FSMO Roles In Active Directory In Windows 2008 Server

FSMO Roles In Active Directory In Windows 2008 Server

  07:28    Cloud Technet

---

Lot of applications now-a-days use Active Directory. If you associate your application with username that is part of a domain environment, or the computer where you have installed your application is the member of domain, it can be used for authentication or for many other purposes. Hence, it's somewhere linked with your Windows AD. If you are using Windows AD in your environment it's essential to understand FSMO roles that maintains Active Directory health. So to understand the importance, in this article you will learn what are the roles, its features, and how to seize them in case of any failures.

Flexibility Schema Operations Master (FSMO) Roles in 2008 Server

As we are all aware that certain tasks needs to be performed by single one, so as far AD 2008 goes some tasks are performed by single domain controller and they jointly called as FSMO roles.

There are five roles:

They are further classified in two

1. Forest Roles

• Schema Master - As name suggests, the changes that are made while creation of any object in AD or changes in attributes will be made by single domain controller and then it will be replicated to another domain controllers that are present in your environment. There is no corruption of AD schema if all the domain controllers try to make changes. This is one of the very important roles in FSMO roles infrastructure.
• Domain Naming Master - This role is not used very often, only when you add/remove any domain controllers. This role ensures that there is a unique name of domain controllers in environment.

2. Domain Roles

• Infrastructure Master - This role checks domain for changes to any objects. If any changes are found then it will replicate to another domain controller.
• RID Master - This role is responsible for making sure each security principle has a different identifier.
• PDC emulator - This role is responsible for Account policies such as client password changes and time synchronization in the domain

Where these roles are configured?

1. Domain wide roles are configured in Active Directory users and computers. Right click and select domain and here option is operations master.
2. Forest roles Domain Naming master is configured in active directory domain and trust right click and select operations master. It will let you know the roles.
3. (c)Forest roles Schema Master is not accessible from any tool as they want to prevent this. Editing schema can create serious problem in active directory environment. To gain access you need to create snap-in and register dll file by regsvr32 schmmgmt.dll.

Seizing of Roles

In case of failures of any server you need to seize the roles. This is how it can be done:

For Schema Master:

Go to cmd prompt and type ntdsutil

1. Ntdsutil: prompt type roles to enter fsmo maintenance.
2. Fsmo maintenance: prompt type connections to enter server connections.
3. Server connections: prompt, type connect to server domain controller, where 
   Domain controller is the name of the domain controller to which you are going to transfer the role
4. Server connections: prompt, type quit to enter fsmo maintenance.
5. Fsmo maintenance: prompt, type seize schema master.

After you have Seize the role, type quit to exit NTDSUtil.

For Domain Naming Master:

Go to cmd prompt and type ntdsutil

1. Ntdsutil: prompt type roles to enter fsmo maintenance.
2. Fsmo maintenance: prompt type connections to enter server connections.
3. Server connections: prompt, type connect to server domain controller, where 
   Domain controller is the name of the domain controller to which you are going to transfer the role
4. Server connections: prompt, type quit to enter fsmo maintenance.
5. Fsmo maintenance: prompt, type seize domain naming master.

After you have Seize the role, type quit to exit NTDSUtil.

For Infrastructure Master Role:

Go to cmd prompt and type ntdsutil

1. Ntdsutil: prompt type roles to enter fsmo maintenance.
2. Fsmo maintenance: prompt type connections to enter server connections.
3. Server connections: prompt, type connect to server domain controller, where 
   Domain controller is the name of the domain controller to which you are going to transfer the role
4. Server connections: prompt, type quit to enter fsmo maintenance.
5. Fsmo maintenance: prompt, type seize infrastructure master.

After you have Seize the role, type quit to exit NTDSUtil.

For RID Master Role:

Go to cmd prompt and type ntdsutil

1. Ntdsutil: prompt type roles to enter fsmo maintenance.
2. Fsmo maintenance: prompt type connections to enter server connections.
3. Server connections: prompt, type connect to server domain controller, where 
   Domain controller is the name of the domain controller to which you are going to transfer the role
4. Server connections: prompt, type quit to enter fsmo maintenance.
5. Fsmo maintenance: prompt, type seize RID master.

After you have Seize the role, type quit to exit NTDSUtil.

For PDC Emulator Role:

Go to cmd prompt and type ntdsutil

1. Ntdsutil: prompt type roles to enter fsmo maintenance.
2. Fsmo maintenance: prompt type connections to enter server connections.
3. Server connections: prompt, type connect to server domain controller, where 
   Domain controller is the name of the domain controller to which you are going to transfer the role
4. Server connections: prompt, type quit to enter fsmo maintenance.
5. Fsmo maintenance: prompt, type seize PDC.

After you have Seize the role, type quit to exit NTDSUtil.

Read More

How To Boot From A USB Flash Drive

How To Boot From A USB Flash Drive

  07:00    Cloud Technet

---

For starters this is still a developing science and most people have had good luck with at least one of these methods. Note that flash drives are often also called thumb drives, keychain drives, pendrives, etc.

A FEW THINGS YOU NEED TO CONSIDER IN ADVANCE.

1. The PC has to support booting from a USB flash/pen/key drive. There may be anywhere from 0-3 items to change in the BIOS to make this possible assuming your BIOS supports it. Some older bios's may refer to your flash drive as a USB floppy or USB zip. 

2. The USB flash drive must support booting from it in general.

3. The flash drive must contain the boot/system files.

4. The flash drive must have bootsector area. This is done with special utilities. 

5. References to "A:" drive lines in the autoexec.bat and/or config.sys files you copy to the drive after you make it bootable may result in errors.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

METHODS

Method 1 - The fastest and easiest utility to create a bootable USB drive. Screenshot. Click HERE

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Method 2 - Try these 2 USB Flash Drive Utilities by HP/Compaq. They work with Most other brands of flash drives as well.

hpflash2.zip HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Formerly called hpflash1.zip

HP Drive Key Boot Utility Version 7.41Download

For the downloads section I use nLite to make and create the image file as you can import the service packs and do some tweaking to the install files.

http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

1. Install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and run the program.

2. Select the Device and the File system from the drop down menus and click start.

3. Close the above program and install and run the HP Drive Key Boot Utility. Selecting the appropriate drive letter. Click Next.

4.Select the circle on the top that says create New or Replace Existing Configuration. Click Next.

5. Select the circle labeled Hard Drive. Click Next.

6. Select Create New Filesystem. Click Next.

7. Select the circle labeled HP Firmware Flash Package. Click Next.

Click Finish

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Method 3 - Suggested by Kevin Ying: UNetbootin

 

Method 4 - Suggested by Shep................: WinToFlash

 

Method 5 - Suggested by Barney: WiNToBootic

Read More

SMEStorage: Save OpenOffice Files In Google Docs Online

SMEStorage: Save OpenOffice Files In Google Docs Online

  03:25    Cloud Technet

---

As I pointed out in an earlier post about Microsoft’s new Office Web Apps, there is an undeniable push towards storing document data online (in the cloud). This puts traditional Office suites in a bit of a sticky situation. They do retain a superior interface for editing documents, but they lack a built-in way to share documents with others.

OpenOffice, the popular free office suite, is able to solve this problem through the extensions made available for it. One of these extensions is made by a company called SMEStorage, which specializes in “mutli-cloud data access.” SMEStorage has the ability to use Google Documents as an online document/file storage, making it easy to access OpenOffice files with multiple computers.

Setting Up SMEStorage

Before you can use SMEStorage, you will need to set it up. This take a little more effort than, say, installing a Firefox extension.

You will first need to download the MultiCloud File Manager extension from the OpenOffice.org extension repository and install it. You then must go to the SMEStorage website and register an account with them. At the SMEStorage front page, select “I Want to Use Google Docs.”

Once you have registered, you need to open the MultiCloud File Manager extension in OpenOffice.org. There is a new set of icons in the upper left of the suite. Click on the folder icon furthest to the left.

When you open the extension, you will be asked to enter your login information. This is the username and password that you just created when you registered on the SMEStorage website. Once you have entered that information, click OK. The extension will begin the process of trying to connect to Google Documents.

You will be presented with a second login screen once a connection is established – this is verifying your login information to Google Documents. Enter your information again and press OK. The SMEStorage extension will finish importing your Google Documents information.

Browsing and Creating Google Documents

The browser that displays your Google Documents displays as a tree. Your documents will be located under All Files –> My Google Docs files. To open a file, you simply need to double-click on it. A status window will appear while SMEStorage downloads the information, and the file will then open in OpenOffice.org.

You can edit the document as you would normally, but to save the document you must use the new save icon that was added to OpenOffice.org by the extension. It is next to the new folder icon that was used to open the SMEStorage extension initially. You will be asked if you want to encrypt on the upload or not. This can be handy if you are on an open wireless hotspot and you want to make sure the document is secure. Otherwise, it isn’t usually required.

Limitations

SMEStorage is a great way to sync up files, but it should be noted that SMEStorage isn’t perfect. SMEStorage uses Google Documents as a storage medium and only a storage medium. The files that you save into Google Documents can not be edited while in Google Documents. This is not a problem, of course, if you have OpenOffice installed on your machines, but it is a unfortunate limitation of this extension. This is apparently to due to some conflict in the way Google Documents handles documents uploaded by third party programs.

You can get around this problem by downloading a document to your computer and then uploading to back to Google Documents with the option to convert the file to the Google Documents format selected.

Conclusion

If you like to use OpenOffice.org and you want to sync files between multiple computers this is an excellent way to do it. SMEStorage provides an excellent service for OpenOffice.org users, and the extension’s integration into OpenOffice.org is smooth.

Read More