Object Names and Identities

An object in Active Directory Domain Services has several identities, including the following :

  • Relative Distinguished name : An RDN is the relative portion of a distinguished name (DN), which uniquely identifies an LDAP object.

  • Distinguished name: Every Active Directory (AD) object has a distinguished name (DN—e.g., CN=John Savill,CN=Users,DC=SavillTech,DC=Com) that uniquely identifies the object and its position in AD. The system also creates a relative distinguished name (RDN), which is a name relative to the container (e.g., CN=John Savill for the user).

  • Object GUID: globally unique identifier assigned by AD DS when the object instance is created (128 bit number guaranteed to be unique in space and time)

More info can be found here :

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