Active Directory delegation

What is Active Directory delegation?

Active Directory (AD) delegation is the practice of selectively assigning permissions to users or groups, allowing them to perform common, high-volume AD management tasks like password resets, account unlocks, or group management. In large organizations, managing AD without delegation is impractical.

However, delegating using Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) is often risky and lacks transparency as permissions assigned in ADUC are difficult to track and revoke. A secure AD delegation tool ensures that administrative responsibilities are distributed efficiently while maintaining visibility and control. This is where ADManager Plus comes in, offering a centralized, auditable, and role-based delegation framework.

Why is AD delegation important?

A strategic delegation model is a cornerstone of modern IT security and efficiency.

• Enhanced security: It allows you to enforce the principle of least privilege, ensuring users and technicians have only the permissions necessary to perform their jobs, drastically reducing the attack surface.
• Increased IT efficiency: It frees senior IT administrators from routine, low-level tasks. This allows them to focus on high-value projects like infrastructure, security policy, and strategy.
• Improved productivity: It empowers help desk staff, HR personnel, and even team managers to resolve common issues instantly without contacting IT teams, reducing user downtime and long ticket queues.
• Clear auditing and compliance: When done correctly, delegation provides a clear trail of who performed what action and when. This is essential for meeting regulatory requirements like the GDPR, SOX, and HIPAA.

Understanding key delegation terms

To understand delegation, you need to know its building blocks:

• Security principal: Any object in AD that can be assigned permissions, such as a user account, group, or computer.
• Access control list (ACL): A table attached to every AD object that lists who has what permissions on that object.
• Access control entry (ACE): A single line item within an ACL is called an ACE. Each ACE specifies a permission for a specific security principal on a specific action.
• Permission inheritance: By default, permissions applied to a parent object flow down or inherit to all child objects. This is powerful but can be complex to troubleshoot.
• Effective permissions: The actual set of permissions a user has on an object. This is calculated by combining all permissions from their user account, all group memberships, and inheritance.
• Principle of least privilege: A foundational security concept stating that users should only be granted the absolute minimum permissions necessary to perform their jobs.
• Role-based access control: A model for managing permissions where you assign permissions to roles and then assign users to those roles. This is far more manageable than assigning permissions directly to individual users and helps implement the principle of least privilege.

How to delegate control in AD

You can delegate control using built-in tools like ADUC or PowerShell, but both have significant drawbacks.

Using the ADUC Delegation of Control Wizard

1. Launch ADUC and locate the target OU.
2. Right-click the OU you wish to delegate control over and click Delegate Control.
3. In the Delegation of Control Wizard, select the users or groups you want to delegate permissions to.
4. Click Next.
5. On the Tasks to Delegate screen, select from a list of common tasks or create a custom task for more granular control.
6. Specify the permissions that the users or groups will have.
7. Review the summary of changes and click Finish to apply the new ACEs to the OU's ACL.

Using PowerShell

1. Import the Active Directory PowerShell module.
2. Set variables for your target OU, the user or group getting the rights, and the specific rights you're granting.

   $OU_DN = "OU=Sales,DC=example,DC=com"

   $Principal = "EXAMPLE\HelpDesk"

3. Get the ACL of the target OU using the Get-Acl cmdlet.
4. Define the user or group that will receive the permissions.
5. Add this new rule to the ACL object and apply the newly modified ACL back to the OU using the Set-Acl cmdlet.

   $acl.AddAccessRule($ace)

   Set-Acl -Path "AD:$OU_DN" -AclObject $acl

For a detailed walk-through of how to delegate control using ADUC and PowerShell, refer to this article.

Secure and auditable AD delegation

ADManager Plus, an AD delegation tool, empowers administrators to securely delegate AD tasks to help desk technicians without compromising on security. With ADManager Plus, admins can:

• Granularly delegate tasks without elevating AD permissions.
• Create custom help desk roles based on tasks.
• Audit and report on every single action performed by the technicians.

Non-invasive help desk delegation  

Traditional ADUC-based delegation modifies ACLs, which can expose the AD environment to misconfigurations and security gaps. ADManager Plus offers non-invasive delegation, which means permissions are controlled within the tool and not directly in AD, ensuring that your AD environment remains secure and unchanged.

Role-based delegation  

Easily create help desk roles tailored to your organization's structure. You can build roles from the ground up with only those permissions required to complete an AD task. For example, you can create a password reset role that allows technicians only to reset passwords and not create or delete a user.

Secure and granular delegation  

ADManager Plus supports secure and granular delegation, enabling administrators to define exactly which OUs, groups, or users a technician can manage and report on. From resetting passwords in a specific OU to modifying only contact attributes, every action can be fine-tuned.

Audit logs  

Every delegated action is logged and can be viewed using audit reports. Track who performed what action, when, and on which object to maintain complete visibility and compliance. These reports also help organizations meet IT audit and regulatory requirements such as the GDPR, SOX, and HIPAA.

Approval workflows  

Ensure delegated tasks are executed only after proper review with approval workflows. ADManager Plus allows you to enforce a multi-level approval workflow for any task to ensure accountability and optimize task execution. Build simple, single-step approvals or complex, multi-stage workflows to match your business processes, adding a critical layer of control.

Flexible delegation models to meet your delegation needs

ADManager Plus offers multiple ways to define the scope of your delegation, ensuring it can map perfectly to your organization's hierarchy.

OU-based delegation model

Assign help desk technicians to manage and report on specific OUs and empower them to manage only the users, computers, and groups belonging to the assigned OU and not rest of the company's AD structure.

Group-based delegation

Group-based delegation in ADManager Plus enables bulk delegation and ensures that anybody who is a member of a particular AD group inherits the assigned roles and their permissions. For example, you can create a role that allows managers to view their direct reports' details and assign it to the Managers group.

Site-based delegation

For large organizations with multiple physical locations, you can delegate tasks based on AD sites. This allows a site-specific technician to manage all users and computers associated with their particular location, streamlining administration for geographically dispersed teams.

How to develop a delegation model

You can create a secure, custom help desk role and assign it to a technician in ADManager Plus in just a few simple steps.

1. Create a help desk role

   Define the specific AD tasks this role can perform from a comprehensive list. Within ADManager Plus, you can build this role by selecting only the specific tasks needed, such as Reset Password and Unlock Account, while explicitly excluding high-risk actions like Delete User. This granular approach is the foundation for enforcing the principle of least privilege.

2. Assign role to technicians

   Once roles are defined, you assign them to the appropriate technicians. This links a specific user a security group to the permission set you just created. A key security benefit of this model is that the technicians themselves remain standard domain users in Active Directory. Their elevated permissions exist only within ADManager Plus, not in native AD, which prevents security gaps.

3. Define scope

   Choose the OUs over which the technician can perform the delegated task. Granting a role isn't enough; you must also define on which OU that role can be used. This ensures that the help desk technician assigned to one OU cannot see or modify users in the other OUs.

AD delegation best practices

Follow these best practices to keep your environment secure and manageable:

• Embrace the principle of least privilege: Always grant the minimum level of permission required for a user to do their job.
• Delegate to groups, not individual users: Always assign permissions to a security group as this is infinitely easier to manage than tracking permissions on individual user accounts.
• Organize OUs for delegation: Structure your OUs based on your delegation needs, not just your company's organization chart.
• Avoid Deny permissions: Using Deny ACEs can create unpredictable results and make troubleshooting a nightmare. A well-designed model built on Allow permissions is always superior.
• Regularly audit permissions: Periodically review who has what permissions using certification campaigns.

AD delegation: Native AD tools vs. ADManager Plus

Commonly delegated tasks in AD

ADManager Plus gives you granular control over the most common and critical IT tasks.

1. User management
   • Password resets
   • Account unlocks
   • User modification
   • Enabling and disabling users
   • User creation
   • Moving users between OUs
2. Group management
   • Group membership management
   • Group creation and deletion
3. Computer management
   • Enabling and disabling computer accounts
4. Microsoft 365 management
   • Mailbox creation
   • Distribution list management
   • License management

Use cases

Use case 1: OU-based delegation for regional IT teams

A multinational company has separate OUs in AD for each region—Asia, Europe, and North America. Each region has its own IT team responsible for managing users and groups within its area. However, granting global admin rights to all regional admins poses security and management challenges. Using ADManager Plus, global administrators can create custom roles and assign specific OUs to regional technicians. For instance, the Asia IT team can manage users, groups, and computers only within the Asia OU.

Use case 2: Delegating Microsoft 365 user management tasks to HR teams in a hybrid AD environment

The HR department often needs to create or update user accounts when employees join, leave, or change roles across AD and Microsoft 365. Traditionally, this requires coordination with the IT team, leading to delays in account provisioning and deprovisioning. Using ADManager Plus, administrators can delegate user creation in Microsoft 365 to the HR team without actually granting Microsoft 365 rights.

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