What is Windows Domain Controller

Windows Domain Controller

what a Windows domain and Windows domain controller is when does domains have been around since 1993 with the release of Windows NT they provide system administrators an efficient way to manage small or large networks you only need one domain controller or DC for short to build a Windows domain although most one is domains contain several servers and computers a domain controller is any server that has the ad DS or Active Directory domain services role installed the server's job is to handle authentication requests across the domain domain controllers hold the tools Active Directory and Group Policy among others so when you need to create a new user account or change the main policies this is all done from a domain controller you can have several domain controllers within a domain but there is only one primary or main domain controller the primary reason for having more than one DC is fault tolerance the critical information like user and account information is replicated between the dcs so if one goes down the client computers will switch to the other DC that is still functioning domain controllers use a tool called 

Windows Domain Controller

Active Directory users and computers commonly referred to as ad or Active Directory this tool is used to not only manage user and computer accounts but it also acts as a directory service for resources on your network like printers or file shares when a domain user searches for a new printer to install they will find all the printers that have been added to the domain controller with Active Directory when a user attempts to log into a domain computer that is any computer that is joined to a Windows domain the computer first looks for matching local user account that resides on the computer itself if it does not find one then it reaches out to its domain controller and attempts to find a domain user account that is stored in the directory service active directory ad is a tool to manage domain users computers printers file shares groups and more these are all considered ad objects groups contain members which can be any valid ad object a user a computer etc by default there are several groups that come with AD like domain admins main users all these ad objects are stored within folders called organizational units group policy management often called GP or just group policy is another important tool that is located on a domain controller it allows an administrator to manage all the domain users or domain computers remotely group policy uses GPOs or group policy objects to manage the settings of valid ad objects you can target specific ad objects specific use or the entire domain if you'd like basically anything you want to create a 

Windows Domain Controller

custom setting for you can do it with group policy you can configure the desktop backgrounds for certain users or computers manage what websites they can visit and Internet Explorer main security settings are countless other settings with group policy to recap what we've covered in this lecture a Windows domain allows management of small or large computer networks they use a Windows server called ADC or domain controller a DC is any server that has the Active Directory domain services role installed DC's respond to authentication requests across the domain DC's had the tools Active Directory and Group Policy Active Directory contains objects and OU's Group Policy contains GPOs and manage settings for ad objects.