• FSMO roles are unique within a single domain. two DCs from two different domains can have the same role. forest wide roles are completely unique across the whole forest
  • a DC holding an FSMO role is known as an Operations Master
    • once the operations master processes a change. the update is replicated to all other domain controllers in the forest or domain via SYSVOL Replication
  • there are 5 FSMO roles that are divided into two categories:
    • forest wide roles
    • domain wide roles

forest wide roles

Schema Master
  • updates the AD schema that defines the objects and their attributes
Domain Naming Master
  • manages the addition and removal of domains in the forest

domain wide roles

Relative ID (RID) Master
  • allocates pools of unique Security Identifiers (SID)s to DCs to generate SIDs for all objects
Primary Domain Controller (PDC) Emulator
  • just read the note :v
Infrastructure Master
  • makes sure multi domain object info is synced and upto date