Windows : 10 things to know and practice to

improve confidence

My main intention of this post is to prepare guys who are willing to attend job interviews
real soon, specially as Windows Administrators. Just want to help them with what are
major areas that needs extra concentration.

 1. New features in Windows 2008

 64bit OS
 Hyper-V
 Roles Based Administration
 Active Directory comes as service
 Read Only Domain Controller
 IP v6
 UAC (User access control) based administration
 MMC 3.0
  
 2. Active Directory Files
 There are few files associated with Active Directory, which  are mandatory for AD
operations
 NTDS.DIT   - Main database file for active directory, which stores every piece of
information. 
 EDB.LOG   - All the AD transactions will be first written to this file and later they
will be committed to NTDS.DIT during off peak hours.
 RES1.LOG  - Its a 10MB file created when we run dcpromo and used as reserved
space for AD transactions when drive is filled up
 RES2.LOG - Its another 10MB file created when we run dcpromo and used as
reserved space for AD transactions when drive is filled up
 EDB.CHK  - This file maintains integrity of AD transactions during abnormal
shutdown like power failures or BSOD, AD checks EDB.CHK file for un committed
transactions after power up and commits them to the NTDS.DIT
TEMP.EDB – Stores information about in progress transactions

 3. Active Directory Replication
 Replication is a technology which ensures all the domains and domain
controllers are in sync with each other in multi domain/site environment
 Replication will be initiated automatically at specified schedule and runs in
specified intervals
 KCC (Knowledge Consistency Checker) handles inter site(different sites)
replication where as ISTG handles intra site (same site) replication
 Replication of the objects happens based on their USN number, if one object
needs to be replicated from primary to secondary where a change of object
 detected this USN number will be updated after the change, when replication
initiated it compares the USN of the object on primary and secondary, then syncs
the object to latest change.
  
 4. Active Directory Partitions
 There are three partitions present in AD
 Schema Partition
 Contains information about forest wide schema and will be replicated to all
domains in the forest
 Configuration Partition
 Contains information about active directory configuration and will be replicated
to all domains in the forest
 Domain Partition
 Contains information about the specific domain and will be replicated to domain
controllers in that domain.

 5. Active Directory Schema
 Active Directory Schema is a combination of objects and their attributes. For
example user account is an object and first name, last name, address etc are the
attributes belongs to that object. So schema can be defined as each and every
object in the forest and their attributes.

 6. Active Directory Up gradation from 2003 to 2008
 Just remember the prerequisites to do this tasks, that makes more of our work
easy.
 1. Take a backup of active directory using ntbackup (system state)
 2. Transfer the FSMO roles to secondary domain controller if you have one.
 3. Keep your windows 2008 CD handy
 4. Make a note of hardware architecture on 2003 machine, if its 64bit you can
directly proceed to next steps, other wise proceed to 7
 5. Run adprep /forestprep, adprep /domainprep and adprep /gpoprep in sequential
order to extend 2003 schema to support 2008 architecture. Run these commands
on windows 2003 machine from windows 2008 CD.
 6. Once the schema is extended upgrade the OS using the CD.
 7. If windows 2003 machine is 32bit, build a new windows 2008 machine and
promote it as secondary domain controller. Transfer all FSMO roles from
windows 2003 to windows 2008 and raise the forest and domain functional levels
to windows 2008 native.
 8. Demote the windows 2003 server from the network.

 7. Active Directory Command line utilities
 NTDSUTIL – Very useful to manage active directory related important tasks -  try
to practice each and every command

 By installing Windows 2003 Support Tools, other tools get installed
 REPLMON – A GUI tool for monitoring AD replication at partition level, you can
troubleshoot replication related issues using this tool.
 REPADMIN – A CUI tool for troubleshooting AD replication related issues,
 repadmin /syncall – initiates replication
 repadmin /showreps – displays replication partners
 repadmin /kcc – re-creates replication topology automatically
 DCDIAG – a very good tool to run diagnostics against domain controller issues.
there are so many tests involved in this operation and based on the result you
can identify and troubleshoot the issues.

 8. Active Directory Backup and Restore
 To take backup of active directory we will use NTBACKUP and choose system
state backup, specify a location to save that file and BOOM!!!

 9. DNS
 Get a good idea about DNS records, how many records are there and what are
they
 Get an idea about different zones
 Primay zone
 Forward lookup zone
 Reverse lookup zone
 Secondary zone
 Forward lookup zone
 Reverse lookup zone
 Stub zone
 AD integrated DNS
 Forwarders
 Roothint Files


 10. Basic network troubleshooting steps
 Check the physical connectivity between machines
 Ping the ips
 nslookup to check dns is working
 tracert the destination ip to verify where the request is dropping out
 route print
 most of the problems are associated with DNS configuration
 verify the machine is able to resolve hostnames to ip
 verify the machine has pointer record on dns
 right click on network connection and repair/diagnose
 reset the tcpip stack using netsh
 command : netsh> interface > ip> reset reset.txt (go to google if you need more
info)