How to Discover Active Directory Domain Controllers and Topology

This task explains how to discover Active Directory and includes the following steps:

1. Prerequisite - Set up protocol credentials

   1. To discover hosts, you must set up the SNMP, Shell (NTCMD, SSH, Telnet), and WMI protocols.

   • SNMP protocol

     Prepare the following information for the SNMP protocol: community name (for v2 protocol), user name (for v3 protocol), and password (for v3 protocol).

   • Shell Protocols: NTCMD, SSH, Telnet protocols

     Prepare the following information for the Shell protocol: user name, password, and domain name (optional for NTCMD).

   • WMI protocols

     Prepare the following information for the WMI protocol: user name, password, and domain name (optional).

   2. To run all AD jobs, you must set up the LDAP protocol. There are two versions of the protocol available: 2 and 3. There is no formal standardization of version 2, therefore Data Flow Management uses the version 3 protocol.

      Note User Name: if a domain is present, use username@domain.

   For credential information, see Supported Protocols.

2. Prerequisite - Other

   1. Discover the host of each AD domain controller: activate one of the following jobs (depending on the protocol you are using):

   • Host Connection by Shell

   • Host Connection by SNMP

   • Host Connection by WMI

   2. Verify that the portNumberToPortName.xml configuration file includes all possible AD ports. For example, if AD is running on LDAP port 389, locate the following row in the file:

   <portInfo portProtocol="tcp" portNumber="389" portName="ldap" discover="0" />
   

   Change the discover="0" attribute value to discover="1".

   For details, see portNumberToPortName.xml File and How to Define a New Port.

   3. To discover all known LDAP ports, perform the following additional configuration to the TCP Ports job:

      • set ports option to ldap

   4. Open the LDAP port of the destination IP for each domain controller server by activating the following job in the Tools and Samples > Discovery Tools module:

   • TCP Ports. This job includes the TCP_NET_Dis_Port adapter.

3. Run the discovery

   • Activate the Active Directory Connection by LDAP job. This job discovers the existence of AD domain controllers through LDAP. For query and parameter details, see Active Directory Connection by LDAP Job.

   • Activate the Active Directory Topology by LDAP job. This job connects to the AD domain controller servers and discovers their topology. For query and parameter details, see Active Directory Topology by LDAP Job.