Central Services Domain

The Central Services domain (CNTRLSRVS) is a child domain that is managed by the Virginia Tech Computing Center and is available for all Virginia Tech affiliated departments. Child domains of the Virginia Tech Windows 2000 Active Directory normally must provide two computers to act as domain controllers, per the Child Domain Usage Requirements and its Addendum. These computers can serve no other purpose and provide no other services, such as file or print sharing, etc.

The intention of Central Services is to provide departments that lack such resources or the personnel to maintain their own child domain with a stable, secure environment in which accounts for user workstations may be created. Departments joining Central Services will receive the many inherent security benefits without paying the associated infrastructure costs.

Your computer accounts will reside in the Central Services domain in an Organizational Unit (OU) named after the department that owns the workstation. User accounts will continue to exist in the Hokies domain, so people who have workstations in Central Services will log on with their Hokies ID. The department will name two individuals to act as the administrators for the OU. The OU administrators will perform basic administrative functions, such as resetting passwords or joining workstations to the domain.

For more information about joining Central Services, please refer to the Guidelines for Participation and contact us at CentralServices@vt.edu.

Helpful Documents

General

• Guidelines for Participation

Managing Accounts

• Creating a User Account in Your Organizational Unit (OU) in Central Services
• Creating a New Group in Your Organizational Unit (OU) in Central Services
• Creating Computer Accounts in Your Organizational Unit (OU) in Central Services
• Adding Accounts to or Removing Accounts from Groups in Your Organizational Unit in Central Services
• Creating and Editing Group Policy Objects

Problems and Error Messages

• A domain controller for the domain cntrlservs.w2k.vt.edu could not be contacted. Error Message When Joining Central Services Domain
• Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Icon for Central Services Domain Does Not Work

Other Resources

• Hokies ID