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Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services. Initially, Active Directory was used only for centralized domain management. However, Active Directory eventually became an umbrella title for a broad range of directory-based identity-related services.
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officially released to retail on February 17, 2000. It was Microsoft's business operating system until the introduction of Windows XP Professional in 2001.
Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) is a networking protocol that provides centralized authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) management for users who connect and use a network service. RADIUS was developed by Livingston Enterprises in 1991 as an access server authentication and accounting protocol. It was later brought into IEEE 802 and IETF standards.
IEEE 802.1X is an IEEE Standard for port-based Network Access Control (PNAC). It is part of the IEEE 802.1 group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism to devices wishing to attach to a LAN or WLAN.
An authentication protocol is a type of computer communications protocol or cryptographic protocol specifically designed for transfer of authentication data between two entities. It allows the receiving entity to authenticate the connecting entity as well as authenticate itself to the connecting entity by declaring the type of information needed for authentication as well as syntax. It is the most important layer of protection needed for secure communication within computer networks.
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. The direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, it was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and was launched to retail on August 24, 1996. Windows NT 4.0 was and remains a primary business-oriented operating system, and three years after its introduction, it was followed by Windows 2000. Workstation, server and embedded editions were sold, and all editions feature a graphical user interface similar to that of Windows 95, which was superseded by Windows 98 and could still be directly upgraded by either Windows 2000 Professional or Windows Me.
On Microsoft Servers, a domain controller (DC) is a server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a Windows domain. A domain is a concept introduced in Windows NT whereby a user may be granted access to a number of computer resources with the use of a single username and password combination.
A remote access service (RAS) is any combination of hardware and software to enable the remote access tools or information that typically reside on a network of IT devices.
The Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol, also known as Protected EAP or simply PEAP, is a protocol that encapsulates the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) within an encrypted and authenticated Transport Layer Security (TLS) tunnel. The purpose was to correct deficiencies in EAP; EAP assumed a protected communication channel, such as that provided by physical security, so facilities for protection of the EAP conversation were not provided.
Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework frequently used in network and internet connections. It is defined in RFC 3748, which made RFC 2284 obsolete, and is updated by RFC 5247. EAP is an authentication framework for providing the transport and usage of material and parameters generated by EAP methods. There are many methods defined by RFCs, and a number of vendor-specific methods and new proposals exist. EAP is not a wire protocol; instead it only defines the information from the interface and the formats. Each protocol that uses EAP defines a way to encapsulate by the user EAP messages within that protocol's messages.
Windows Server Essentials is an integrated server suite from Microsoft for businesses with no more than 25 users or 50 devices. It includes Windows Server, Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Outlook. Application server technologies are tightly integrated to provide and offer management benefits such as integrated setup, enhanced monitoring, Remote Web Workplace, a unified management console, and remote access.
FreeRADIUS is a modular, high performance free RADIUS suite developed and distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2, and is free for download and use. The FreeRADIUS Suite includes a RADIUS server, a BSD-licensed RADIUS client library, a PAM library, an Apache module, and numerous additional RADIUS related utilities and development libraries.
Wireless security is the prevention of unauthorized access or damage to computers or data using wireless networks, which include Wi-Fi networks. The term may also refer to the protection of the wireless network itself from adversaries seeking to damage the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the network. The most common type is Wi-Fi security, which includes Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WEP is an old IEEE 802.11 standard from 1997. It is a notoriously weak security standard: the password it uses can often be cracked in a few minutes with a basic laptop computer and widely available software tools. WEP was superseded in 2003 by WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access. WPA was a quick alternative to improve security over WEP. The current standard is WPA2; some hardware cannot support WPA2 without firmware upgrade or replacement. WPA2 uses an encryption device that encrypts the network with a 256-bit key; the longer key length improves security over WEP. Enterprises often enforce security using a certificate-based system to authenticate the connecting device, following the standard 802.11X.
In computer networking, a supplicant is an entity at one end of a point-to-point LAN segment that seeks to be authenticated by an authenticator attached to the other end of that link. The IEEE 802.1X standard uses the term "supplicant" to refer either to hardware or to software. In practice, a supplicant is a software application installed on an end-user's computer. The user invokes the supplicant and submits credentials to connect the computer to a secure network. If the authentication succeeds, the authenticator typically allows the computer to connect to the network.
In a Windows network, NT LAN Manager (NTLM) is a suite of Microsoft security protocols intended to provide authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users. NTLM is the successor to the authentication protocol in Microsoft LAN Manager (LANMAN), an older Microsoft product. The NTLM protocol suite is implemented in a Security Support Provider, which combines the LAN Manager authentication protocol, NTLMv1, NTLMv2 and NTLM2 Session protocols in a single package. Whether these protocols are used or can be used on a system which is governed by Group Policy settings, for which different versions of Windows have different default settings.
There are a number of security and safety features new to Windows Vista, most of which are not available in any prior Microsoft Windows operating system release.
In computing, Microsoft's Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 introduced in 2007/2008 a new networking stack named Next Generation TCP/IP stack, to improve on the previous stack in several ways. The stack includes native implementation of IPv6, as well as a complete overhaul of IPv4. The new TCP/IP stack uses a new method to store configuration settings that enables more dynamic control and does not require a computer restart after a change in settings. The new stack, implemented as a dual-stack model, depends on a strong host-model and features an infrastructure to enable more modular components that one can dynamically insert and remove.
Network Level Authentication (NLA) is a feature of Remote Desktop Services or Remote Desktop Connection that requires the connecting user to authenticate themselves before a session is established with the server.
Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) is a Microsoft API and server software that makes it possible to create applications to administer the routing and remote access service capabilities of the operating system, to function as a network router. Developers can also use RRAS to implement routing protocols. The RRAS server functionality follows and builds upon the Remote Access Service (RAS) in Windows NT 4.0.
Network Policy and Access Services (NPAS) is a component of Windows Server 2008. It replaces the Internet Authentication Service (IAS) from Windows Server 2003. NPAS helps you safeguard the health and security of a network. The NPAS server role includes Network Policy Server (NPS), Health Registration Authority (HRA), and Host Credential Authorization Protocol (HCAP). In Windows Server 2003, IAS is the Microsoft implementation of a Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) server. In Windows Server operating systems later than Windows Server 2003, IAS is renamed to NPS.