Understand and Troubleshoot IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server "8" Beta

Understanding and Troubleshooting GuideDRAFT V5.0

Windows Server "8" Beta Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide: IPAM

DRAFT V5.0Understand and Troubleshoot IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server "8" Beta

Understand and Troubleshoot IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server "8" Beta

Microsoft Corporation

Published: February 2012

Abstract

This Understand and Troubleshoot Guide (UTG) enables you to learn technical concepts, functionality, and troubleshooting methods for IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server “8” Beta. This UTG provides you with:

· A technical overview and functional description of this feature.

· Technical concepts to help you successfully install, configure, and manage this feature.

· User Interface options and settings for configuration and management.

· Relevant architecture of this feature, with dependencies, and technical implementation.

· Primary troubleshooting tools and methods for this feature.

Copyright information

This document is provided “as-is”. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice.

Some examples depicted herein are provided for illustration only and are fictitious.  No real association or connection is intended or should be inferred.

This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes.

© 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved.

Active Directory, Hyper-V, Microsoft, MS-DOS, Visual Basic, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows NT, Windows Server, and Windows Vista are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Table of ContentsWindows Server "8" Beta Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide: IPAM1About The Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide1Introducing IPAM1What Is IPAM?1Purpose/Benefits2Functional Overview3Technical Overview23Installing and Provisioning IPAM30Deployment Considerations30Installation Process – IPAM Server31Installation Process – IPAM Client35IPAM Provisioning36Configuring and Managing IPAM43IPAM Initial Setup43Address Space Management51Troubleshooting IPAM81Troubleshooting tools81Common IPAM problems81Appendix82Manual IPAM Provisioning – Configuring Access Settings82GPO Based IPAM Provisioning – GPO Setting Details90

Windows Server "8" Beta Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide: IPAMAbout The Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide

Understanding and Troubleshooting Guides enable you to learn about technical concepts, functionality, and general troubleshooting methods for new Windows features and enhancements. The Understanding and Troubleshooting Guide supports you in developing understanding of key technical concepts, architecture, functionality, and troubleshooting tools and techniques. This understanding will enable more successful testing and early adoption experiences during the pre-release product evaluation phase, and will support early ramp-up of help desk and technical support roles.

Introducing IPAM

Internet Protocol (IP) Address Management, which is a critical part of network administration, has become increasingly challenging, as networks grow more dynamic and complex. The need for centralized administration of addresses is increasing dramatically over time as mobile computing, virtualization, and IP devices continue to consume more IP addresses. The need for management tools has also increased with deployment and adoption of new Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) networks, which have much larger address pools, and a more complex 128-bit hexadecimal notation as compared with 32-bit dotted decimal Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses. The length and complexity of IPv6 addresses makes continued tracking of them in a spreadsheet impractical.

Currently, third party vendors offer various software-based or appliance-bundled management solution options in this space. However, the upfront overhead of procurement, deployment and integration of such solutions remains a deterrent in their adoption. Most IT administrators still typically track IP address allocation and utilization manually, using spreadsheets or custom database applications. This can be very time consuming and resource intensive, and is inherently prone to user error. Windows Server "8" Beta introduces a new feature to meet the IP addressing and naming infrastructure management needs of network and server administrators.

What Is IPAM?

Internet Protocol Address Management (IPAM) is a framework for discovering, utilization monitoring, auditing, and managing the Internet Protocol (IP) address space in a network. IPAM encompasses the administration and monitoring of Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and monitoring of Domain Name Service (DNS), which are the services that assign and resolve IP addresses to devices in a TCP/IP network. IPAM in Windows Server "8" Beta provides components for planning and allocating IP address space, static IP inventory management, audit of configuration changes, monitoring and management of Microsoft DHCP servers, monitoring of Microsoft DNS servers and DNS zones, and IP address usage tracking and customized visualization.

Purpose/Benefits

The Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM feature provides a unified framework meet the following administrative requirements of addressing and naming infrastructure for network and server administration from a central console. IPAM provides the following benefits:

· IPv4 and IPv6 address space planning and allocation

· IP address space utilization statistics and trend monitoring

· Static IP inventory management, lifetime management and DHCP and DNS record creation and deletion

· Flexible support for import of address space from spreadsheets and management tools

· Periodic update support of address space from systems such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and third party DHCP servers

· Multi entity management and monitoring of DHCP services and DHCP scopes

· Configuration change event auditing for DHCP and IPAM services

· Service and zone monitoring of DNS services

· IP address lease and logon event tracking

· Automatic server role discovery, through Active Directory integration

· Automatic server configuration data collection and dynamic address space discovery

· Granular distribution of data collection tasks with configurable periodicity

· Agentless management of roles with Group Policy Object (GPO) based automated deployment

· Extensive support for user-defined and built-in custom fields or tags

· Organizing and visualizing of data into user-defined hierarchical logical groups

· Advanced search and filter support

· Reporting support through UI view and Windows PowerShell export functionality

· Role based access control

· Remote administration support through Server Manager RSAT from both Windows Server "8" Beta and Windows 8 Consumer Preview client builds

· Support for concurrent client sessions

· Built-in relational database support leveraging Windows Internal Database (WID)

· Support for backup, restore, and migration scenarios

Functional OverviewPrerequisites

Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM is an integrated suite of IP addressing and naming solutions aimed at helping network and system administrators to manage IP infrastructures across the enterprise. IPAM scope selection across the managed server nodes is limited to a single Active Directory (AD) forest, with appropriate trust relationship between the domains.

The IPAM server must be domain joined, and is reliant on a prerequisite functional network infrastructure environment, including IPv4 and IPv6 network connectivity, in order to integrate with existing DHCP, DNS, DC, and NPS installations across the AD forest.

Install the IPAM feature on an Active Directory domain member server intended as a single-purpose server, and do not attempt to collocate other network infrastructure roles such as DNS or DHCP on the same server. IPAM installation and provisioning is not supported on a domain controller.

IPAM users must be logged in using a domain account with appropriate privileges.

The following are requirements for successful IPAM deployment.

· Ensure that the IPAM server is domain-joined.

· Ensure that you have network connectivity. Enabling both IPv4 and IPv6 is recommended. Discovering IPv6 address space and infrastructure will not be supported unless IPv6 connectivity is enabled.

· Ensure that you log on to the IPAM server using a domain account. Do not log on to the IPAM server using the local Administrator or a local user account.

· Ensure that you are a member of appropriate IPAM local security group (See the IPAM Local Security Groups section of this guide) or if you are running as a member of the local Administrators group then you must run elevated.

· If you are accessing the IPAM server remotely using Server Manager IPAM client RSAT, then you must be a member of the WinRMRemoteWMIUsers group on the IPAM server, in addition to being a member of the appropriate IPAM security group (or local Administrators group).

· Configure network settings on the IPAM server so that it has access to at least one authoritative domain controller for server discovery. Ensure that you have network connectivity to all the server roles (DHCP, DNS, DC and NPS) that you intend to manage through this IPAM instance.

· For best performance, do not install any other server roles on the IPAM server.

· IPAM installation and provisioning on a DC is not supported

· IPAM installation on a DHCP server is not recommended. The IPAM server discovery feature will not be able to discover DHCP roles if IPAM is running on a DHCP server.

· Ensure that logging of account logon events is enabled on DC and NPS servers for the IP Address Tracking feature of IPAM

· Recommended server system requirements are as follows:

· CPU - Dual Core Processor, 2.0 GHz or higher speed

· OS – Windows Server "8" Beta

· RAM – 4 GB or more

· Hard Drive – 80 GB or more

· Ensure that network firewall ports and access settings are provisioned to enable IPAM’s access to workloads (DC, DNS, DHCP and NPS) across the managed roles in the AD forest. For more information on IPAM provisioning and provisioning methods refer to the Deployment Considerations section of this guide.

· If using Group Policy based provisioning, ensure that the users marking servers as managed/unmanaged in IPAM server inventory console either have domain administrator privileges or have delegated rights to edit GPO security filter lists. For more information on GPO delegation, refer to the Group Policy Based Provisioning section of this guide.

· Ensure that data replication to all AD global catalog servers is functioning properly at regular intervals. Stale global catalog data can cause problems with discovery of servers.

Functional Description

Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM consists of five primary modules, which provide the management functionality. These modules include the following:

· Server inventory management

· IP address space management

· Management and Monitoring of DHCP and DNS

· Event Catalog

· IP address tracking

Server Inventory Management

IPAM leverages Active Directory deployment to define the scope of the IP infrastructure elements to be centrally managed via the IPAM console. IPAM auto-discovers the configured server roles from the configured domains and allows you to centrally manage and configure the servers. Discovery of DHCP prepares the environment to perform management and utilization tracking of dynamic address space, multi-entity management for DHCP servers and scopes, service monitoring of DHCP servers, audit of configuration changes to DHCP servers and IP address usage tracking by collecting lease events from DHCP. Discovery of DNS roles enables DNS zone monitoring and DNS service monitoring. Discovery of DC and NPS servers is done to support the auditing of IP address usage with associated user logon events.

The server discovery component in Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM leverages your Active Directory (AD) deployment to discover network infrastructure servers. IPAM facilitates configuring the scope of server discovery by allowing you to select domains in the AD forest through its ‘Configure Server Discovery’ dialog. Discovery allows you to enumerate Microsoft Windows DNS, DHCP and DC server role types that are available in either the entire AD forest or a specified subset of domains within the forest. You can also manually add or delete specific servers (Microsoft Windows DNS, DHCP, DC and NPS servers) to define a custom scope of administrative control.

The IPAM server discovery and inventory feature also allows you to track granular IPAM access status on servers. IPAM server inventory management also plays an important role in managing the security filter list of IPAM GPOs, which are updated according to the manageability status of the infrastructure servers in server inventory. The GPO updating functionality is valid only if the Group Policy Based provisioning method has been selected for IPAM. IPAM also tracks the status of data retrieval on managed servers.

Note:

IPAM can be used to discover and manage servers running Windows Server 2008 and above.

An overview of the IPAM server inventory functions is provided below:

· Configure scope of Server Discovery by selecting domains and server roles within each domain to be discovered within Active Directory forest.

· IPAM uses the following rules during server discovery on configured domains for selected roles:

· All domain controllers registered for the configured domains are discovered

· All DNS servers registered as name servers for the domain zone and DNS suffixes registered for the configured domains are discovered

· All DHCP servers authorized for the configured domains that respond to the DHCP server INFORM message are discovered. This feature allows IPAM to intelligently discard any inactive DHCP servers that are listed as authorized in AD.

· Add-Remove-Edit servers (and server roles) manually outside of the auto-discovery process

· Automated discovery of infrastructure servers and their configuration such as server roles, OS version, IPv4 and IPv6 interface address, domain name, DNS suffix, GUID, active roles

· Periodic and on-demand refresh of server information across configured scope of discovery

· Disjointed name space support. Separate fields showing the server’s DNS suffix and domain name are maintained by IPAM.

· Classify server manageability status as:

· Managed – IPAM periodic tasks will collect data from the active (checked) roles on these servers. Inactive (unchecked) roles on these servers are ignored.

· Unmanaged - IPAM periodic tasks will not collect data from these servers. IPAM deletes all existing information pertaining to these servers from its database.

· Unspecified - IPAM periodic tasks will not collect data from these servers. However, IPAM retains all existing information pertaining to these servers in its database. Set a server status as Unspecified in scenarios where the server is offline temporarily, during temporary maintenance cycles for example.

· Granular control to configure individual server roles as active or inactive on a server

· Automatic organization of server inventory view into hierarchical view based on interface address and manageability status of the server:

· Level 1 – IPv4 and IPv6 (based on interface address)

· Level 2 - Managed and Unmanaged

· Level 3 – IP Subnet (/16 for IPv4 and /48 for IPv6 based on primary interface address)

· Edit owner and description for servers, and add user-defined or built-in custom fields/tags to servers

· Built-in tracking of server data retrieval status such as In progress, Complete, Not started

· Automatic IPAM access status tracking on servers. IPAM collects granular access status from the servers listed in the server inventory as Allowed or Blocked. IPAM rolls up these sub-statuses into overall IPAM access status. The recommended action field indicates the required action for managed, unmanaged, unspecified servers as appropriate.

· Integrated group policy provisioning mode support with automatic synchronization of the IPAM GPO security filter list with the server inventory configuration. IPAM expects the user to have appropriate GPO edit privileges while performing these operations for the automatic GPO synchronization to be successful.

Note:

Auto-discovery of the NPS server role is not supported. These servers can be added using the Add Server functionality

Note:

Removing a configured domain from Server Discovery scope does not automatically delete the servers that are already discovered from that domain. If required, the corresponding servers belonging to this domain can be manually deleted from the server inventory view.

IP Address Space Management

IP address space management provides administrators with the ability to manage, track, audit, and report on the IPv4 and IPv6 address space of the enterprise or datacenter. A primary consumer of public Internet-routable IPv4 addresses is cloud-based hosted service providers. These public IPv4 addresses are allocated and assigned by Regional Internet Registries (RIR) in response to requests from the organization, and are in critically short supply. Monitoring the utilization and trends for these RIR blocks is of prime importance. Hosted service providers need to associate specific IP address subnets or blocks of addresses to specific customers, development communities, or business divisions by customized logical grouping.

Enterprises with public-facing datacenter entry points need to manage multiple statically assigned public IP addresses and subnets. Administrators of these networks require utilization data to perform actions around address space management. These actions include finding free IP addresses, tracking address state, tracking the address lifetime, synchronizing DNS and DHCP records/reservations, balancing the address usage for optimal utilization of the available subnets, preparing the subnets for new or changing network requirements, and reclaiming addresses previously assigned but no longer deployed in the production environment.

The IP address space console of IPAM provides administrators with IP address utilization statistics and historical trend data to make informed planning decisions for dynamic, static and virtual address spaces. IPAM periodic tasks automatically discover the dynamic address space and utilization data as configured on the DHCP servers managed in IPAM. Leverage the powerful import functionality of IPAM IP address space management to bring static and virtual address spaces under IPAM central management.

The IPAM Address Space Management (ASM) console provides the ability to efficiently monitor various dimensions of the managed IP address space, including method of assignment (static or dynamic), address scope (public or private), and IP version (IPv4 or IPv6). Using IPAM ASM, you can track IP address utilization, receive threshold-crossing status from the console and events, or zoom in and out to display utilization trends. The IPAM ASM tools address the end-to-end IP lifecycle management problem for the static IP address space in a growing distributed environment by ensuring better planning, accountability, and control. It further facilitates centralized management and monitoring of address space using periodic import and update functionality to bring in virtual address spaces managed through systems like System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) or any third party DHCP servers and virtual machine (VM) managers.

For efficient network resource planning, administrators need to be able to visualize IP address attributes in logical groupings. The utilization monitoring views in IPAM allow you to view the enterprise address space in more meaningful logical correlation based on specific needs. Some examples of logical group views are delineation by divisions of the organization, geographical regions, Regional Internet Registries, offices located across geographical regions, and categories assigned to customers based on business profiles. Grouping of addresses by attributes provides meaningful perspective to utilization monitoring.

Address Space Entities

The various entities recognized by IPAM address space function are defined below:

· IP addresses: are the leaf level entity under IP address ranges. IPAM enables end-to-end life cycle management of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, including record synchronization with DHCP and DNS servers. IPAM automatically maps an address to the appropriate range based on the start and end address of the range. An IP address is uniquely identifiable by the value of mandatory Managed By Service and Service Instance fields, that help IPAM to manage and maintain duplicate IP addresses from the same console. These two fields are also used (and should identically match) while mapping the IP address to the IP address range.

· IP address ranges: are the next hierarchical level of IP address space entities after IP address blocks. An IP range is conceptually an IP subnet marked by a start and end IP address, and is typically a DHCP scope or a static IPv4 or IPv6 address range or address pool used to assign addresses to hosts. IPAM enables you to centralize address ranges that may span across many heterogeneous systems, such as across multiple DHCP servers, VM managers, or legacy spreadsheets using IPAM import functionality through UI or Windows PowerShell. An IP address range is uniquely identifiable by the value of the mandatory Managed By Service and Service Instance fields, which help IPAM to manage and maintain overlapping or duplicate IP address ranges from the same console. Only one of multiple overlapping IP address ranges get mapped to the IP address block. IPAM allows you to map any unmapped overlapping range to the corresponding IP address block using the Map to Block action. The currently mapped range will be unmapped because of this action.

· IP address blocks: are the highest-level entities of IP address space organization. An IP block is conceptually an IP subnet marked by a start and end IP address, and is typically assigned by various Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to an organization. Network administrators maintain the IP address block to carve out and allocate IP address ranges to address allocation systems like DHCP. IPAM automatically arranges IPv4 address blocks into public and private address space and IPv6 addresses into unicast global addresses. IP address blocks can be added, imported, edited, and deleted. If the start and end IP address of a block lies within the start and end IP address of another block, it is automatically arranged as a nested sub-block. IPAM automatically maps IP address ranges to the appropriate IP address block based on the boundaries of the range. This enables a hierarchically organized view of the IP address ranges and a multi-level hierarchy of IP address blocks. IPAM rolls up utilization statistics and trends at the IP address block or IP address sub-block level based on the ranges that are contained in the block.

Figure 1 IP Address, Block, and Range Entities

Custom Fields and Logical Groups

IPAM supports user defined extensible metadata that can be associated to IP address ranges, IP addresses, and servers. You can create metadata with multiple value types such as Country/Region or single value types, such as Building. IPAM supports multiple built-in custom fields with built-in values, which you can further enhance to add new user-defined values. Similarly, you can add new user-defined custom fields that can either be free-format or enumerations (multi-value fields). User-defined, multi-value custom fields allow you to defined associated value tags against them.

While you can delete or edit user-defined custom fields and values, you cannot edit or delete built-in custom fields and values. You cannot delete any particular custom field or value while it is assigned to any entity within the IPAM database.

IPAM allows you to define the logical grouping of entities, and visualize utilization of address space based on these groups. Custom field and value tagging is supported for the following entities in IPAM:

· IP Address

· IP Address Range

· Server

You can use custom field tagging for multi-valued custom fields for defining logical groups. Logical groups enable you to visualize IP address ranges in a real-life business perspective rather than a conventional hierarchy of IP subnets. You can customize these logical groups and they can be hierarchical. Logical groups are defined by selecting the grouping criteria from built-in or user-defined custom fields. IPAM supports multi-level hierarchy when defining a logical group for IP address ranges. Similar custom logical groups can be created to group IP addresses and managed servers. Entities that do not map to the first level criteria defined for the logical group are displayed under the unmapped space in the group.

IPAM also rolls up utilization statistics and trends at the logical group level for IP address ranges. Logical groups defined for IP address ranges are known as IP range groups. IPAM supports simultaneous creation of multiple IP range groups based on different criteria. By default, IPAM creates the built-in IP range group called Managed By, which groups IP address range by the two-tier hierarchy of Managed by Service field followed by Service Instance field. Built-in logical groups cannot be deleted, but the grouping criteria can be edited.

IPAM supports only one logical group for IP addresses known as IP address inventory, which is created by default. This built-in IP address logical group groups IP addresses by a single hierarchy of device type field. Built-in logical groups cannot be deleted, but the grouping criteria can be edited.

Utilization Monitoring

· Utilization data maintained for IP address ranges, IP address blocks and IP range groups within IPAM

· User-configurable thresholds for percentage utilized field, used to mark entities as over-utilized (above the configured threshold), under-utilized (below the configured threshold) and optimally utilized (between over and under the utilization thresholds).

· Visualization of utilization state of IP address range, IP address block and IP range group from the console:

· Over - Percentage utilized falls above configured over-utilized threshold

· Under - Percentage utilized falls below configured under-utilized threshold

· Optimal - Percentage utilized falls within configured over-utilized and under-utilized threshold

· Utilization threshold crossing events are logged by IPAM whenever an IP address range changes its utilization state.

· Utilization trend building and reporting for IPv4 address ranges, IPv4 address blocks and IPv4 range groups.

· Capability to zoom in and out of utilization trend window. While you may select from standard trend periods of 1 day, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years, Custom start and end date configuration for viewing the utilization trend is also supported.

· Auto-discovery of dynamic IP address ranges and utilization data from DHCP scopes configured on the managed Microsoft DHCP servers.

· The utilization calculation for utilized addresses be set to –

· Automatic – Auto-calculation based on the IP addresses within IPAM database that map to the IP range

· User defined – Configured by the user agnostic of the IP addresses that map/do-not-map to the IP range.

· Utilization statistics for an IP address range is available as following counters:

· Assigned addresses – The number of addresses between start IP address and end IP Address of the block

· Utilized addresses – The summation of assigned addresses counter of IP address ranges that map to this block

· Percentage utilized – Utilized addresses as a percentage of assigned addresses

· Two additional utilization counters are supported for dynamic IPv6 address ranges discovered from Microsoft DHCP servers. Together these counters add up to the total number of utilized addresses for this range:

· DHCP stateless addresses – Number of stateless address leases serviced by the Microsoft DHCP range

· DHCP stateful addresses – Number of stateful address leases serviced by the Microsoft DHCP range

· Utilization trend for an IPv4 address range is plotted for following line graphs:

· Percentage assigned (always 100%)

· Percentage utilized

· Utilization statistics for an IP address block is available as following counters:

· Total addresses – The number of addresses between start IP address and end IP address of the block

· Assigned addresses – The summation of assigned addresses counters of IP address ranges that map to this block

· Utilized addresses – The summation of ‘Utilized addresses’ counters of IP address ranges that map to this block

· Percentage assigned – Assigned addresses as a percentage of total addresses

· Percentage utilized – Utilized addresses as a percentage of total addresses

· Utilization trend for an IPv4 address block is plotted for following line graphs:

· Percentage total (always 100%)

· Percentage assigned

· Percentage utilized

· Utilization statistics for an IP range group is available as following counters:

· Assigned addresses – The summation of assigned addresses counters of IP address ranges that map to this group

· Utilized addresses – The summation of utilized addresses counters of IP address ranges that map to this group

· Percentage utilized – Utilized addresses as a percentage of assigned addresses

· Utilization trend for an IPv4 range group is plotted for following line graphs:

· Percentage assigned (always 100%)

· Percentage utilized

IP address management features

· Multiple consoles/views for organizing and visualizing address space to facilitate address space monitoring, reporting and utilization data roll up.

· Auto-discovery of DHCP scopes and scope utilization information. Auto-discovered DHCP scopes appear as IP address ranges with Managed by Service set as MS DHCP and Service Instance set as the name of DHCP server

· Support for identifying and managing overlapping address spaces from a single console. Overlaps and duplicates are identified and displayed in the UI

· IPAM allows you to uniquely identify IP address ranges and IP addresses using the Managed By Service and Service Instance fields that augment the key fields for these entities. For example, all ranges discovered from managed DHCP servers are marked to be Managed By Service set as MS DHCP and Service Instance set as the name of the DHCP server.

· IP address blocks allow easy Auto discovery of DHCP scope and utilization information from managed MS DHCP servers and visualizing them as IP address ranges

· Plan and allocate address space by carving out multi-level hierarchy of IP address blocks. Visualize rolled up utilization trends and statistics for IP address blocks

· Arrange address space into multi-level hierarchy of real-world custom group view. Visualize rolled up utilization trends and statistics for group nodes.

· Customizable inventory view for IP addresses

· Support for detecting and visualizing stateless IPv6 address utilization information

· Add/Edit/Delete IP Addresses, IP address range and IP address blocks

· Detect and manage conflicts, overlaps, duplicates in address space across systems. Map desired overlapping IP address range to the IP address block.

· Use intuitive interface for import of address, range and block from spreadsheets and databases

· Find and allocate an available IP Address from a dynamic or static IP address range:

· For Microsoft DHCP ranges, IPAM queries the corresponding DHCP server in real-time to finding an available IP address. The logged in user must have at least DHCP Users privileges on the DHCP server to complete this action. If the IP address found is already reserved/allocated in the IPAM database, IPAM discards it and goes on to find another available IP address.

· For any other range, IPAM queries the local IPAM database to find an available IP address.

· Further validation of free IP address using ping – expect no reply, and DNS lookup – expect no record found. Anomalies to the expected result are called out so that appropriate action can be taken to synchronize the IPAM IP address inventory with the DNS records and servers active on the network.

· Allocate the free IP Address and maintain its state as active/inactive/reserved or any other custom state value. Tag the assignment type of IP address as static/dynamic/VIP/auto.

· Configure appropriate assignment date for the IP address

· Assign and track IP address lifetime by assigning an expiry date to the IP address. By default, the expiry date is not set and the address is assumed to be valid indefinitely.

· Visualize addresses as – not expired, expiry due, expired based on the configured expiry date for the address and the system-wide configurable threshold for expiry log settings. The IP address transitions to expiry due state ‘x’ days before the configured expiry date, where ‘x’ is the expiry alert threshold.

· Receive alerts on changing the expiry status of address is a configurable setting to receive expiry alerts periodic or only on state changes.

· Manage all DHCP reservations from a central console. Create/delete DHCP reservations for IP addresses

· Manage all DNS records from a central console. Create/delete DNS A/AAAA records for IP addresses. Create/delete DNS PTR records for IP addresses

· Build upon import and update functionality of IPAM to populate the IP Address inventory view leveraging IPAM Windows PowerShell

· Periodically import and update the IP address inventory from third party systems like SCVMM or other virtual address management systems

· Periodically import and update the IP address inventory from DHCP reservations on Microsoft DHCP or third party DHCP servers

· Periodically import and update the IP address inventory from DNS records on Microsoft DHCP or third party DNS servers

· Detect duplicate IP addresses. IPAM allows creation and management of duplicate IP addresses (assuming your internal network has valid scenarios around maintaining duplicate IPs)

· Automatically map IP addresses to the corresponding IP range

· Tag basic and custom configuration fields against IP addresses

· Reclaim IP addresses from selected IP address ranges using the reclaim wizard

Address Space Data Import

IPAM supports flexible schema for importing IP address, IP address range and IP address block entries from a comma separated value (csv) file. The field names list in the header of the csv file should match the IPAM field names corresponding to the entity being imported. You can add new fields into IPAM using the custom field support. Column names can be ordered in any way in the csv file.

IPAM supports the following two types of import –

· Regular import operation for IP addresses, IP address ranges and IP address blocks – new records are added and existing records are edited during this operation. This Windows PowerShell cmdlet imports IP address range objects from the specified csv file into the IPAM server. IPAM does not support import of IP address ranges whose Managed By Service value is MS DHCP since this is reserved for DHCP scopes automatically discovered by IPAM from the managed Microsoft DHCP servers.

· Import and update operation for IP addresses belonging to the specified IP range – Along with adding new addresses and editing existing addresses as in the case of regular IP address import, this operation deletes those addresses from IPAM which map to the specified IP address range, but are not present in the csv being imported. A typical scenario for this operation can be to periodically import and synchronize DHCP lease or DNS record information from servers into IPAM.

· Import and update operation for IP address ranges belonging to the specified Managed By Service and Service Instance values – Along with adding new ranges and editing existing ranges as in the case of regular IP address range import, this operation deletes those ranges from IPAM which have the same value of Managed By Service and Service Instance fields but are not present in the csv being imported. IPAM provides you the option of deleting the IP addresses mapping to the IP address ranges that are deleted during this import operation. A typical scenario for this operation can be to periodically import and synchronize IP pool or DHCP scope information from systems like SCVMM and third party DHCP servers.

The UI import-export supports localized format while the Windows PowerShell import-export supports fixed English format for the csv field names and values. Interoperability between both formats is supported. The general rules for Windows PowerShell import-export fixed schema is as follows:

1. Field names will be the same as English localized resource names of the corresponding entries in IPAM. However, blank spaces in the field name will be omitted to comply with the Windows PowerShell object header name convention. IP address import in fixed format is identified by the presence of the mandatory field IPAddress in the csv file. Similarly, IP address range import in fixed format is identified by the presence of the mandatory field NetworkId in the csv file. The corresponding field names for localized English schema import are IPAddress and Network respectively.

2. Enum value names will be same as English localized resource names of the corresponding values in IPAM. Enum value in this context refers to built-in custom field values and built-in enumeration field values such as utilization, expiry status, etc. Fixed format names for values of built-in custom field Country is not supported and the input-output for this field will always be localized.

IPAM generates an error csv file with details about records that failed to import along with the reason for failure. By default, this error file is generated in the Documents folder of the user’s profile.

Windows PowerShell support for IP range import

IPAM supports the following Windows PowerShell cmdlets for range import:

Import-NamsRange [-Path] [-AddressFamily] [-ErrorPath ] [-Force]

Import-NamsRange [-Path] [-AddressFamily] [-ManagedByService] [-ServiceInstance] [-AddManagedByService] [-AddServiceInstance] [-DeleteMappedAddresses] [-ErrorPath ] [-Force]

The AddressFamily parameter specifies if the csv contains IPv4 or IPv6 records. Only one address family can be specified at a time with this cmdlet, and the records in the csv should match the specified AddressFamily. The Path parameter is used to specify the csv file containing IP address range objects that need to be imported. The Force switch can be used with the cmdlet to suppress the default confirmation text. The ErrorPath parameter specifies the literal path (and not name) of the error csv file which will be created if one or more records fail to import. The file name is generated automatically by IPAM for the error csv file. The default value of ErrorPath is the Documents folder of the user.

The cmdlet supports two parameter sets. The default invocation of the cmdlet adds new IP address range objects from the csv into IPAM and edits the existing address ranges with updated information specified in the csv. The second parameter set can be used to periodically import and update all IP address range objects that belong to the specified unique combination of ManagedByService and ServiceInstance parameters. This parameter set provides the option of deleting the IP addresses mapping to the IP address ranges that are deleted during import by using the DeleteMappedAddresses switch.

Import and update of IP address ranges for the specified ManagedByService and ServiceInstance will succeed if these values are present in IPAM at the time of import. The parameters AddManagedByService and AddServiceInstance can be used to create the specified ManagedByService and ServiceInstance values within IPAM at run time before the import operation, if not already present in IPAM.

Management and Monitoring of DHCP and DNS

IPAM enables administrators to monitor hundreds of DNS and DHCP servers spread across various regions from a centralized console. Administrative tasks are frequently repetitive, such as altering a scope option setting on multiple DHCP scopes. The ability to execute such tasks uniformly across servers reduces both the effort involved as well as the probability of error. Administrators can use the IPAM multi server management (MSM) view to easily edit and configure key properties of multiple DHCP servers across the organization, simultaneously. This functionality does not require installation of additional agents or software on the target servers.

IPAM uses DHCP and DNS RPC for monitoring and management functionality. The logged in user must have appropriate administrative privileges on the target server in order to perform any configuration change on the target server using IPAM UI or by launching the MMC from IPAM. The data collection and monitoring functions do not require any special privileges on the target server for the logged in user.

DHCP Server Management

IPAM allows managing multiple DHCP servers from a central console. The following actions are available for DHCP servers:

· Edit DHCP Server Properties - This allows setting a number of server properties of the DHCP server

· Edit DHCP Server Options - Allows addition, deletion or editing of options at the servers level. Action can be performed on multiple DHCP servers simultaneously to update multiple options across servers.

· Create DHCP scope - Create a scope on a DHCP server, and set numerous scope properties.

· Configure predefined options and values - Create predefined options and set option values. Select one or more servers and launch the action to configure predefined options on multiple servers simultaneously

· Configure User Class - Multi-select servers and launch the action to configure user classes on multiple servers simultaneously.

· Create and edit new and existing user classes - Multi-select servers and launch the action to configure user classes on multiple servers simultaneously.

· Configure Vendor Class - Multi-select servers and launch the action to configure user classes on multiple servers simultaneously.

· Launch MMC - Launch the MMC for the selected DHCP server

· Retrieve server data - Multi-select servers and launch the action to retrieve server data from the selected set of servers.

DNS Server Management

IPAM allows launching MMC for DNS servers from a central console. The actions that can be performed on DNS servers are as below:

· Launch MMC - Launch the MMC for the selected DNS server

· Retrieve server data - Multi-select servers and launch the action to retrieve server data from the selected set of servers.

Multi-Entity Management

A primary benefit of IPAM functionality is its ability to simultaneously manage multiple DHCP servers or DHCP scopes spread across one or more DHCP servers. This significantly reduces the administrative effort needed by eliminating repetitive steps and reducing the possibility of error during these operations. Some of the advanced multi-edit constructs are explained below:

· Create/Overwrite/Delete User Class on multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Create/Overwrite/Delete Vendor Class on multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Add/Edit/Delete Predefined Options and Values on multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Edit DHCP server properties like DNS update settings and DNS credentials on multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Add/Overwrite/Delete/FindAndReplace multiple DHCP options across multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Edit DHCP scope properties such as DNS updates, lease duration, and advanced properties on multiple DHCP scopes spread across multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Add/Overwrite/Delete/FindAndReplace multiple DHCP options on multiple DHCP scopes spread across multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

· Activate/Deactivate multiple DHCP scopes spread across multiple DHCP servers simultaneously

Server Monitoring

The IPAM monitoring view provides the ability to view from a single console the status and health of selected sets of Microsoft DNS and DHCP servers. The monitoring view of IPAM displays the basic health of servers along with recent configuration events that occurred on these servers. The monitoring view also provides the ability to organize the managed servers into logical sever groups.

Note:

The custom field tagging can only be done for DHCP servers from the Monitor and Manage console by invoking the Edit DHCP Server Properties dialog. Both DHCP and DNS servers can be configured with custom field values from the Server Inventory view using Edit Server dialog.

Basic configuration settings are displayed in the view and in the preview panes in the server monitoring view. For DHCP servers, the server view enables tracking of various server settings, server options, number of scopes, and number of active leases, that are configured on the server. For DNS servers, the view enables tracking of all zones configured on the server along with details of the zone type. The view also allows you to see the total number of zones configured on the server, as well as overall zone health status as derived from the zone status of individual zones on the server.

IPAM also facilitates periodic service monitoring of DHCP and DNS service status from a central console. The service status is appropriately displayed as Running, Stopped, or Paused for each managed server in the DHCP and DNS Servers view.

If the server role is running and IPAM still shows the availability state as Not Reachable, ensure that –

· The service is running on the managed server as expected

· There is proper network connectivity to the managed server

· Remote service management firewall ports are open

· IPAM machine SID (or IPAMUG SID for GPO provisioning) is added to the service ACL

DNS zone monitoring

IPAM enables DNS zone monitoring for DNS forward and reverse lookup zones. The zone status is derived by IPAM based on zone events.

· Forward Lookup node –

· IPAM displays a list of all forward lookup zones that are hosted by managed DNS servers with their overall status based on status from all the servers hosting that zone, as well as duration that the zone has been in that state. The zone status for all servers is shown as OK if the zone is being serviced by each of the Authoritative servers. The zone status for all servers is shown as Warning, if one or more authoritative servers is not servicing the zone. The zone status for all servers of the zone is shown as Error if none of the authoritative servers are servicing the zone. An authoritative server is considered to be servicing the zone if the zone status of the zone on that server and the server availability state of the server are not in red state.

· IPAM also displays a list of all authoritative servers for that zone in the preview pane along with the zone type and zone health status information.

· DNS zone node –

· IPAM enables automatic hierarchical navigation of forward lookup zones. For the zone selected on the navigation tree, all DNS servers hosting the zone are displayed. IPAM displays the zone status on that server and the status duration. Other details such as zone type, server availability, and IP address are displayed. IPAM also provides a catalog of all zone events from the server to assist with troubleshooting.

· IPv4 Reverse Lookup node - IPAM enables the user to visualize all IPv4 reverse lookup zones configured on the managed DNS server. A list of all authoritative servers hosting the selected reverse lookup zone is presented in the preview pane.

· IPv6 Reverse Lookup node - IPAM enables the user to visualize all IPv6 reverse lookup zones configured on the managed DNS server. A list of all authoritative servers hosting the selected reverse lookup zone is presented in the preview pane.

Note:

IPAM does not support reverse lookup zone health monitoring.

Event Catalog

In a distributed network with multiple DHCP servers, the task of monitoring configuration changes across the infrastructure can be challenging. Individual servers log configuration events in their log channel which roll over periodically and are difficult to query and track centrally.

IPAM event catalog provides a centralized repository to audit all configuration changes performed on DHCP servers managed from a single IPAM management console. Another console in event catalog gathers all of the configuration events from the IPAM configuration event channel.

These configuration event catalogs provide the ability to view, query and generate reports of the consolidated configuration changes, along with details specific to each record. IPAM audit tools enable monitoring for any potential misconfiguration of the IP infrastructure by leveraging network audit logs for tracking and reporting of any administrative actions required. The advanced query and filtering support from IPAM enables tracking of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) based on time, administrator identity, server name and additional detail from a single console.

The IP address management audit specifically provides for:

· Periodic and on-demand configuration event data collection from DHCP and IPAM servers.

· Enterprise wide view of all configuration changes on DHCP servers made by administrators with the following details –

· Event ID

· Time of event

· DHCP server name (from where the event is collected)

· User name (who made the change)

· Domain name of the user

· Description of the event

· In addition to the event parameters listed above, IPAM provides advanced query constructs within the event Description field for filtering DHCP configuration events such as scope id, scope name, option id, option name, and reservation address.

· Enterprise wide view of all configuration changes on IPAM servers made by administrators with the following details –

· Event ID

· Time of event

· User name (who made the change)

· Domain name of the user

· Description of the event

· Task category (server discovery, address space management, etc.)

· Keywords (server, IPv4-range, etc.)

· Opcode (add, delete, etc.)

· In addition to the event parameters listed above, IPAM provides advanced query constructs within the event Description field for filtering IPAM configuration events such as network id, IP address, group name, and custom field name.

· Data purge facility for event catalog database tables to clean up disk space (after backup if intended). You can select the time window before which data must be purged and the data type (IPAM configuration, DHCP configuration, IP address tracking). It is advisable to schedule the data purge operation in the night or at the time when IPAM activity is low.

IP Address Tracking

In certain network forensics scenarios, it is useful to establish a trail of the computers or devices used by a user within a specific time. In an environment where IP addresses are dynamically assigned using DHCP, the IP addresses assigned to devices on a network are temporary and can change over time. IP addresses do not necessarily uniquely identify a computer or device. A host name assigned to a computer or device can also change, and cannot be relied upon for unique device or computer identification. Establishing a comprehensive record or trail of the computers or devices used by a user within a specific period, complete with IP address, host name, and MAC (Media Access Control)/DUID (DHCP Unique Identifier) address of a computer or device may be difficult or impossible if based solely on IP lease events.

A DC or NPS server logs events for user and machine authentication, which also identify the IP address from which an authentication request was received. An intelligent audit system that collects and maintains a historical trail of IP address lease events from the DHCP server and authentication events from DC and NPS servers can help administrators to track and associate IP addresses with the users and devices in their environment.

The IP address tracking feature of IPAM enables you to select a search criteria, such as IP address, client ID (MAC/DUID), host name or user name, and specify a query time interval in terms of start and end date and time. IPAM intelligently correlates results from the repository of DHCP leases and DC/NPS logon events based on advanced algorithms to provide the results. This enables you to search events for a given time frame and obtain results mapping a user account to particular devices identified by the IP address, MAC address, and/or host name.

The IP address tracking feature collects the following events to build the search database:

· DHCP lease events: new lease, renew lease and lease expiry events from the DHCP audit log of the managed DHCP servers

· Windows security event ID ‘4768- Kerberos authentication ticket (TGT) was requested’ from domain controllers

· Windows security event ID ‘672 - An authentication service (AS) ticket was successfully issued and validated’ from NPS servers

The IP address tracking feature enables two query modes over the specified time:

· Exclude co-related logon and lease events - All direct matches to the search criteria between the specified search start time and end time from the DHCP lease logs collected in the IPAM database are returned. This mode is supported for all search pivots except User Name.

· Include co-related logon and lease events - All the co-related lease and logon logs based on intelligent processing are returned along with the direct search matches on the specified search criteria are returned. This mode is supported for all searches.

Note:

The events displayed in the query result are +/- 5 minutes from the search period specified. This is done to accommodate server time lags or discrepancies between IPAM and managed servers. The timestamp of events collected from managed DHCP, DC and NPS servers is stored in UTC in the IPAM database. The timestamp on the events mined as the result of the search operation is displayed in the context of the time and time zone configured on the IPAM client.

The advanced co-relation logic used by IPAM is comprised of three main steps briefly explained below:

Step 1: Finding all DHCP lease events based on direct match –

For user name based search, IPAM finds the co-related host names based on logon events and then uses the host name to determine the valid DHCP lease events to be used for further co-relation.

Step 2: Deriving DHCP lease chunks for the specified search interval –

Using the various new lease, release, and/or expire lease events determined for the specific IP address, different distinct lease period start and end values can be ascertained. Such different lease periods are referred to as lease chunks. Each ascertained lease chunk will have an IP address, MAC address and host name associated with it, picked up from the DHCP lease event logs.

Step 3: Obtain co-related events for each of the derived lease chunks -

For each of the ascertained lease chunks, a query is then made of the authentication events collected in the data store to find events that match common elements, which could be one or more of the IP address, MAC address, or host name within the specified lease chunk. Using multiple different common elements for the search returns additional correlated information.

Advanced UI features

· Group navigation control - Divides the data into major functional areas followed by entities/views. The lower navigation tree further arranges the entities into appropriate pivots such as subnets or logical groups.

· View switcher on management list – To toggle the view between associated entities, for example Servers and Scopes or Address Range and Blocks.

· Customize the default view - Add or remove columns of your choice in the default view displayed. All built-in and user-defined basic and custom fields are available for selection in the view.

· Group by functionality – Select to group the view using the selected criteria

· Ordering – Order the displayed rows based on any field.

· Support for free format query on all fields – Start typing any value in the search pane to return the matching string search results filtered from the displayed rows

· Advanced query/filtering support – Use multiple criteria to create advanced queries. Select between advanced comparison constructs for each query criteria. Save the query along with customized view and reload it later.

· Export filtered records into csv reports

· Dedicated event catalog monitoring for each address space entity, servers, scopes and zone, in the preview pane for each row selected

Limitations

The Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM implementation does not provide a global solution for every possible management scenario. Notable limitations are listed below.

· Supports only Microsoft DHCP, DNS, DC, and NPS servers running Windows Server 2008 and above

· IPAM supports only domain joined DHCP, DNS and NPS servers.

· Supports management of DHCP and DNS servers in a single AD forest

· Supports only Windows Internal Database, and no external database is supported

· IP address utilization trend is provided only for IPv4

· IP address reclaim support is provided only for IPv4

· The IPAM provisioning method cannot be modified after completion of the provisioning wizard

· The only management features supported for DNS are DNS A/AAAA and PTR record creation and deletion.

· Limited support for Windows PowerShell - only a subset of functionality is enabled through the Windows PowerShell interface.

· Advanced DHCP management features such as failover management, Policy Based Assignment (PBA) management, and backup and restore are not supported. You can launch the DHCP MMC from within the IPAM console to initiate these operations.

· DNS management features beyond creation and deletion of A/AAAA and PTR records are not supported. You can launch the DNS MMC from within the IPAM console to initiate these operations.

· Automatic DHCP lease enumeration is not supported by the IPAM data collection tasks.

· Automatic DNS record enumeration is not supported. You can enable this scenario by building upon IPAM periodic address import features available from IPAM Windows PowerShell cmdlets.

· Granular delegated administration is not supported by IPAM.

Technical OverviewIPAM Architecture

IPAM is comprised of two main modules, which are available as two Server Manager features:

· IPAM Server – This feature provides the IPAM backend, which implements periodic data collection tasks to gather configuration and event information from managed servers. It also manages the relational database hosted in the Windows Internal Database (WID) and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) server endpoint, which enables remote management of the IPAM server, provides the IPAM Windows PowerShell module, and implements role based access control.

· IPAM Client – This feature includes the IPAM client UI component that interacts with the IPAM server to perform remote management using the WCF. The IPAM client also directly invokes the relevant Windows PowerShell interfaces to interact with DHCP server for configuration tasks, with DNS server for record management, and with group policy for security filter list synchronization.

The IPAM client UI communicates with the IPAM server to perform remote management. This is done using the WCF with TCP as the transport. Specifically, the NetTcpBinding is used. See WCFBinding-MSDN for more detail on the various bindings and their capabilities. The TCP binding is performed on port 48885 on the IPAM server. This port number falls into the “Registered Ports” range of IANA but is not currently assigned. The default port choice is not made from the ephemeral port range, as this server-side functionality that the socket is listening for traffic at all times once the server feature is enabled.

When there is a port conflict or there is a need to reconfigure the server port, the port number on the server can be configured. Prior to connecting to the IPAM server, the client UI queries the configured server port by using a Windows PowerShell cmdlet provided by IPAM. This leverages Windows PowerShell remoting. Windows PowerShell remoting is built on the WinRM layer, which is enabled by default. IPAM Windows PowerShell cmdlets get-ipamconfiguration and set-ipamconfiguration can be leveraged to get and set the WCF communication port respectively.

The figure below illustrates high level IPAM architecture.

Figure 2 IPAM High Level Architecture

IPAM also allows you to specify the group policy objects to manage the DHCP/DNS/NPS/DC server configuration for use with IPAM during setup. These group policy objects must be created in advance for each server role (DHCP, DNS, DC/NPS). The security filtering lists for these group policy objects will be updated when the servers are enabled or disabled for management through the IPAM console.

The IPAM server communicates with all the managed DHCP servers to get the DHCP scope utilization for both IPv4 and IPv6 (stateless as well as stateful), server configuration and scope configuration using DHCP Windows PowerShell commands. The DHCP Windows PowerShell commands use Microsoft Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server Management Protocol Specification [MS-DHCPM] to communicate with the DHCP server.

The DHCP address lease information is available in an audit log file on the DHCP server. The IPAM server retrieves the address audit text file (for both IPv4 as well as IPv6) using the SMB protocol. This text file is parsed to get the address assignment information. The address audit text file for IPv6 clients (stateful and stateless) is available only in Windows Server "8" Beta DHCP servers. The DHCP server generates events for auditing the configuration changes. The IPAM server reads the configuration changes from the DHCP server event log and EventLog Remoting Protocol Version 6.0 Specification [MS-EVEN6] is used for reading these events. The IPAM server also retrieves the service status of the DHCP/DNS servers using the Service Control Manager Remote Protocol Specification [MS-SCMR] protocol.

The IPAM server communicates with DNS servers to get the server configuration and DNS zone settings. The DNS Windows PowerShell commands use Domain Name Service (DNS) Server Management Protocol Specification [MS-DNSP] to communicate with the DNS server.

The IPAM server communicates with DCs to get the logon events. Whenever a user authenticates with DC, a logon event is generated and the IPAM server collects these events for audit trail analysis. The remote event collection uses [MS-EVEN6]. In order to discover the DHCP servers, the IPAM server reads the DHCP server list stored in the DHCPServers group contained in the NetServices container (CN=NetServices,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain,DC=com) in AD. The IPAM server reads the DHCPServers group using the LDAP protocol. LDAP is also used to query the list of domains. This list of domains is used for discovering the DNS servers.

The IPAM server communicates with NPS server to get the authentication events. Whenever NPS authenticates a user, it generates an authentication event. The IPAM server collects these events for audit trail analysis. The remote event collection uses [MS-EVEN6].

The following table lists the different interactions between the IPAM system and other servers.

Managed Role

From IPAM component

Protocol

Comments

DHCP

IPAM Server

MS-DHCPM/MS-EVEN6 /MS-SMB /MS-SCMR

IPAM server interacts with DHCP server to perform IP address utilization, DHCP server configuration retrieval, DHCP server monitoring and IP address audit trail data.

DHCP

IPAM Client

MS-DHCPM

IPAM Client uses MS-DHCPM (used by Windows PowerShell provider) to remotely manage the DHCP servers.

DHCP address audit file (IPv4/IPv6)

IPAM Server

MSSMB

DHCP address lease information is stored in a file and IPAM retrieves this file. This qualifies as a new file format protocol.

DNS

IPAM Server

MS-DNSP/[MS-EVEN6]

IPAM server interacts with DNS server to perform DNS server configuration retrieval, DNS server monitoring.

DNS

IPAM Client

MS-DNSP

IPAM client uses MS-DNSP (used by Windows PowerShell provider) to remotely manage DNS servers.

AD

IPAM Server

RFC2251/MS-EVEN6

IPAM server interacts with AD server to perform discovery of DHCP and DNS server and IP address audit trail data.

NPS

IPAM Server

MS-EVEN6

IPAM server interacts with NPS server to perform IP address audit trail data.

DC

IPAM Client

MS-GPOL

IPAM client uses the MS-GPOL to configure the administrator specified group policy object with the list of servers that are enabled for management through IPAM.

DC

IPAM Client

RFC2251/LDAP

Used to retrieve server information from the machine object in AD (such as machine GUID, OS installed etc.)

IPAM Server

IPAM Client

[MS-PSRP]

Used to query the server-port configuration from the IPAM server using the Windows PowerShell cmdlet for the same.

IPAM Local Security Groups

IPAM setup creates appropriate security groups to isolate and restrict the permissions available to different sets of IPAM administrators and users. The installation process creates local security groups on the IPAM server, which provide permissions required for administering and using the multiple services employed by IPAM. For example, IP lease audit collection could be restricted to a specific set of administrators only. It is possible to display MSM configuration data to all DHCP Users, while MSM configuration rollout itself may be restricted to only a relevant subset of administrative accounts.

IPAM installation automatically creates the following local user groups:

Group Name

Description

IPAM Users

Members of this group can view all information in server inventory, IP address space, and server management consoles of IPAM. They can view IPAM and DHCP server operational events, but cannot view IP address tracking information.

IPAM MSM Administrators

Members of this group have all the privileges of IPAM User group and can perform IPAM common management tasks as well as server management tasks.

IPAM ASM Administrators

Members of this group have all the privileges of IPAM User group and can perform IPAM common management tasks as well as server management tasks.

IPAM IP Audit Administrators

Members of this group have all the privileges of IPAM User group and can view IP address tracking information.

IPAM Administrators

Members of this group have privileges to view all IPAM information and perform all IPAM tasks.

Note:

In order to perform the Find Available IP task of IPAM address space management on a DHCP range, the user must additionally have DHCP Users privileges on the relevant DHCP server. Only IPAM Administrators can perform the Purge Event Catalog Data task. IPAM IP Audit Administrators do not have this privilege. IPAM MSM Administrators can edit IP address range information for MS DHCP ranges in the IP Address Space console.

IPAM Tasks and Service Account

IPAM schedules the following tasks to retrieve data from managed servers:

· ServerDiscovery - Automatically discovers domain controllers, DHCP servers and DNS servers in the domains you select.

· ServerConfiguration - Collects configuration information from DHCP and DNS servers for display in IP address space and server management functions.

· AddressUtilization - Collects IP address space usage data from DHCP servers for display of current and historical utilization.

· Audit - Collects DHCP and IPAM server operational events. Also collects events from domain controllers, NPS, and DHCP servers for IP address tracking.

· ServerAvailability - Collects service status information from DHCP and DNS servers.

· ServiceMonitoring – Collects DNS zone status events from DNS servers.

· AddressExpiry – Tracks IP address expiry state and logs notifications.

All Windows tasks required for IPAM services need to present credentials to the managed node for authentication before accessing protected data and logs from server roles. For example, accessing event logs on the managed server nodes requires that the IPAM tasks authenticate under the context of a member of the Event Log Reader security group on the target node. All IPAM tasks launch under the Network Service account, which presents the local computer’s credentials to remote servers.

During installation, IPAM tasks are added with the following default frequency of execution, which can be modified from the Task Scheduler from the path – Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows -> IPAM

Task Name

Frequency

For Duration

ServerDiscovery

1 Day

Indefinitely

AddressUtilization

2 Hours

Indefinitely

Audit

1 Day

Indefinitely

ServerConfiguration

6 Hours

Indefinitely

ServerAvailability

15 Minutes

Indefinitely

ServiceMonitoring

30 Minutes

Indefinitely

AddressExpiry

1 Day

Indefinitely

Apart from periodic data gathering IPAM also supports on-demand data refresh from all the servers in its scope or only from a subset of servers in context of the selected entity for which data retrieval has been triggered. IPAM further supports on demand data refresh for specific functional areas such as address space or event catalog. The following on-demand data retrieval actions are supported by IPAM:

Action Name

Type

Scope

Launch Point

Periodic Tasks Run

Start Discovery

Non-Contextual

Across all configured domains

‘Manage’ Menu

ServerDiscovery

Retrieve All Server Data

Non-Contextual

All servers (and server roles) managed by IPAM

‘Manage’ Menu OR ‘Tasks’ Menu in ‘Server Inventory’ view

All tasks except Discovery

Refresh Server Access Status

Contextual

Selected server(s)

Right click menu on (multi)selecting servers in the ‘Server Inventory’ view

Discovery task for access status(es) check

Retrieve All Server Data

Contextual

Selected server(s)

Right click menu on (multi)selecting managed servers in the ‘Server Inventory’ view

All tasks except Discovery

Retrieve Address Space Data

Non-Contextual

All DHCP servers managed by IPAM

‘Tasks’ Menu in ‘IP Address Space’ view

ServerConfiguration, AddressUtilization, AddressExpiry, Audit

Retrieve Address Space Data

Contextual

(Multi)Selected IPAM ranges (and associated DHCP servers)

Right click menu on (multi)selecting ranges in the ‘IP Address Space’ view

ServerConfiguration, AddressUtilization, AddressExpiry, Audit

Retrieve Server Data

Non-Contextual

All DHCP and DNS servers managed by IPAM

‘Tasks’ Menu in ‘Monitor and Manage’ view

ServerConfiguration, ServerAvailability, ServiceMonitoring, Audit

Retrieve Server Data

Contextual

(Multi)Selected servers (or servers associated with (multi) selected scopes or zones)

Right click menu on (multi)selecting servers, scopes or zones in the ‘Monitor and Manage’ view

ServerConfiguration, ServerAvailability, ServiceMonitoring, Audit

Retrieve Audit Data

Non-Contextual

All DHCP, DC and NPS servers managed by IPAM

‘Tasks’ Menu in ‘Event Catalog’ view

Audit

Installing and Provisioning IPAMDeployment Considerations

IPAM is an agentless multi-server, multi-service management feature and leverages standard Windows remote management protocols to manage, monitor and collect data from the distributed servers in the enterprise. IPAM must be installed on a domain member computer.

IPAM relies on a host of remote management technologies to provide full functionality. Various IPAM modules need to communicate with multiple network elements throughout the enterprise for data gathering and configuration management. Depending on the scope of managed elements, this communication may need to traverse multiple security boundaries or domains.

Important:

IPAM does not support multi-forest topology. All domains in a single Active Directory forest can be managed.

IPAM supports the following topologies for deployment in an enterprise:

· Distributed: An IPAM server deployed at every site in an enterprise

· Centralized: One IPAM server in an enterprise

· Hybrid: Central IPAM server deployed alongside dedicated IPAM servers per site

There is no automatic built-in communication or database sharing between different IPAM servers in the enterprise. If multiple IPAM servers are deployed, you can customize the scope of discovery for each IPAM server, or filter the list of managed servers.

Note:

If required, you can leverage the IPAM Windows PowerShell based export-import mechanism to periodically update IPAM range and address information between multiple IPAM instances running across the enterprise.

You can choose to limit the IPAM scope, depending on the deployment. A single IPAM server may be implemented to manage IP addressing for the entire enterprise. Alternately, an IPAM server may be deployed at every geographical site in the enterprise, or in each child domain in the AD forest. If multiple IPAM servers are used, you can limit the server discovery and management scope of each to include only infrastructure servers managed by the individual IPAM installations.

The IPAM server manages and monitors the DHCP and DNS servers within the site or child domain, and collects the forensics information from DHCP, DC and NPS servers. IPAM correlates and stores the collected information in the IPAM server’s local database using Windows Internal Database (WID).

Figure 3 IPAM Multi-Site Hybrid Deployment Model

Installation Process – IPAM Server

The Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM feature integrates with the Server Manager console for installation and uninstallation. The Server Manager console eases the task of managing and securing multiple server roles through the Add Roles and Features Wizard.

Note:

You cannot install the IPAM server feature on an Active Directory domain controller. Installing IPAM on a physical server with co-located DHCP server role is not recommended. This negatively impacts the DHCP server discovery function of IPAM.

Installation UI/Wizard

In Server Manager, Dashboard, click Add roles and features.

Figure 4 Server Manager Dashboard

Click through the Add roles and features wizard screens to select Role or Feature Based Install and the target server. On the Select Features screen, select IP Address Management (IPAM) Server. Click Add Features when prompted.

Figure 5 Add Roles and Features Wizard – IPAM Server Selection

IPAM installation ensures that all IPAM dependencies are also installed at the time of installation. IPAM Installation is not successful unless all the dependent modules are first installed. Installation dependencies include the following:

Feature or Tool

Description

Remote Server Administration Tools

DHCP and DNS Server Tools provides for remotely managing DHCP and DNS servers.

Windows Internal Database

Windows Internal Database is a relational data store that can be used only by Windows roles and features.

Windows Process Activation Service

Windows Process Activation Service generalizes the IIS process model, removing the dependency on HTTP.

Group Policy Management

Group Policy Management is a scriptable Microsoft Management Console (MMC), providing a single administrative tool for managing Group Policy.

.NET Framework 4.5 Features

.NET Framework 4.5 provides a programming model for building and running applications designed for several different platforms.

IPAM Client (optional)

For managing any local or remote IPAM server.

The IPAM dependency list dialog allows you to select the installation of IPAM client along with installation of the IPAM server feature using the checkbox Include management tools (if applicable). By default, IPAM client is pre-selected for installation along with IPAM server.

After selecting Install in the wizard, installation progress is shown until the feature is installed successfully.

Figure 6 Installation Progress

Verifying Installation

When the Add Features wizard completes, it will display a message indicating that the installation succeeded. IPAM server can now be managed using local or remote instance of IPAM client UI.

Figure 7 Successful Installation Confirmation

Uninstalling/Disabling

The Windows Server "8" Beta IPAM feature integrates with the Server Manager console for installation and uninstallation. The console eases the task of managing and securing multiple server roles through the Remove Roles and Features Wizard. The IPAM uninstallation process ensures that all IPAM dependencies are removed, and that all IPAM local security groups and scheduled tasks are deleted. Uninstallation also ensures that the IPAM database is detached from WID and all the database data and schema files are deleted.

Figure 8 Remove Roles and Features Wizard

Installation Process – IPAM Client

Although the IPAM client feature is automatically installed on a Windows Server "8" Beta server, along with installation of the IPAM Server feature, this component can also be installed or uninstalled on its own. Click through the Add roles and features wizard screens to select Role or Feature Based Install and the target server. On the Select Features screen, select Remote Server Administration Tools -> Feature Administration Tools -> IP Address Management (IPAM) Client. Click Add Features when prompted.

Figure 9 Add Roles and Features Wizard – IPAM Client Selection

In order for the IPAM client to connect to an IPAM server, you must ensure that the target IPAM server is added to the Server Manager purview using the Add Servers wizard launched from the Manage menu. If both IPAM client and IPAM server are running on the same server, then by default the IPAM UI connects to the local IPAM server instance.

Note:

A domain user connecting to the IPAM server from a remote IPAM client must be a member of the ‘WinRMRemoteWMIUsers__’ group on the IPAM server, in addition to being a member of the appropriate IPAM security group. IPAM client is an integrated component with the Server Manager RSAT. Server Manager RSAT is also available for download and installation on a Windows 8 Consumer Preview client machine. The IPAM node will appear in the Server Manager navigation tree by default on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview client RSAT.

IPAM Provisioning

IPAM installation sets up various periodic data collection tasks to collect relevant data from managed DNS, DHCP, DC and NPS servers to enable address space management, multi-server management and monitoring and event catalog scenarios. All IPAM tasks launch under the Network Service account, which presents the local computer’s credentials to remote servers.

To accomplish this, administrators must enable read access and security permissions for the required resources over managed servers for the IPAM server’s computer account. Further the relevant firewall ports need to be configured on these managed servers.

Note:

The term IPAM scope in this context and throughout this document refers to the IP network elements (DHCP/DNS/NPS/DC servers within the forest) which are discovered or added, and activated for various IPAM services. In other words these are the ‘Managed’ server roles within IPAM.

IPAM Access Settings

The following table provides a mapping of the IPAM functionality and managed server role type to access setting and FW rule required by IPAM periodic tasks:

Role Type

Access Setting

FW Rule

Associated IPAM functionality

DHCP

Membership of ‘DHCP Users’ security group

DHCP Server (RPC-In)

DHCP Server (RPCSS-In)

DHCP address space, settings and utilization data collection

Read access in the ‘DHCP Server’ service ACL

Remote Service Management (RPC)

Remote Service Management (RPC-EPMAP)

DHCP Service monitoring

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group

Remote Event Log Management (RPC)

Remote Event Log Management (RPC-EPMAP)

DHCP configuration event monitoring

Creation of Network share ‘dhcpaudit’ of the DHCP audit file location (default location for logs is %windir%\system32\dhcp) and read access on the same

File and Printer Sharing (NB-Session-In)

File and Printer Sharing (SMB-In)

DHCP lease event collection for IP address tracking

DNS

Read access in the domain wide DNS ACL* (for DC co-located DNS servers)

OR

Membership of local Administrators group on DNS server (for DNS servers not co-located with DC)

DNS Service RPC

DNS Service RPC Endpoint Mapper

DNS zone configuration collection

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group

Read access in the ACL stored in the DNS CustomSD registry key

Remote Event Log Management (RPC)

Remote Event Log Management (RPC-EPMAP)

DNS zone event collection for DNS zone monitoring

Read access in the ‘DNS Server’ service ACL

Remote Service Management (RPC)

Remote Service Management (RPC-EPMAP)

DNS service monitoring

DC/NPS

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group

Remote Event Log Management (RPC)

Remote Event Log Management (RPC-EPMAP)

Logon event collection for IP address tracking

IPAM (local server)

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group

N/A

IPAM configuration event monitoring

Note:

For DNS servers co-located with a DC, the RPC read access can be enabled by adding the IPAM machine account to the domain wide DNS ACL. This setting needs to be propagated only once for the entire domain and not for every individual DNS server.

Note:

For access to local event logs on the IPAM server to enable the ‘IPAM Configuration Events’ cataloguing, the Network Service account is automatically added to the IPAM server’s ‘Event Log Readers’ group at the time of IPAM installation and provisioning.

IPAM Access Monitoring

IPAM access monitoring tracks the provisioning state of the following statuses on the server roles, which are displayed in the details pane of the IPAM server inventory view:

Role Type

Access Setting Tracked by Server Discovery

Access tracking field’s name in Server Inventory view

DHCP

Membership of ‘DHCP Users’ security group and corresponding remote management firewall rules enablement

DHCP RPC Access Status

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group and corresponding remote management firewall rules enablement

Event Log Access Status

Creation and read access of Network share ‘dhcpaudit’ of the folder where DHCP audit files are located and remote file transfer firewall rules enablement

DHCP Audit Share Access Status

DNS

Read access in the domain wide DNS ACL and corresponding remote management firewall rules enablement

DNS RPC Access Status

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group and corresponding remote management firewall rules enablement

Event Log Access Status

DC/NPS

Membership of ‘Event Log Readers’ security group and corresponding remote management firewall rules enablement

Event Log Access Status

The following recommended actions are tracked by IPAM server inventory view related to access settings:

Recommended Action

Scenario

Action Required

IPAM access Unblocked

Server manageability status is Managed and overall IPAM access status is Allowed

No action required

IPAM access Blocked

Server manageability status is Unmanaged and overall IPAM access status is Blocked

No action required

Unblock IPAM access

Server manageability status is Managed but overall IPAM access status is Blocked

Refer to sub-access status listed in the Details pane and provision the required access setting

Block IPAM access

Server manageability status is Unmanaged but overall IPAM access status is Allowed

Refer to sub-access status listed in the Details pane and un-provision the read access for IPAM

Set manageability status

Server manageability status is Unspecified

Set server manageability status to Managed or Unmanaged

Note:

The following access sub-statuses are not tracked by IPAM server inventory view in Windows Server "8"Beta.DNS zone event accessDHCP server service accessDNS server service

Additional Considerations

The IPAM server must collect DHCP lease events and DC/NPS logon events to enable IP address tracking functionality. This section explains some of the deployment related details to consider on the target DHCP, DC and NPS servers from which IPAM collects this information.

DHCP audit file is generated by default in the %windir%\system32\dhcp folder, but the path can be changed by editing IPv4 and IPv6 properties (Properties -> Advanced -> Audit log file path setting). For IP addressing to work, the IPv4 and IPv6 audit log file path should both be set to a common folder location. Ensure that the DHCP audit log file size is appropriately configured to hold audit events for the entire day on the DHCP server.

Similarly, for DC and NPS servers, enable the required events for logging. The security log settings determine enabling/disabling of these events. The relevant setting to enable logging of these events is available under group policy (Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Audit Policy -> Audit Account Logon Events). For a heavily loaded DC, ensure that the periodicity of IPAM AuditTask is less than the time window in which the security logs on DC and NPS servers roll over.

Provisioning Methods

IPAM allows users to choose between