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Windows Server 2012 Group Policies and Policy Management : Understanding Group Policy (part 3) - GPO Filtering, Group Policy Loopback Processing

7/5/2013 5:22:18 PM

11. Group Policy Order of Processing

GPOs can be linked at many different levels and in many Active Directory infrastructures; multiple GPOs are linked at the same OU or domain level. This is a common practice because this particular configuration follows a GPO best-practice recommendation.

Because GPOs are processed one at a time, the GPO links are processed in a particular order starting with GPOs inherited from parent containers followed by the order of policies that were linked to that container. The resulting impact of this processing order is that when multiple GPOs contain the same configured setting, the last GPO applied provides the resulting setting value. As an example of this, if two GPOs are linked at the domain level, named GPO1 and GPO2, and GPO1 has a configured setting of Remove Task Manager set to disabled and GPO2 has the same setting set to enabled, the end result is enabled for that setting.

To fully understand what the end resulting policy will be in a container that has multiple GPOs linked and inherited, you can run Group Policy Modeling from the Group Policy Management Console. Group Policy Modeling provides a report detailing which policies were applied, in which order the policies were applied, and the resulting policy settings. One easy way to understand this is to know that when looking at a particular Active Directory container in Group Policy Management Console, the group policy link order and the GPP order are processed from the highest number down. This means that the group policy that has a link order of 1 will always be processed last by objects within that container.

12. GPO Filtering

Applying GPOs can be tricky, and the design of the Active Directory forest, domains, sites, and OU hierarchy plays a major part in this. One of the most important considerations when designing the Active Directory OU hierarchy within a domain is to understand how the domain administrators plan to manage the domain computers and users with group policies. 

In many cases, even with the most careful planning of the Active Directory infrastructure, GPOs will be applied to computers/users that do not necessarily need the settings contained within that GPO. To better target which computer and user objects a particular GPO applies to, Microsoft has built in a few different mechanisms to help filter out or include only the necessary objects to ensure that only the desired computers or users actually apply the policy. The mechanisms that control or filter how a policy will be applied are as follows:

• GPO links

• GPO security filtering

• GPO Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) filtering

• GPO status for the Computer Configuration or User Configuration nodes

GPO Links

Group policy links are required to determine which sites, domains, or organization units the policy will apply to. When a new policy is created, before it can ever be used it must be linked. Before it is linked, though, the security filtering, status, and WMI filters should be configured to further segment policy application to more specific computer and user objects within the linked container hierarchy.

GPO Security Filtering

GPO security filtering is the group in Group Policy. Many administrators can get frustrated when having to explain the fact that Group Policy applies to computers and users but not to groups. In fact, the GPO security filtering is where administrators can define which users, computers, or members of security groups will actually apply the group policy.

By default, GPOs apply to the Authenticated Users security group, which includes all users and computers in the domain. The scope of GPO application is then segmented based on the location of the group policy links. It can be segmented even further by removing the Authenticated Users group from the GPO security filtering, as shown in Figure 5, and replacing it with specific computer accounts, user accounts, or security groups.

Image

Figure 5. Group Policy security filtering.

When the security filtering of a GPO is configured to apply to a custom security group, only the members of that group, whether users or computer objects, actually apply that particular policy. Last but not least, it is most important to always keep the group membership current; otherwise, the application of Group Policy might be incomplete or incorrect.

GPO WMI Filtering

GPO WMI filtering is a Group Policy concept introduced in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. A WMI filter is a query that is processed by computer objects only and can be used to include or exclude particular computer objects from applying a GPO that includes the WMI filter. An example of a WMI filter is a query that includes only computer objects with an OS version of 6.2*, which includes all Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 systems. Of course, it is important to state that WMI filters will not be processed by legacy Windows 2000 or older systems. The security filtering must also meet the criteria for the GPO to be processed. WMI filters work great when the Active Directory hierarchy is relatively flat, but maintaining computer group membership can be tedious. 

GPO Status

GPOs are applied to computer and user objects. Within a particular GPO, the settings available are segmented into two distinct nodes: the Computer Configuration node and the User Configuration node.

Configuring or changing the GPO status, shown in Figure 6, enables administrators to change the GPO as follows:

• Enabled (Default)

• User Configuration Settings Disabled

• Computer Configuration Settings Disabled

• All Settings Disabled

Image

Figure 6. Group Policy status

This function of a GPO can be a very effective tool in troubleshooting GPOs as well as optimizing GPO processing. For example, if a GPO only contains configured settings in the Computer Configuration node, if any user objects are located in containers linked to that particular GPO, the GPO will still be processed by the user to check for any configured settings. This simple check can add a few seconds to the entire GPO processing time for that user, and if many GPOs are processed, it could increase the logon, logoff, or refresh interval by minutes or more. As a troubleshooting tool, if a user or computer is not receiving the desired end result of a set of applied policies, disabling a node or the entire policy can aid an administrator in identifying the suspect GPO causing the undesired result.

13. Group Policy Loopback Processing

Group Policy loopback processing, shown in Figure 7, allows for the processing of both the Computer Configuration and User Configuration nodes within a policy even if the user object is not in the same container as the computer that the group policy is linked to. As an example, this function would be useful with a Remote Desktop Session Host server deployment where you want to apply computer configuration policies to configure the Remote Desktop server settings but you also want to control the user settings of any user who logs on to the server, regardless of where the actual user account is stored in Active Directory.

Image

Figure 7. GROUP Policy loopback processing.

There are two different loopback configurations: replace mode and merge mode. Merge mode applies the user-based policies that would normally apply to the user account as well as the user-based policies on the container that contains the computer account the user is logging on to. Replace mode processes only those user policies applied to the computer the user is logging on to.

14. Group Policy Slow-Link Detection and Network-Location Awareness

Group Policy uses several mechanisms to determine whether a policy should be processed. One of the mechanisms used by the Group Policy client computer is called slow-link detection. By default, network tests are performed between the client computer and the domain controller to determine the speed of the link between the systems. If the speed is determined to be less than 500Kbps, the Group Policy client does not process any policies. Slow-link detection default settings, along with the ability to disable slow-link detection, is configurable with each policy.

In earlier versions, Group Policy used Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) or ping to detect slow links. With Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and later OSs, Group Policy now uses the Windows Network Location Awareness service to determine network status. The slow-link detection settings are controlled within the Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy sections of the GPO. Starting with Windows Server 2012 policy templates, administrators can also configure links detected at 3G connections to be treated as slow links.

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