Active Directory Discovery Methods

You can configure the three types of Active Directory Discovery in the Active Directory System Discovery, Active Directory User Discovery, and Active Directory System Group Discovery Properties dialog boxes in the Discovery Methods item in the SMS Administrator console.

You must specify at least one Active Directory container for the Active Directory Discovery method you enable. You specify the schedule for discovery to run on the Polling Schedule tab. The schedule that you create specifies when the Active Directory discovery method polls the closest Active Directory resource to discover systems, users, or system groups in the container that you specify. If you do not select Run discovery as soon as possible on the Polling Schedule tab for each discovery method, no resources are discovered until the next scheduled discovery.

After you specify which Active Directory containers to scan, you specify whether to scan recursively. Recursive scanning finds objects that are stored in the Active Directory containers that you specify, and it finds any subcontainers. By default, all containers are scanned recursively. You can toggle the recursive scanning of containers by selecting the container and then clicking the Recursive button.

If you want to ensure that the Active Directory discovery methods use a particular domain controller, specify the Active Directory container by using a query with the following syntax:

LDAP://<server>/DC=<domain>,DC=<third tier DNS name>,DC=<second tier DNS name>,
DC=<first tier DNS name>

If you want to ensure that the Active Directory discovery methods use the Active Directory global catalog, specify the Active Directory container by using a query with the following syntax:

GC://DC=<domain>,DC=<third tier DNS name>,DC=<second tier DNS name>,
DC=<first tier DNS name>

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