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Title
Does Safeguard Authentication Services Extend the Active Directory Schema, and Is Schema Restoration Required After Uninstall? -
Description
Customers may be concerned that installing Safeguard Authentication Services (SAS) extends the Active Directory (AD) schema, and may want to know whether the schema can or should be restored to its default state after uninstalling the product.
This article clarifies whether SAS makes schema modifications and what actions, if any, are required during uninstallation.
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Cause
Earlier versions of Windows Server (prior to Windows Server 2003 R2) did not include the UNIX user and group attributes required by Authentication Services. At that time, these attributes needed to be added to the AD schema.
Because of this historical behavior, some documentation, tooling, or user experience may still reference “schema changes,” which can lead to the assumption that modern versions of SAS actively extend the AD schema.
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Resolution
No schema restoration is required.
On supported and modern versions of Windows Server:
- The required UNIX attributes are already included by default as part of the RFC2307 schema.
- Safeguard Authentication Services does not extend or modify the Active Directory schema.
- As a result, uninstalling SAS does not leave behind any schema changes.
- No additional cleanup or schema rollback steps are necessary after uninstallation.