CSAIL Windows Active Directory Environment
TIG maintains a Microsoft Active Directory domain environment for automated centralized deployment, configuration, and maintenance of Windows systems that are part of our computing infrastructure. This is a brief overview of the environment and its benefits to the typical CSAIL user.
Active Directory is a combination of an LDAP-compliant directory system and associated management tools that enable us to push software, updates, and settings to individual or groups of machines as needed. The information in Active Directory is synced to
INQUIR, our main directory system, which contains all of the CSAIL user accounts and basic user information. Using a combination of automated installation and join tools, all Windows users with Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003 can join this environment easily and start to take advantage of these benefits, or they can do a clean installation of our Windows XP Professional distribution by booting off of the network.
Notable benefits of our Active Directory deployment are:
- Integrated Kerberos and AFS logon -- you logon to your Windows system using the same CSAIL Kerberos account username and password you use for accessing a variety of other CSAIL systems and services. You are automatically granted the necessary credentials to access subequent CSAIL services, including our shared filesystem AFS, user home directories, NFS servers, printers to name a few.
- Centralized software distribution -- tools to accomplish the above and more are installed automatically once you join Active Directory or perform an automated install.
- Automatic Windows update settings and various Windows settings are configured for optimal use and maintained centrally.
Detailed instructions are available for performing these tasks in the Operating Systems section of our pages and are continually being updated as we offer more services and options through Active Directory.
See the
manual AD join instructions or
Automated Windows installation and AD join (RIS) page for details on connecting your computer to our Active Directory environment.
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KeremLimon - 02 Sep 2005
