Скачать или смотреть Active Directory: Foundations and Background

This is going to be the first of a series on Active Directory and the various services under that branding. Today, I'm going to talk about what Active Directory is, conceptually--that is, what exactly is a "directory" in the first place?

There will be lots more to talk about, so stay tuned for that! Thanks to ‪@TheAnigai‬ for the suggestion!

EXTRA CREDIT:
Most access to Active Directory is largely unencrypted! Yes, that's right--by default, information transmitted to and from the directory is completely open to any sort of network snooping you like. Now, this shouldn't leak any passwords, because remember that Kerberos doesn't actually transmit passwords across the network... but all other information about the entities listed in the directory is open to snooping.
There's a couple of ways you can secure an LDAP connection, but they all require the domain controller to have a trusted certificate. Most sysadmins don't ever bother. Much of the access outside of LDAP itself will be encrypted within the domain, particularly when we talk about SMB connections used to transfer file system data (including group policies!) because these don't rely on certificates... LDAP access to AD is usually overlooked, in my experience.