VMware ESXi interview questions answer

Can I run virtual machines created by Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Virtual PC, or VMware Server on VMware ESXi? 
Yes. You can use the free VMware vCenter Converter to import virtual machines that were created using VMware Server, Microsoft Virtual Server, or Microsoft Virtual PC version 7 or higher. VMware vCenter Converter also supports conversions from sources such as physical machines and certain 3rd party disk image formats.
What is the difference between VMware ESX and VMware ESXi?
VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are both bare-metal hypervisors that install directly on the server hardware. Both provide industry-leading performance and scalability; the difference resides in the architecture and the operational management of VMware ESXi. Although neither hypervisor relies on an OS for resource management, VMware ESX relies on a Linux operating system, called the service console, to performtwo management functions: executing scripts and installing third party agents for hardware monitoring, backup or systems management. The service console has been removed from ESXi, drastically reducing the hypervisor footprint and completing the ongoing trend of migrating management functionality from the local command line interface to remote management tools. The smaller code base of ESXi represents a smaller “attack surface” and less code to patch, improving reliability and security. The functionally of the service console is replaced by remote command line interfaces and adherence to system management standards
How is VMware ESXi different than VMware vSphere?
VMware ESXi is a hypervisor that partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines.VMware vSphere is the industry’s first cloud operating system that drastically reduces ongoing costs and increases control over delivery of service levels while still preserving the flexibility to choose between any type of OS, application and hardware architecture. VMware vSphere offers organizations high availability and centralized management functionality that span across multiple ESXi hosts such as live migration, protection against hardware failures, power management, and automatic load balancing. VMware vSphere relies on a hypervisor to partition servers. Customers can choose to deploy either VMware ESX or VMware ESXi as part of the VMware vSphere suite. All the functionality of VMware vSphere is supported on both VMware ESX and VMware ESXi. In fact, VMware vSphere supports server resource pools that contain both hypervisors.
How do I use VMware vCenter Server to manage my VMware ESXi hosts? 
VMware vCenter Server provides centralized management for ESXi hosts and their virtual machines. To manage an ESXi host with vCenter Server, you must have a vCenter Server Agent license, which is included in all editions of VMware vSphere
What is the difference between VMware ESXi and VMware Server?
VMware ESXi is an enterprise-class hypervisor that offers a bare-metal architecture for near-native performance, features like memory de-duplication to increase consolidation ratios and a cluster file system for managing VM files on shared storage. VMware ESXi and VMware ESX are the critical foundations for a dynamic and flexible virtual infrastructure.
VMware Server installs as an application on Windows or Linux, relying on the operating system for resource management. This limits the performance and scalability. VMware Server is popular for test and development activities. Virtual machines created using VMware Server can run on VMware ESXi, but they must first be converted using the free VMware Converter.
Is it possible to download a virtual appliance into an ESXi environment for evaluation? 
Yes. If you are running VMware vSphere Client 2.5 and later along with ESXi 3.5 or ESX 3.5 or later, it is possible to access a list of downloadable virtual appliances for evaluation into an ESXi environment. To access that list of virtual appliances, open your VMware vSphere client, select "Virtual Appliance" from the file menu, and then select "Import...". When you select “Import from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace” and click “Next”, you will be sent to a page where you can download the appliances
How do I use VMware vCenter Server to manage my VMware ESXi hosts?
VMware vCenter Server provides centralized management for ESXi hosts and their virtual machines. To manage an ESXi host with vCenter Server, you must have a vCenter Server Agent license, which is included in all editions of VMware vSphere.

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Windows & systen admin Interview Questions and Answers- Part 2

what is RIS and what are its requirements

RIS is a remote installation service, which is used to install operation system remotely

Client requirements 
PXE DHCP-based boot ROM version 1.00 or later NIC, or a network adapter that is supported by the RIS boot disk.
Should meet minimum operating system requirements
Software Requirements 
Below network services must be active on RIS server or any server in the network Domain Name System (DNS Service) Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Active directory “Directory” service

Can we establish trust relationship between two forests 
In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In Windows 2003 it is possible

What is FSMO Roles 
Flexible single master operation (FSMO) roles are

Domain Naming Master
Schema Master
PDC Emulator
Infrastructure Master
RID Master

Brief all the FSMO Roles 


Windows 2000/2003 Multi-Master Model 
A multi-master enabled database, such as the Active Directory, provides the flexibility of allowing changes to occur at any DC in the enterprise, but it also introduces the possibility of conflicts that can potentially lead to problems once the data is replicated to the rest of the enterprise. One way Windows 2000/2003 deals with conflicting updates is by having a conflict resolution algorithm handle discrepancies in values by resolving to the DC to which changes were written last (that is, "the last writer wins"), while discarding the changes in all other DCs. Although this resolution method may be acceptable in some cases, there are times when conflicts are just too difficult to resolve using the "last writer wins" approach. In such cases, it is best to prevent the conflict from occurring rather than to try to resolve it after the fact.

For certain types of changes, Windows 2000/2003 incorporates methods to prevent conflicting Active Directory updates from occurring.

Windows 2000/2003 Single-Master Model 
To prevent conflicting updates in Windows 2000/2003, the Active Directory performs updates to certain objects in a single-master fashion
In a single-master model, only one DC in the entire directory is allowed to process updates. This is similar to the role given to a primary domain controller (PDC) in earlier versions of Windows (such as Microsoft Windows NT 4.0), in which the PDC is responsible for processing all updates in a given domain
In a forest, there are five FSMO roles that are assigned to one or more domain controllers. The five FSMO roles are

Schema Master
The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modifications to the schema. Once the Schema update is complete, it is replicated from the schema master to all other DCs in the directory. To update the schema of a forest, you must have access to the schema master. There can be only one schema master in the whole forest.

Domain naming master
The domain naming master domain controller controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest. This DC is the only one that can add or remove a domain from the directory. It can also add or remove cross references to domains in external directories. There can be only one domain naming master in the whole forest.
Infrastructure Master
When an object in one domain is referenced by another object in another domain, it represents the reference by the GUID, the SID (for references to security principals), and the DN of the object being referenced. The infrastructure FSMO role holder is the DC responsible for updating an object's SID and distinguished name in a cross-domain object reference. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the infrastructure master in each domain.

Note: The Infrastructure Master (IM) role should be held by a domain controller that is not a Global Catalog server (GC). If the Infrastructure Master runs on a Global Catalog server it will stop updating object information because it does not contain any references to objects that it does not hold. This is because a Global Catalog server holds a partial replica of every object in the forest. As a result, cross-domain object references in that domain will not be updated and a warning to that effect will be logged on that DC's event log. If all the domain controllers in a domain also host the global catalog, all the domain controllers have the current data, and it is not important which domain controller holds the infrastructure master role.

Relative ID (RID) Master:
The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain. When a DC creates a security principal object such as a user or group, it attaches a unique Security ID (SID) to the object. This SID consists of a domain SID (the same for all SIDs created in a domain), and a relative ID (RID) that is unique for each security principal SID created in a domain. Each DC in a domain is allocated a pool of RIDs that it is allowed to assign to the security principals it creates. When a DC's allocated RID pool falls below a threshold, that DC issues a request for additional RIDs to the domain's RID master. The domain RID master responds to the request by retrieving RIDs from the domain's unallocated RID pool and assigns them to the pool of the requesting DC. At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the RID master in the domain.

PDC Emulator
The PDC emulator is necessary to synchronize time in an enterprise. Windows 2000/2003 includes the W32Time (Windows Time) time service that is required by the Kerberos authentication protocol. All Windows 2000/2003-based computers within an enterprise use a common time. The purpose of the time service is to ensure that the Windows Time service uses a hierarchical relationship that controls authority and does not permit loops to ensure appropriate common time usage.
The PDC emulator of a domain is authoritative for the domain. The PDC emulator at the root of the forest becomes authoritative for the enterprise, and should be
configured to gather the time from an external source. All PDC FSMO role holders
follow the hierarchy of domains in the selection of their in-bound time partner
In a Windows 2000/2003 domain, the PDC emulator role holder retains the following
functions: 
Password changes performed by other DCs in the domain are replicated preferentially
to the PDC emulator
Authentication failures that occur at a given DC in a domain because of an incorrect password are forwarded to the PDC emulator before a bad password failure message is reported to the user.

Account lockout is processed on the PDC emulator
Editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy found in the PDC Emulator's SYSVOL share, unless configured not to do so by the administrator.
The PDC emulator performs all of the functionality that a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server-based PDC or earlier PDC performs for Windows NT 4.0-based or earlier clients.
This part of the PDC emulator role becomes unnecessary when all workstations, member servers, and domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or earlier are all upgraded to Windows 2000/2003. The PDC emulator still performs the other functions as described in a Windows 2000/2003 environment.
At any one time, there can be only one domain controller acting as the PDC emulator
master in each domain in the forest.

What is the difference between authoritative and non-authoritative restore
In authoritative restore, Objects that are restored will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. This can be used specifically when the entire OU is disturbed in all domain controllers or specifically restore a single object, which is disturbed in all DC’s
In non-authoritative restore, Restored directory information will be updated by other domain controllers based on the latest modification time

what is Active Directory De-fragmentation 
De-fragmentation of AD means separating used space and empty space created by deleted objects and reduces directory size (only in offline De-fragmentation

Difference between online and offline de-fragmentation 
The size of NTDS.DIT will often be different sizes across the domain controllers in a domain. Remember that Active Directory is a multi-master independent model where updates are occurring in each of the domain controllers with the changes being replicated over time to the other domain controllers.
The changed data is replicated between domain controllers, not the database, so there is no guarantee that the files are going to be the same size across all domain controllers.
Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 servers running Directory Services (DS) perform a directory online defragmentation every 12 hours by default as part of the garbage-collection process. This defragmentation only moves data around the database file (NTDS.DIT) and doesn’t reduce the file’s size - the database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted.
Active Directory routinely performs online database defragmentation, but this is limited to the disposal of tombstoned objects. The database file cannot be compacted while Active Directory is mounted (or online).
An NTDS.DIT file that has been defragmented offline (compacted), can be much smaller than
the NTDS.DIT file on its peers. However, defragmenting the NTDS.DIT file isn’t something you should really need to do. Normally, the database self-tunes and automatically tombstoning the records then sweeping them away when the tombstone lifetime has passed to make that space available for additional records
Defragging the NTDS.DIT file probably won’t help your AD queries go any faster in the long run.
So why defrag it in the first place? One reason you might want to defrag your NTDS.DIT file is to save space, for example if you deleted a large number of records at one time.
To create a new, smaller NTDS.DIT file and to enable offline defragmentation, perform the following steps: Back up Active Directory (AD). Reboot the server, select the OS option, and press F8 for advanced options. Select the Directory Services Restore Mode option, and press Enter. Press Enter again to start the OS. W2K will start in safe mode, with no DS running. Use the local SAM’s administrator account and password to log on. You’ll see a dialog box that says you’re in safe mode. Click OK. From the Start menu, select Run and type cmd.exe In the command window, you’ll see the following text. (Enter the commands in bold.) C:\> ntdsutil ntdsutil: files file maintenance:info .... file maintenance:compact to c:\temp
You’ll see the defragmentation process. If the process was successful, enter quit to return to the command prompt.
Then, replace the old NTDS.DIT file with the new, compressed version. (Enter the commands in bold.)
C:\> copy c:\temp\ntds.dit %systemroot%\ntds\ntds.dit

Restart the computer, and boot as normal.

What is tombstone period 
Tombstones are nothing but objects marked for deletion. After deleting an object in AD the objects will not be deleted permanently. It will be remain 60 days by default (which can be configurable) it adds an entry as marked for deletion on the object and replicates to all DC’s. After 60 days object will be deleted permanently from all Dc’s.

what are the monitoring tools used for Server and Network Heath. How to define alert mechanism 
Spot Light , SNMP Need to enable

How to deploy the patches and what are the softwares used for this process
Using SUS (Software update services) server we can deploy patches to all clients in the network. We need to configure an option called “Synchronize with Microsoft software update server” option and schedule time to synchronize in server. We need to approve new update based on the requirement. Then approved update will be deployed to clients
We can configure clients by changing the registry manually or through Group policy
by adding WUAU administrative template in group policy

What is Clustering. Briefly define & explain it 
Clustering is a technology, which is used to provide High Availability for mission critical applications. We can configure cluster by installing MCS (Microsoft cluster service) component from Add remove programs, which can only available in Enterprise Edition and Data center edition.In Windows we can configure two types of clusters

NLB (network load balancing) cluster for balancing load between servers. This cluster will not provide any high availability. Usually preferable at edge servers like web or proxy.
Server Cluster: This provides High availability by configuring active-active or active-passive cluster. In 2 node active-passive cluster one node will be active and one node will be stand by. When active server fails the application will FAILOVER to stand by server automatically. When the original server backs we need to FAILBACK the application
Quorum: A shared storage need to provide for all servers which keeps information about clustered application and session state and is useful in FAILOVER situation. This is very important if Quorum disk fails entire cluster will fails
Heartbeat: Heartbeat is a private connectivity between the servers in the cluster, which is used to identify the status of other servers in cluster.

How to configure SNMP
SNMP can be configured by installing SNMP from Monitoring and Management tools from Add and Remove programs.
For SNMP programs to communicate we need to configure common community name for those machines where SNMP programs (eg DELL OPEN MANAGER) running. This can be configured from services.msc--- SNMP service -- Security

Is it possible to rename the Domain name & how?
In Windows 2000 it is not possible. In windows 2003 it is possible. On Domain controller by going to MYCOMPUTER properties we can change.

What is SOA Record
SOA is a Start Of Authority record, which is a first record in DNS, which controls the startup behavior of DNS. We can configure TTL, refresh, and retry intervals in this record.

What is a Stub zone and what is the use of it. 
Stub zones are a new feature of DNS in Windows Server 2003 that can be used to streamline name resolution, especially in a split namespace scenario. They also help reduce the amount of DNS traffic on your network, making DNS more efficient especially over slow WAN links

What are the different types of partitions present in AD
Active directory is divided into three partitions
Configuration Partition—replicates entire forest
Schema Partition—replicates entire forest
Domain Partition—replicate only in domain
Application Partition (Only in Windows 2003)

What are the (two) services required for replication 
File Replication Service (FRS) Knowledge Consistency Checker (KCC)

Can we use a Linux DNS Sever in 2000 Domain 
We can use, But the BIND version should be 8 or greater

What is ASR (Automated System Recovery) and how to implement it 
ASR is a two-part system; it includes ASR backup and ASR restore. The ASR Wizard, located in Backup, does the backup portion. The wizard backs up the system state, system services, and all the disks that are associated with the operating system components. ASR also creates a file that contains information about the backup, the disk configurations (including basic and dynamic volumes), and how to perform a restore You can access the restore portion by pressing F2 when prompted in the text-mode portion of setup. ASR reads the disk configurations from the file that it creates. It restores all the disk signatures, volumes, and partitions on (at a minimum) the disks that you need to start the computer. ASR will try to restore all the disk configurations, but under some circumstances it might not be able to. ASR then installs a simple installation of Windows and automatically starts a restoration using the backup created by the ASR Wizard.

What are the different levels that we can apply Group Policy
We can apply group policy at SITE level---Domain Level---OU level

What is Domain Policy, Domain controller policy, Local policy and Group policy 
Domain Policy will apply to all computers in the domain, because by default it will be associated with domain GPO, Where as Domain controller policy will be applied only on domain controller. By default domain controller security policy will be associated with domain controller GPO. Local policy will be applied to that particular machine only and effects to that computer only.

What is the use of SYSVOL folder
Policies and scripts saved in SYSVOL folder will be replicated to all domain controllers in the domain. FRS (File replication service) is responsible for replicating all policies and scripts

What is folder redirection?
Folder Redirection is a User group policy. Once you create the group policy and link it to the appropriate folder object, an administrator can designate which folders to redirect and where To do this, the administrator needs to navigate to the following location in the Group Policy Object:

User Configuration\Windows Settings\Folder Redirection
In the Properties of the folder, you can choose Basic or Advanced folder redirection, and you can designate the server file system path to which the folder should be redirected.
The %USERNAME% variable may be used as part of the redirection path, thus allowing the system to dynamically create a newly redirected folder for each user to whom the policy object applies


Domain Functional Level 
Domain functionality activates features that affect the whole domain and that domain only. The four domain functional levels, their corresponding features, and supported domain controllers are as follows:

Windows 2000 mixed (Default)
Supported domain controllers: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003
Activated features: local and global groups, global catalog support

Windows 2000 native
Supported domain controllers: Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003
Activated features: group nesting, universal groups, SidHistory, converting groups between security groups and distribution groups, you can raise domain levels by increasing the forest level settings

Windows Server 2003 interim 
Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003
Supported features: There are no domain-wide features activated at this level. All domains in a forest are automatically raised to this level when the forest level increases to interim. This mode is only used when you upgrade domain controllers in Windows NT 4.0 domains to Windows Server 2003 domain controllers.

Windows Server 2003
Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003
Supported features: domain controller rename, logon timestamp attribute updated and replicated. User password support on the InetOrgPerson objectClass. Constrained delegation, you can redirect the Users and Computers containersDomains that are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 or created by the promotion of a Windows Server 2003-based computer operate at the Windows 2000 mixed functional level. Windows 2000 domains maintain their current domain functional level when Windows 2000 domain controllers are upgraded to the Windows Server 2003 operating system. You can raise the domain functional level to either Windows 2000 native or Windows Server 2003. After the domain functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the domain. For example, if you raise the domain functional level to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to that domain
The following describes the domain functional level and the domain-wide features that are activated for that level. Note that with each successive level increase, the feature set of the previous level is included.

Forest Functional Level 
Forest functionality activates features across all the domains in your forest. Three forest functional levels, the corresponding features, and their supported domain controllers are listed below

Windows 2000 (default) 
Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003
New features: Partial list includes universal group caching, application partitions, install from media, quotas, rapid global catalog demotion, Single Instance Store (SIS) for System Access Control Lists (SACL) in the Jet Database Engine, Improved topology generation event logging. No global catalog full sync when attributes are added to the PAS Windows Server 2003 domain controller assumes the Intersite Topology Generator (ISTG) role.

Windows Server 2003 interim
Supported domain controllers: Windows NT 4.0, Windows Server 2003. See the "Upgrade from a Windows NT 4.0 Domain" section of this article.
Activated features: Windows 2000 features plus Efficient Group Member Replication using Linked Value Replication, Improved Replication Topology Generation. ISTG Aliveness no longer replicated. Attributes added to the global catalog. ms-DS-Trust-Forest-Trust-Info. Trust-Direction, Trust-Attributes, Trust-Type, Trust-Partner, Security-Identifier, ms-DS-Entry-Time-To-Die, Message Queuing-Secured-Source, Message Queuing-Multicast-Address, Print-Memory, Print-Rate, Print-Rate-Unit

Windows Server 2003 
Supported domain controllers: Windows Server 2003
Activated features: all features in Interim Level, Defunct schema objects, Cross Forest Trust, Domain Rename, Dynamic auxiliary classes, InetOrgPerson objectClass change, Application Groups, 15-second intrasite replication frequency for Windows Server 2003 domain controllers upgraded from Windows 2000
After the forest functional level is raised, domain controllers that are running earlier operating systems cannot be introduced into the forest. For example, if you raise forest functional levels to Windows Server 2003, domain controllers that are running Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server cannot be added to the forest.
Different Active Directory features are available at different functional levels. Raising domain and forest functional levels is required to enable certain new features as domain controllers are upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003
Domain Functional Levels: Windows 2000 Mixed mode, Windows 2000 Native mode, Windows server 2003 and Windows server 2003 interim ( Only available when upgrades directly from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2003)

Forest Functional Levels: Windows 2000 and Windows 2003

Ipsec usage and difference window 2000 & 2003.
Microsoft doesn’t recommend Internet Protocol security (IPSec) network address translation (NAT) traversal (NAT-T) for Windows deployments that include VPN servers and that are located behind network address translators. When a server is behind a network address translator, and the server uses IPSec NAT-T, unintended side effects may occur because of the way that network address translators translate network traffic If you put a server behind a network address translator, you may experience connection problems because clients that connect to the server over the Internet require a public IP address. To reach servers that are located behind network address translators from the Internet, static mappings must be configured on the network address translator. For example, to reach a Windows Server 2003-based computer that is behind a network address translator from the Internet, configure the network address translator with the following static network address translator mappings

• Public IP address/UDP port 500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 500
• Public IP address/UDP port 4500 to the server's private IP address/UDP port 4500.
These mappings are required so that all Internet Key Exchange (IKE) and IPSec NAT¬T traffic that is sent to the public address of the network address translator is automatically translated and forwarded to the Windows Server 2003-based computer

How to create application partition windows 2003 and its usage?

An application directory partition is a directory partition that is replicated only to specific domain controllers. A domain controller that participates in the replication of a particular application directory partition hosts a replica of that partition. Only domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 can host a replica of an application directory partition.
Applications and services can use application directory partitions to store application-specific data. Application directory partitions can contain any type of object, except security principals. TAPI is an example of a service that stores its application-specific data in an application directory partition
Application directory partitions are usually created by the applications that will use them to store and replicate data. For testing and troubleshooting purposes, members of the Enterprise Admins group can manually create or manage application directory partitions using the Ntdsutil command-line tool.

Is it possible to do implicit transitive forest to forest trust relation ship in windows 2003? 
Implicit Transitive trust will not be possible in windows 2003. Between forests we can create explicit trust
Two-way trust
One-way: incoming
One-way: Outgoing

What is universal group membership cache in windows 2003
Information is stored locally once this option is enabled and a user attempts to log on for the first time. The domain controller obtains the universal group membership for that user from a global catalog. Once the universal group membership information is obtained, it is cached on the domain controller for that site indefinitely and is periodically refreshed. The next time that user attempts to log on, the authenticating domain controller running Windows Server 2003 will obtain the universal group membership information from its local cache without the need to contact a global catalog. By default, the universal group membership information contained in the cache of each domain controller will be refreshed every 8 hours

GPMC & RSOP in windows 2003?
GPMC is tool which will be used for managing group policies and will display information like how many policies applied, on which OU’s the policies applied, What are the settings enabled in each policy, Who are the users effecting by these polices, who is managing these policies. GPMC will display all the above informationRSoP provides details about all policy settings that are configured by an Administrator, including Administrative Templates, Folder Redirection, Internet Explorer Maintenance, Security Settings, Scripts, and Group Policy Software Installation.When policies are applied on multiple levels (for example, site, domain, domain controller, and organizational unit), the results can conflict. RSoP can help you determine a set of applied policies and their precedence (the order in which policies are applied).

Assign & Publish the applications in GP & how? 
Through Group policy you can Assign and Publish the applications by creating .msi package for that application
With Assign option you can apply policy for both user and computer. If it is applied to computer then the policy will apply to user who logs on to that computer. If it is applied on user it will apply where ever he logs on to the domain. It will be appear in Start menu—Programs. Once user click the shortcut or open any document having that extension then the application install into the local machine. If any application program files missing it will automatically repair.With Publish option you can apply only on users. It will not install automatically when any application program files are corrupted or deleted.

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Windows & systen admin Interview Questions and Answers- Part 1

Difference between 2000 &2003
Application Server mode is introduced in windows 2003 Possible to configure stub zones in windows 2003 DNS Volume shadow copy services is introduced Windows 2003 gives an option to replicate DNS data b/w all DNS servers in forest or All DNS servers in the domain.

Difference between PDC & BDC
PDC contains a write copy of SAM database where as BDC contains read only copy of SAM database. It is not possible to reset a password or create objects with out PDC in Windows NT.

Difference between DC &ADC
There is no difference between in DC and ADC both contains write copy of AD. Both can also handles FSMO roles (If transfers from DC to ADC). It is just for identification. Functionality wise there is no difference.

What is DNS & WINS
DNS is a Domain Naming System, which resolves Host names to IP addresses. It uses fully qualified domain names. DNS is a Internet standard used to resolve host names
WINS is a Windows Internet Name Service, which resolves Netbios names to IP Address. This is proprietary for Windows

Types of DNS Servers
Primary DNS Secondary DNS Active Directory Integrated DNS Forwarder Caching only DNS

If DHCP is not available what happens to the client
Client will not get IP and it cannot be participated in network . If client already got the IP and having lease duration it use the IP till the lease duration expires.

what are the different types of trust relationships
Implicit Trusts Explicit Trusts—NT to Win2k or Forest to Forest

what is the process of DHCP for getting the IP address to the client
There is a four way negotiation process b/w client and server DHCP Discover (Initiated by client) DHCP Offer (Initiated by server) DHCP Select (Initiated by client)
DHCP Acknowledgement (Initiated by Server)
DHCP Negative Acknowledgement (Initiated by server if any issues after DHCP offer)

Difference between FAT,NTFS & NTFSVersion5
NTFS Version 5 features
Encryption is possible We can enable Disk Quotas File compression is possible Sparse files Indexing Service NTFS change journal In FAT file system we can apply only share level security. File level protection is not
possible. In NTFS we can apply both share level as well as file level security NTFS supports large partition sizes than FAT file systems NTFS supports long file names than FAT file systems
What are the port numbers for FTP, Telnet, HTTP, DNS
FTP-21, Telnet – 23, HTTP-80, DNS-53, Kerberos-88, LDAP-389

what are the different types of profiles in 2000
Local Profiles Roaming profiles Mandatory Profiles

what is the database files used for Active Directory
The key AD database files—edb.log, ntds.dit, res1.log, res2.log, and edb.chk—all of which reside in \%systemroot%\ntds on a domain controller (DC) by default. During
AD installation, Dcpromo lets you specify alternative locations for these log files and database files

What is the location of AD Database
%System root%/NTDS/NTDS>DIT

What is the authentication protocol used in NT
NTLM (NT LAN Manager

What is subnetting and supernetting
Subnetting is the process of borrowing bits from the host portion of an address to provide bits for identifying additional sub-networks
Supernetting merges several smaller blocks of IP addresses (networks) that are continuous into one larger block of addresses. Borrowing network bits to combine several smaller networks into one larger network does supernetting

what is the use of terminal services
Terminal services can be used as Remote Administration mode to administer remotely as well as Application Server Mode to run the application in one server and users can login to that server to user that application

what is the protocol used for terminal services
RDP

what is the port number for RDP
Port Number-3389    


what is the difference between Authorized DHCP and Non Authorized DHCP
To avoid problems in the network causing by mis-configured DHCP servers, server in windows 2000 must be validate by AD before starting service to clients. If an authorized DHCP finds any DHCP server in the network it stop serving the clients

Difference between inter-site and intra-site replication. Protocols using for replication.
Intra-site replication can be done between the domain controllers in the same site. Inter-site replication can be done between two different sites over WAN links
BHS (Bridge Head Servers) is responsible for initiating replication between the sites. Inter-site replication can be done B/w BHS in one site and BHS in another site.
We can use RPC over IP or SMTP as a replication protocols where as Domain partition is not possible to replicate using SMTP

How to monitor replication 

We can user Replmon tool from support tools

Brief explanation of RAID Levels 

Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 offer two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic

Basic Disk Storage
Basic storage uses normal partition tables supported by MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. A disk initialized for basic storage is called a basic disk. A basic disk contains basic volumes, such as primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives. Additionally, basic volumes include multidisk volumes that are created by using Windows NT 4.0 or earlier, such as volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, and stripe sets with parity. Windows XP does not support these multidisk basic volumes. Any volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, or stripe sets with parity must be backed up and deleted or converted to dynamic disks before you install Windows XP Professional

Dynamic Disk Storage
Dynamic storage is supported in Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. A disk initialized for dynamic storage is called a dynamic disk. A dynamic disk contains dynamic volumes, such as simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and RAID-5 volumes. With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart Windows.
Note: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.
You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers. However, you can use a Windows XP Professional-based computer to create a mirrored or RAID-5 volume on remote computers that are running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or the Standard, Enterprise and Data Center versions of Windows Server 2003.
Storage types are separate from the file system type. A basic or dynamic disk can contain any combination of FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS partitions or volumes.
A disk system can contain any combination of storage types. However, all volumes on the same disk must use the same storage type.

To convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk

Use the Disk Management snap-in in Windows XP/2000/2003 to convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk. To do this, follow these steps: 

1Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group. 

2Click Start, and then click Control Panel. 

3Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. You can also right-click My Computer and choose Manage if you have My Computer displayed on your desktop. 

4In the left pane, click Disk Management. 

5In the lower-right pane, right-click the basic disk that you want to convert, and then click Convert to Dynamic Disk. You must right-click the gray area that contains the disk title on the left side of the Details pane. 

6Select the check box that is next to the disk that you want to convert (if it is not already selected), and then click OK. 

7Click Details if you want to view the list of volumes in the disk. Click Convert. 

8Click Yes when you are prompted to convert the disk, and then click OK. 

Warning: After you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, local access to the dynamic disk is limited to Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Additionally, after you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, the dynamic volumes cannot be changed back to partitions. You must first delete all dynamic volumes on the disk and then convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk. If you want to keep your data, you must first back up the data or move it to another volume. 

Dynamic Storage Terms 

A volume is a storage unit made from free space on one or more disks. It can be formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter. Volumes on dynamic disks can have any of the following layouts: simple, spanned, mirrored, striped, or RAID-5. 

A simple volume uses free space from a single disk. It can be a single region on a disk or consist of multiple, concatenated regions. A simple volume can be extended within the same disk or onto additional disks. If a simple volume is extended across multiple disks, it becomes a spanned volume. 

A spanned volume is created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks. You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 disks. A spanned volume cannot be mirrored and is not fault-tolerant. 

A striped volume is a volume whose data is interleaved across two or more physical disks. The data on this type of volume is allocated alternately and evenly to each of the physical disks. A striped volume cannot be mirrored or extended and is not fault-tolerant. Striping is also known as RAID-0. 

A mirrored volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is duplicated on two physical disks. All of the data on one volume is copied to another disk to provide data redundancy. If one of the disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining disk. A mirrored volume cannot be extended. Mirroring is also known as RAID-1. 

A RAID-5 volume is a fault-tolerant volume whose data is striped across an array of three or more disks. Parity (a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data after a failure) is also striped across the disk array. If a physical disk fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that failed disk can be re-created from the remaining data and the parity. A RAID¬5 volume cannot be mirrored or extended. 

The system volume contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to load Windows (for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com). The system volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the boot volume. 

The boot volume contains the Windows operating system files that are located in the %Systemroot% and %Systemroot%\System32 folders. The boot volume can be, but does not have to be, the same as the system volume. 

RAID 0 – Striping 

RAID 1- Mirroring (minimum 2 HDD required) 

RAID 5 – Striping With Parity (Minimum 3 HDD required) 

RAID levels 1 and 5 only gives redundancy 

What are the different backup strategies are available 

Normal Backup 

Incremental Backup 

Differential Backup 

Daily Backup 

Copy Backup 

What is a global catalog 

Global catalog is a role, which maintains Indexes about objects. It contains full information of the objects in its own domain and partial information of the objects in other domains. Universal Group membership information will be stored in global catalog servers and replicate to all GC’s in the forest. 

What is Active Directory and what is the use of it 

Active directory is a directory service, which maintains the relation ship between resources and enabling them to work together. Because of AD hierarchal structure windows 2000 is more scalable, reliable. Active directory is derived from X.500 standards where information is stored is hierarchal tree like structure. Active directory depends on two Internet standards one is DNS and other is LDAP. Information in Active directory can be queried by using LDAP protocol 

What is the physical and logical structure of AD 

Active directory physical structure is a hierarchal structure which fallows Forests— Trees—Domains—Child Domains—Grand Child—etc 

Active directory is logically divided into 3 partitions 

1.Configuration partition 2. Schema Partition 3. Domain partition 4. Application Partition (only in windows 2003 not available in windows 2000) 

Out of these Configuration, Schema partitions can be replicated between the domain controllers in the in the entire forest. Where as Domain partition can be replicated between the domain controllers in the same domain 

What is the process of user authentication (Kerberos V5) in windows 2000 

After giving logon credentials an encryption key will be generated which is used to encrypt the time stamp of the client machine. User name and encrypted timestamp information will be provided to domain controller for authentication. Then Domain controller based on the password information stored in AD for that user it decrypts the encrypted time stamp information. If produces time stamp matches to its time stamp. It will provide logon session key and Ticket granting ticket to client in an encryption format. Again client decrypts and if produced time stamp information is matching then it will use logon session key to logon to the domain. Ticket granting ticket will be used to generate service granting ticket when accessing network resources 

What are the port numbers for Kerberos, LDAP and Global catalog 

Kerberos – 88, LDAP – 389, Global Catalog – 3268 

What is the use of LDAP (X.500 standard?) 

LDAP is a directory access protocol, which is used to exchange directory information from server to clients or from server to servers 

What are the problems that are generally come across DHCP 

Scope is full with IP addresses no IP’s available for new machines 

If scope options are not configured properly eg default gateway 

Incorrect creation of scopes etc 

what is the role responsible for time synchronization 

PDC Emulator is responsible for time synchronization. Time synchronization is important because Kerberos authentication depends on time stamp information 

What is TTL & how to set TTL time in DNS 

TTL is Time to Live setting used for the amount of time that the record should remain in cache when name resolution happened. 

We can set TTL in SOA (start of authority record) of DNS 

How to take DNS and WINS,DHCP backup 

%System root%/system32/dns 

%System root%/system32/WINS 

%System root%/system32/DHCP 

What is recovery console 

Recovery console is a utility used to recover the system when it is not booting properly or not at all booting. We can perform fallowing operations from recovery console 

We can copy, rename, or replace operating system files and folders Enable or disable service or device startup the next time that start computer Repair the file system boot sector or the Master Boot Record Create and format partitions on drives 

What is DFS & its usage 

DFS is a distributed file system used to provide common environment for users to access files and folders even when they are shared in different servers physically. 

There are two types of DFS domain DFS and Stand alone DFS. We cannot provide redundancy for stand alone DFS in case of failure. Domain DFS is used in a domain environment which can be accessed by /domain name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Stand alone DFS can be used in workgroup environment which can be accessed through /server name/root1 (root 1 is DFS root name). Both the cases we need to create DFS root ( Which appears like a shared folder for end users) and DFS links ( A logical link which is pointing to the server where the folder is physically shared) 

The maximum number of Dfs roots per server is 1. 

The maximum numbers of Dfs root replicas are 31. 

The maximum number of Dfs roots per domain is unlimited. 

The maximum number of Dfs links or shared folders in a Dfs root is 1,000 

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Desktop interview questions and answers

1) What is Active Directory?
A central component of the Windows platform, Active Directory directory service provides the means to manage the identities and relationships that make up network environments. For example we can create, manage and administrator users, computers and printers in the network from active directory.

2) What is DNS? Why it is used? What is "forward lookup" and "reverse lookup" in DNS? What are A records and mx records?
DNS is domain naming service and is used for resolving names to IP address and IP addresses to names. The computer understands only numbers while we can easily remember names. So to make it easier for us what we do is we assign names to computers and websites. When we use these names (Like yahoo.com) the computer uses DNS to convert to IP address (number) and it executes our request.

Forward lookup: Converting names to IP address is called forward lookup.

Reverse lookup: Resolving IP address to names is called reverse lookup.

'A' record: Its called host record and it has the mapping of a name to IP address. This is the record in DNS with the help of which DNS can find out the IP address of a name.

'MX' Record: its called mail exchanger record. Its the record needed to locate the mail servers in the network. This record is also found in DNS.

3) What id DHCP? Why it is used? What are scopes and super scopes?

DHCP: Dynamic host configuration protocol. Its used to allocate IP addresses to large number of PCs in a network environment. This makes the IP management very easy.

Scope: Scope contains IP address like subnet mask, gateway IP, DNS server IP and exclusion range which a client can use to communicate with the other PCs in the network.

Superscope: When we combine two or more scopes together its called super scope.

4) What are the types of LAN cables used? What is a cross cable?
Types of LAN cables that are in use are "Cat 5" and "Cat 6". "Cat 5" can support 100 Mbps of speed and "CAT 6" can support 1Gbps of speed.

Cross cable: Its used to connect same type of devices without using a switch/hub so that they can communicate.

5) What is the difference between a normal LAN cable and cross cable? What could be the maximum length of the LAN cable?
The way the paired wires are connected to the connector (RJ45) is different
in cross cable and normal LAN cable.
The theoretical length is 100 meters but after 80 meters you may see drop in speed due to loss of signal.

6) What would you use to connect two computers without using switches?
Cross cable.

7) What is IPCONFIG command? Why it is used?
IPCONFIG command is used to display the IP information assigned to a computer. From the output we can find out the IP address, DNS IP address, gateway IP address assigned to that computer.

8) What is APIPA IP address? Or what IP address is assigned to the computer when the DHCP server is not available?
When DHCP server is not available the Windows client computer assigns an automatic IP address to itself so that it can communicate with the network computers. This ip address is called APIPA. ITs in the range of 169.254.X.X.
APIPA stands for Automatic private IP addressing. Its in the range of 169.254.X.X.

9) What is a DOMAIN? What is the difference between a domain and a workgroup?
Domain is created when we install Active Directory. It's a security boundary which is used to manage computers inside the boundary. Domain can be used to centrally administrator computers and we can govern them using common policies called group policies.
We can't do the same with workgroup.

10) Do you know how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003 for a user?
Please visit the link below to find out how to configure outlook 2000 and outlook 2003. http://www.it.cmich.edu/quickguides/qg_outlook2003_server.asp

11) What is a PST file and what is the difference between a PST file and OST file? What file is used by outlook express?
PST file is used to store the mails locally when using outlook 2000 or 2003. OST file is used when we use outlook in cached exchanged mode. Outlook express used odb file.

12) What is BSOD? What do you do when you get blue screen in a computer? How do you troubleshoot it?
BSOD stands for blue screen of Death. when there is a hardware or OS fault due to which the windows OS can run it give a blue screen with a code. Best way to resolve it is to boot the computer is "Last known good configuration".
If this doesn't work than boot the computer in safe mode. If it boots up than the problems with one of the devices or drivers.

13) What is RIS? What is Imaging/ghosting?
RIS stands for remote installation services. You save the installed image on a windows server and then we use RIS to install the configured on in the new hardware. We can use it to deploy both server and client OS. Imaging or ghosting also does the same job of capturing an installed image and then install it on a new hardware when there is a need. We go for RIS or imaging/ghosting because installing OS every time using a CD can be a very time consuming task. So to save that time we can go for RIS/Ghosting/imaging.

14) What is VPN and how to configure it?
VPN stands for Virtual private network. VPN is used to connect to the corporate network to access the resources like mail and files in the LAN. VPN can be configured using the steps mentioned in the KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305550

15) Your computer slowly drops out of network. A reboot of the computer
fixes the problem. What to do to resolve this issue?
Update the network card driver.

16) Your system is infected with Virus? How to recover the data?
Install another system. Install the OS with the lates patches, Antivirus with latest updates. Connect the infected HDD as secondary drive in the system. Once done scan and clean the secondary HDD. Once done copy the files to the new system.

17) How to join a system to the domain? What type of user can add a system to the domain?
Please visit the article below and read "Adding the Workstation to the Domain" http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/technologi /directory/

18) What is the difference between a switch and a hub?
Switch sends the traffic to the port to which its meant for. Hub sends the traffic to all the ports.

19) What is a router? Why we use it?
Router is a switch which uses routing protocols to process and send the traffic. It also receives the traffic and sends it across but it uses the routing protocols to do so.

20) What are manageable and non manageable switches?
Switches which can be administered are called manageable switches. For example we can create VLAN for on such switch. On no manageable switches we can't do so.

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