions such as extended rights or validated writes

  9. Active Directory's current object visibility mode impacts list access requests

  10. The access check takes into account the object's ACL and the user's token and determines resultant access for user on the object

In this manner, Active Directory's security model secures and protects Active Directory content.


How to identify and list recently Deleted Objects in Active Directory?

IT admins often need to be able to identify recently deleted objects in their Active Directory deployments. In certain cases, this might be to uncover accidental deletions, and in other cases, this might be to generate a list of all recently deleted objects for audit or compliance purposes.

 

An Active Directory object comes into existence either when Active Directory is installed, or when it is created by an IT administrator or an application. When it is no longer needed, an object can be deleted by an IT administrator or an application. When an object is deleted, it is first logically deleted for a specific interval of time to allow replication of the deletion to occur, and after this time has elapsed it is physically deleted.

 

IT administrators thus often have a need to be able to identify and list recently deleted objects in Active Directory, and there are more than one ways in which IT administrators can enumerate Deleted Objects in Active Directory

 

IT administrators who wish to query Active Directory to obtain a list of deleted objects should use the Object Identifier Control (1.2.840.113556.1.4.417) also known as the Show Deleted Object control. IT administrators can also choose to use 3rd party automated Active Directory reporting tools that provide instant and reliable reports which document all objects have been deleted in the last few days, often based on their class as well.

 

It always helps to know if there were any accidental deletions, or if any objects were recently deleted by another IT administrator, so IT administrators should always keep an eye out for deleted objects, and ensure that any accidental deletions are undone.

 

 


How to generate Active Directory Reports?

Organizations often have a need to generate security and management reports in their Active Directory deployments. These reports typically capture important aspcts of user and computer account and even security group management.

There are various ways to generate reports in Active Directory –
  1. IT administrators can compile a list of reports and then for each report write a set of custom LDAP queries to generate these reports. Note however that some reports can be difficult to put together using only LDAP queries (e.g. True Last Logon reports)

  2. IT administrators can use the Powershell technology from Microsoft to enhance their scripting capabilities to generate reports. The problem with this too is that it is error-prone and may require substantial time to use depending on the number of reports. In addition, additional work is needed to format the reports to that they are in a presentable fashion.

  3. IT administrators can use 3rd party tools to generate reports. Numerous ISVs offer many 3rd party tools and these tools automate report generation so IT administrators can save their valuable time and effort, and generate their reports in a quick, reliable and efficient manner.


 Most organizations choose to use a combination of custom written scripts and 3rd party automated tools to generate reports in Active Directory.