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Jun 2014
16

Here’s an email I got and my response. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Hi Jeremy,
Let me briefly introduce myself. I’m working as a system administrator in a public institution. I would say that I’m relatively new in the field (just 3 years). Recently I encountered a problem at my workplace that bothered me a lot. I was confused and therefore need some suggestions/advice. Maybe you can help to clear the confusion.

By the way, I also have a copy of your book, “Group Policy: Fundamentals, Security, and the Managed Desktop” and I like reading it. It’s very informative.

At my workplace, we have:

– One Domain Controller that running Server 2008.
– Our client environment consists of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

In order to manage the new features/setting in Windows 8 through GPMC, I decided to:

– Use Windows 8 Management Station with RSAT installed.
– I also created the Central Store with the ADMX for Win 8 and Server 2012.

Controlling the settings from Win 8 management station was working fine for me.

I didn’t have any problems with the group policy and the settings were applied to the client machines as planned.

However, my boss doesn’t agree with the use of a Windows 8 RSAT / Management Station.

According to him RSAT is compromising the security and defeating the purpose of the Domain Controller.

He argues:
-That RSAT doesn’t have a record of who logged in to the DC. He’s saying that when someone logs in to DC, either using Remote Desktop Connection or physically present in front of the server, DC authenticates and has a record.

-Second, he argues that the best way to manage or control settings of Windows 8 machines is by using server 2012 and not using a Win 8 Management Station with RSAT installed. He thinks that this is vulnerable and Win 8 is never meant to serve as a server in managing client machines, and that everything needs to be done from the server instead of Management Station.

I was very confused with his opinions regarding RSAT.

Is he right that RSAT is compromising the security and defeating the purpose of DC, and that WIN 8 is never meant to be used to edit the group policy? Please advice. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanks, – Jake

So, Jake … your boss is partially right and partially wrong.

1. All Windows systems have auditing. SO if you use a Windows 8 machine and log on, you can track that, and “Forward the events” somewhere for an audit record.
2. Note: DCs do specifically log to the event log WHO logged in.

3. That being said, when it comes to logging GPO creation, it also does that anyway.

4. In no case, ever.. does it tell you *WHAT* was changed/done inside a GPO. That data doesn’t get captured.

5. There is no “intrinsic security risk” just by using a Windows 8 management station with RSAT vs. using a DC to make a GPO. It’s what I recommend.

6. You noted you only had ONE DC .. that’s .. um.. bad. If you had a problem or it went down, no one could log on. Consider having more than one DC.

Hope these notes help you out.

-Jeremy Moskowitz, Enterprise Mobility MVP

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