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AD-SITE-02: Sites without domain controllers count should be retrievable

ID AD-SITE-02
Severity Info
Suite Active Directory (on-premises)
Product Active Directory
Feature Sites and subnets
Security area Infrastructure hardening
Resource type AdSite
Reads from On-premises Active Directory

Sites without domain controllers may indicate:

  • Authentication delays: Clients in these sites must authenticate across the WAN to another site
  • Single points of failure: If the WAN link fails, clients cannot authenticate
  • Incomplete deployment: Sites may have been created but DCs were never deployed
  • Resource gaps: Branch offices may lack local domain controller presence

Sites without DCs should be carefully evaluated to ensure they represent intentional design decisions rather than configuration gaps.

Operational

For sites without domain controllers:

  • Consider deploying RODCs (Read-Only Domain Controllers) in branch offices
  • Ensure WAN links are reliable and have adequate bandwidth
  • Document the business justification for sites without local DCs
  • Monitor authentication traffic from these sites

This test compares the list of sites with domain controllers against all sites in the domain to identify sites that have no DC presence.

  • Test-MtAdSiteWithoutDcDetails - Lists the specific sites without DCs
  • Test-MtAdSiteTotalCount - Counts total sites in the domain
  • Test-MtAdDcSiteCoverageCount - Analyzes DC distribution across sites

Mito check. Author: soulemike. Open-source licences.

Open-source licences. CIS Benchmark material © Center for Internet Security, Inc.; CISA SCuBA baselines are public domain (CC0).

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