Active DIRECTORY Interview Questions

1 Active DIRECTORY Interview Questions PART 1 Active DIRECTORY Oz Casey Dedeal 1 | P a g e Visit my Blog About Author: I am a Senior Principle Systems Engineer working for ETC Solutions. I work for large enterprise projects and clients located around Washington DC area and have over 15 years working experience. I write and post articles about Exchange Server and Active DIRECTORY and participate forums when time permits. I started writing articles about Microsoft Exchange Server, Active DIRECTORY and other related technologies early 2007 and today continue as my personal journey. I have over 1 Million actual visits and encouraging feedback from people all over the world that have read my articles. In my professional IT journey, I have taught over 6 years Information technology classes around mostly Washington DC area, including all major Microsoft MCSE classes, Exchange Server, Active DIRECTORY , and Networking classes.

2 I am still long time student of Information technologies myself. I love blogging and sharing my knowledge with others. I have helped hundreds IT professionals and influence them to move ahead in the IT field. Some of my students went way further (-: and I am so proud of each one of them. It feels great knowing I made a difference. I currently hold multiple IT certifications including, MCITP (EMA), MCITP (EA), MCITP (SA), MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST, Inet+, Net+, A, Unix+ Security+, Server +, Project +, ITILV3 Please visit my Blog. (Blog) (Blog) MVP Profile ( Microsoft Exchange Server, North America) As professional courtesy, please provide fair feedback 2 | P a g e Visit my Blog Getting to Know Your Basics This basic guidelines, Questions and answers will provide you information which should assist with your Interview .)

3 You should study and get much better, deeper knowledge when it comes to Active DIRECTORY . Pointers: 1. Dress up decent on your Interview , look clean this always helps , promotes positive energy. 2. Don t go to Interview tired, you need to be fresh. 3. Make multiple copy of your resume and take it with you, when you sit down in the Interview room, hand over your resume to people who don t have them. 4. Your answers need to be brief and professional if you are calming to be Senior Engineer. When you are asked to provide more comprehensive information, provide technical details. 5. It is perfectly okay to say I do not know I will look it up and get back to you. Do not BS Most likely the person who is asking you the question do know the correct answer. 6. If you are asked to rate your skill set, scale from 1 to 10, 1 being weak, and 10 is strong rate yourself always in humble way.

4 Most experience and smart administrators and Engineers will rate themselves solid 7, instead of 10. 7. At the end of the Interview , when you are asked, Do you have any Questions to us you must show some interest and ask Questions if you want the job. Managers and Interviewers Respect to person who is in the Interview . Remember you have been there and you never know when you will be in the same place where you will be asked Questions . Speak clean and give chance to person to talk. Make person comfortable NOT Uncomfortable. Remember we all have families to look after. Some good people won t perform great in the interviews, make them comfortable by calling them with their names and once again, speak clean and slow. It should not be in your interest to show how smart you are and crash the person in front of you.

5 Look for talent and strong skills in respected way. Show respect and be professional all the times. 3 | P a g e Visit my Blog Active DIRECTORY Questions and Answers. 1. What is an IP Address? It is 32 Bits binary number (or any brief answer you can come up with) If you are spending to explain 5 minutes what an IP address is, that is not good at all. 2. What is Subnet Mask? IT is also 32 Bits Binary number 3. What does subnet mask do? It divides IP address into two distinct part, Network and Host portion. 4. Provide full subnet mask for /27 /27 means 27 bits turned on, 8 bits = 255 24 bits = 3 bits 128 + 64 + 32 = 224 Therefore, full SB mask for /27 is If you did not get this STOP. You need to go back and learn basic subnetting. You cannot screw up with such easy question on the Interview , so take your time to study.

6 (Special Thanks to My body Zack Payton for making me understand many years ago) 5. Now it is rare in the AD Interview but incase, you could be asked /27 how many network and how many hosts in each network? Going back to basic, /27 3 bits for network 5 bits for Hots 2X2X2 = 8 Networks 2x2x2x2x2 = 30 Hosts in each Networks (32 -2 = 30) we need one IP for each Network and another one for Broadcast. 6. What is an Active DIRECTORY ? It is a database ( Active DIRECTORY is a special-purpose database) 7. What is an object An object is an instance of storage of a class, user is an object, computer account is also an object etc. 8. What is an attribute? Property of an Object called an attribute, think of user object, and think of all available attributes associating with user object, name, last name, logon name etc.

7 9. What is the name of Active DIRECTORY Database, when you install Domain Controller, by default DIRECTORY database gets created? Active DIRECTORY database is. DIT database, it is 4 | P a g e Visit my Blog 10. Database is partitioned database, what are the partitions on it? 1. Domain 2. Configuration 3. Schema 4. Application (if created) 11. What tool can interact with (. DIT) database (the most common) 12. In Which DIRECTORY partition DNS information is kept? Domain Partition 13. In Which partition Exchange Server information is kept (tricky question ) All of the partitions. 1. Domain 2. Configuration 3. Schema 14. What is DNS Domain Name System, Service 15. What port DNS runs on 53 16. Is it TCP or UDP Both are protocols 17. What is TCP Transmission Control Protocol 18.

8 What is UDP User Datagram Protocol 19. What is the difference in between TCP /UDP Protocols? TCP is connection oriented, whereas UDP is connectionless 20. How many Bytes TCP Header? Size of TCP Header (without any options) - 20 Bytes 21. How many Bytes UDP Header? Size of UDP header - 8 bytes 22. Size of Total empty TCP datagram Total size of empty TCP datagram - 24 + 20 + 20 = 64 bytes Size of Ethernet frame - 24 Bytes Size of IPv4 Header (without any options) - 20 bytes Size of TCP Header (without any options) - 20 Bytes 5 | P a g e Visit my Blog 23. Size of Total empty UDP datagram Total size of empty UDP datagram - 24 + 20 + 8 = 52 bytes Size of UDP header - 8 bytes Size of Ethernet frame - 24 Bytes Size of IPv4 Header (without any options) - 20 bytes 24.

9 Considering single Forest with 12 domains, how many FSMO role in total exist? Total FSMO roles in this scenario = 38 12 X 3 = 36 (PDC, RID, Infrastructure) Master 2 For each Forest (Domain Naming Master and Schema Master per Forest) Total = 38 25. What is FSMO? Flexible Single Master Operations How many FSMO role exist? 26. What is the least important FSMO role, considering day to day operations which one of FSMO role absence would be least significant impact and Why? Perhaps Schema Master if you assume you don t extend your schema every day or RID master 27. What is the most important FSMO role, considering day to day operations which one of FSMO role absence would be most significant impact and why? PDC Emulator (explain why) 28. What is the difference in between seizing and moving FSMO roles?

10 Peaceful operation versus forcing it. Seizing is the operation when FSMO role owner is no longer accessible and after seizing FSMO roles, you cannot bring the previous FSMO role owner back to network. 29. What is an A record, when I open A record what do I see inside? Host name mapping to IPV4 record 30. What is an AAA record, when I open A record what do I see inside? Host name mapping to IPV6 record 31. What is Glue record, when I open A record what do I see inside? Simply Host name mapping to IP address (same as A record) 32. What is PTR record, when I open A record what do I see inside? Pointer record, IP address map to Host name 33. What is CNAME record, when I open A record what do I see inside? Chomical Name record, Multiple names mapping to same IP address 34.