Active Directory Distinguished Names

By Dan DiNicolo, July 19th, 2001 Posted in Windows 2000. Subscribe to our RSS Feed

Active Directory is the directory service of Windows 2000. A directory service is a store of information used for the purpose of both accessing information about objects (such as users, computers, domains, etc) as well as providing authentication and security services. Active Directory is very similar to other X.500-based directory services such as Novell’s NDS and Sun’s Directory Service, both in terms of basic structure and the services that it provides.

A wide range of objects can be created in Active Directory. An object represents a unique entity with the directory, and is usually made up of many attributes, which help to describe and identify it. For example, a user account is an example of an object. This type of object can have many attributes, including a first name, last name, password, phone number, address, and many others. In the same way, a shared printer can also be an object in Active Directory, and can have attributes such as a name, location, and more. The attributes of an object not only help to identify the object, but also allow us to search for it in the directory. For example, I could search Active Directory for a list of all users with first name Mark (perhaps to find his phone number), and would be returned with a list of all users whose first name attribute value is equal to Mark. Keep in mind that there are many different types of objects to be found in Active Directory – everything from domains, to users, to servers, to sites, to printers, and more. Objects are defined in something called the Schema – this is basically the ‘blueprint’ that defines the types of objects that can be created in Active Directory. However, you should be aware that it is also possible to define new types of objects and attributes by extending the Schema to meet the needs of your organization. This could include adding a babysitter’s phone number attribute to user accounts, or creating a whole new object type called Company Vehicles, for example. Much more on extending the schema later in the series.

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