Windows 2000 Administration in a Nutshell

Name

tree

Synopsis

A hierarchical structure of domains.

Description

A tree consists of a root (top-level parent) domain and one or more child domains connected together in a hierarchical structure using two-way transitive trusts. When you install the first Windows 2000 domain controller in your enterprise, you automatically create:

• The root domain of your initial tree

• The forest root domain of your initial forest

When you create additional Windows 2000 domains, you can choose whether to:

• Add the new domain to an existing tree by making the new domain a child of your root domain.

• Make the new domain the root domain of a new tree within the forest.

A tree can consist of a single domain (its root domain), or it can consist of any number of domains arranged in hierarchical fashion to any degree. The domain above a given domain in the tree is its parent domain, while a domain below a given domain is its child domain. Any child domain can become the parent of a new child domain. The point, though, is that all domains in a tree share the same root, and each child has exactly one parent above it. For more information on domains, see domain in this chapter.

Namespace

The key thing about domains in a tree is that they form a contiguous namespace in Active Directory. Since DNS is the name-locator system used by Active Directory, the DNS namespace of a tree is also contiguous. For example, if the root domain of a tree is mtit.com, then vancouver.mtit.com and seattle.mtit.com would be two examples of child ...