Skip to main content

Active Directory Basics - TryHackMe Walkthrough and Study Notes

Description

These are my notes for the Active Directory Basics Room on TryHackMe.

Credits: Me.

OSLevelRating
WindowsEasy2/5

This room was mostly theory so these are notes on Active Directory Basics.

Physcial AD​

Domain Controllers (DC): "A domain controller is a Windows server that has Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) installed and has been promoted to a domain controller in the forest. "

AD DS Data Store: "The Active Directory Data Store holds the databases and processes needed to store and manage directory information such as users, groups, and services.".

keywords: NTDS.dit database for AD data including hashes, stored in %SystemRoot%\NTDS, can only be accessed by the DC.

Forest​

The structure and hierarchy defining everything in AD. A forest is a collection of one or more domain trees inside an AD network.

keywords: Domains, OU, Trusts, Objects, Domain Services, Domain Schema.

Users + Groups​

2 types of groups

  1. Security Groups: specifies permissions.
  2. Distribution Groups: specifies email distribution lists.

Default Security Groups​

There are lots of them, examples: Domain Controllers, Domain Guests, Domain Admins etc.

Trust + Policies​

Together, allow domain + trees communicate and maintain "security" inside the network.

Domain Trust​

2 x types of trust mechanisms:

  1. Directional: flow from trusting --> trusting domains
  2. Transitive: "friend of a friend" trust i.e. not directly trusting, but trust by proxy, expanding to include other trusted domains.

AD Domain Services + AuthN​

Services​

Services provided include:

  • LDAP
  • Certificate Services (PKI)
  • DNS, NBT-NS (all things domain management)

AuthN​

  • Kerberos - ticket-granting tickets, service tickets
  • NTLM

Azure AD​

i.e. AD in the cloud.

On-prem to Cloud equivalents

On-PremAzureAD
LDAPRest API
NTLMOAuth/SAML
KerberosOpenID
OU TreeFlat Structure
Domains+ForestsTenants
TrustsGuests

Hands-on Lab​

The lab was crap. Wrong PowerView.ps1 version of script didn't match the instructions and then the instructions were easily confusing.

Enjoying the docs? Good.

The docs are the how. The newsletter is the what... as in, what the f*** — AI, power, Big Tech and the tech industry, through a Pasifika lens, from an engineer who's spent twenty-plus years working inside the machine. Fortnightly. No filter.

Leave whenever.

Get the newsletter →