SAMR Interface Calls and Active Directory

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Hi,
I have a slight confusion regarding SAM and Active Directory. From the

research that i have conducted so far, among other things, i have found
out
that SAM DB was used up till Windows NT 4 and after that it was
replaced with
Active Directory (Windows 2000/Windows 2003). A local SAM DB is still
maintained on these systems. SAMR are the interfaces used to access SAM
DB and
LDAP is used to access contents of Active Directory (not sure about
LDAP). I
also know that in order to maintain backward compatibility, SAMR
interfaces
are still being supported. This implies that if for example, in a
domain,
Windows NT 4 based client is joined to a server which is running W2k or
W2k3
then SAMR interfaces are used.
Everything seemed fine until the point when i took some captures on the
wire
(using a network protocol analyzer). What i did was i setup a windows
2000
domain controller. Then i made a windows 2000 based client to join that

domain. While analyzing the network capture, i found out that several
SAMR
interface calls are being made. This is quite confusing considering the
fact
that for W2k and above ActiveDirectory is being used and perhaps LDAP
calls
were suppose to be made instead of SAMR calls. So the questions that i
have
are:

- Is SAMR a legacy interface/protocol and only being kept for backward

compatibility?

- Active Directory is a successor to SAM DB. Is LDAP a successor to
SAMR?

- Why there are SAMR calls even when Windows NT 4 is not being used at
all in
the scenario as mentioned above? Or in other words if in Windows 2000
and
above, Active Directory is being used then why SAMR calls are being
used?

Thanks for yor help.

sarshah

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: SAMR Interface Calls and Active Directory
    ... Older docs will indicate that SAMR is used when there is need to ... manage objects stored in the SAM. ... as it still exists in all versions right on through Windows Server ... It is replaced by Active Directory. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.security)
  • Re: SAMR Interface Calls and Active Directory
    ... SAM is not the storage medium, it is the management code for handling security principals in Windows. ... It is fully active in Active Directory, many LDAP calls that have to do with SAM objects route through the SAM code. ... The difference between a Windows 2000 member machine and a Windows 2000 domain controller is simply that the SAM stores its info in different places. ... activity showed a number of SAMR calls. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.security)
  • Re: SAMR Interface Calls and Active Directory
    ... SAM has been referred to as SAM DB. ... generate SAMR calls on windows 2000 and above machines. ... Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.security)
  • Re: SAMR Interface Calls and Active Directory
    ... when you DCpromo a server making it a DC the SAM is wiped ... where on can log into a DC without the Active Directory started up. ... clients and earlier full SAM functionality (SAMR interfaces) is still ... as it still exists in all versions right on through Windows ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.security)
  • RE: Please! Confirm or deny.....
    ... I will also try to get a repair copy of SAM ... > make sure there is no corruption based upon a hard disk problem. ... > This problem may occur if the Active Directory directory service contains ... Windows Server 2003 cannot initialize the Security Accounts Manager ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)