Users Guide

Using the DRAC 5 With Microsoft Active Directory 105

Using the DRAC 5 With Microsoft Active

Directory

A directory service maintains a common database of all information needed for controlling users,

computers, printers, etc. on a network. If your company uses the Microsoft

Active Directory

service software, you can configure the software to provide access to the DRAC 5, allowing you to

add and control DRAC 5 user privileges to your existing users in your Active Directory software.

NOTE: Using Active Directory to recognize DRAC 5 users is supported on the Microsoft Windows

2000 and

Windows Server

2003 operating systems.

You can use Active Directory to define user access on DRAC 5 through two methods: you can use the

extended schema solution which uses Dell-defined Active Directory objects or a standard schema

solution which uses Active Directory group objects only.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Extended Schema and

Standard Schema

When using Active Directory to configure access to the DRAC 5, you must choose either the

extended schema or the standard schema solution.

The advantages of using the extended schema solution are:

• All of the access control objects are maintained in Active Directory.

• Maximum flexibility in configuring user access on different DRAC 5 cards with different privilege

levels.

The advantages of using the standard schema solution are:

• No schema extension is required because standard schema uses Active Directory objects only.

• Configuration on Active Directory side is simple.

Extended Schema Active Directory Overview

There are two ways to enable Extended Schema Active Directory:

• With the DRAC 5 web-based user interface. See "Configuring the DRAC 5 With Extended

Schema Active Directory and Web-Based Interface."

• With the RACADM CLI tool. See "Configuring the DRAC 5 With Extended Schema Active

Directory and RACADM."