21.1 FSMO Roles and Limitations

FSMO roles also known as Operations Master are roles performed by the domain controller to facilitate replication.

In a forest, there are five FSMO roles that are assigned to one or more domain controllers. By default the first domain controller in the domain holds all the roles. The five FSMO roles are as follows:

  • RID Master

  • PDC Emulator Master

  • Infrastructure Master

  • Schema Master

  • Domain Master

21.1.1 RID Master

The RID master is responsible for processing RID pool requests from all domain controllers in a particular domain

Limitations

We support this role completely and there are no known limitations.

21.1.2 PDC Emulator Master

The PDC emulator is a domain controller that advertises itself as the first domain controller to workstations, member servers, and domain controllers

In DSfW the PDC Emulator supports only the following functionality:

By default the editing or creation of Group Policy Objects (GPO) is always done from the GPO copy located in the PDC Emulator's SYSVOL share.

Limitations

All the other features of PDC Emulator are not supported.

21.1.3 Infrastructure Master

The infrastructure is responsible for updating references from objects in its domain to objects in other domains.

Limitations

This role is not defined in DSfW but all the functionalities provided by this role are supported.

21.1.4 Schema Master

The schema master domain controller controls all updates and modifications to the schema.

Limitations

This role is not defined in DSfW but all the functions provided by this role are supported.

21.1.5 Domain Master

The domain naming master domain controller controls the addition or removal of domains in the forest. There can be only one domain naming master in the whole forest.

Limitations

This role is not defined in DSfW but all the functions provided by this role are supported.