Active Directory Management And Reporting

By Author: Chily Software
Total Articles: 6
Comment this article

Define Users Logon Time in Domain for Windows Server 2003 Environment

Organizations that work 24 hours a day in different work shifts are always keen about the new ideas that can help them using the available resources, products, and accessories to the fullest. One of the resources in such Organizations is Computer. To take full advantage of a Computer, multiple user accounts are created on it so that different users can easily work on it by logging into their respective accounts depending on their working hours. However, having multiple users account on a computer is beneficial for organizations, it can also be a problem. Because, if a user knows the login credentials of another user then s/he can easily logon to his/her account and can take advantage of this facility in wrong way. For example, s/he can steal/transfer important information thus, generates a data security issue for the Organization and employees too.

The above mentioned incident can be resolved if logon hours are set for different user accounts. Setting logon hours force Windows to authenticate login credentials depending on the logon hours. ...
... Once logon hours are set, a User even after having the correct login credentials cannot logon to his/her account before or after the specified logon hours. Therefore, setting logon hours is the perfect solution for security. But, the problem is how to set logon hours for a user. Setting logon hours is not an easy task; it is an expert's work and Organizations suffer if the administrator is not experienced enough to set the logon hours. This article describes how to set logon hours in Windows Server 2003 environment for both local and remote computers. Following are the well-known processes to set logon hours:

. Using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-ins

. Using Net User Command

Using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Snap-ins

Execute the following steps to set logon hours for users listed in Active Directory:

1. Click Start > Administrative Tools > Active Directory Users and Computers. The Active Directory Users and Computers window appears.

2. Now, expand the tree in the left pane and click the container having user accounts.

3. Select the user in the right-pane for which you want to set logon hours. Now, right-click the selected user and select the Properties option. The Properties dialog box opens.

4. Select the Account tab and click the Logon Hours button. A dialog box to let you set the logon hours for the selected user appears.

5. Click the Logon Denied option.

6. Select the time block on which you want the user to successfully logon to his/her account. As you select the time block, a status line appears at the bottom to let you know the selected time blocks.

7. After you have selected the time blocks, click the Logon Permitted option. Color of the selected time blocks gets changed.

8. Click the OK button.

9. Click the Apply button in the Properties dialog box to apply changes.

10. Click the OK button.

11. Repeat steps 3 to 10 to set logon hours for every user, you want.

12. Exit the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-ins.

Using Net User Command

Execute the following steps to set users logon hours by using the net user command:

1. Open the Command Prompt window.

2. Consider the following syntax:

net user user_name /time:first_day-last_day, start_time-end_time

In the preceding syntax:

. net user is the command that helps you set logon hours.

. user_name is the name of the user account for which you want to set the logon hours

. /time is the switch that helps you specify logon timings

. First_day-last_day is the parameter that represents the days of the week for which you want to set logon hours. First_day represents the first day of the week while last_day represents the last day of the week depending on the organization's working day. For example, if the organization has 5 days working then first_day represents Monday and last_day represents Friday. Values for first_day and last_day can be any day of a week but both values must be separated by hyphen (-).

. Start_time-end_time represents the logon timings. Start_time is the value from which user can logon to the computer and end_time is the value after which a user cannot logon to the system. You can specify value for this parameter in 24 hours format. For example, to set logon hours from morning 9 AM to 5 PM, type 9:00-17:00

3. After specifying values in the command prompt according to the preceding syntax, press the ENTER key.

4. Exit the command prompt window.

These are the processes to set logon hours for different users account. However, to set logon hours for a user account you must have admin rights. In addition, if you want to set logon hours for all users in a domain then you must have admin rights for that domain. Furthermore, you must either have enough knowledge about using MMC snap-ins or have exposure on the commands used to set logon hours. In case, you are not aware about the commands used for setting logon hours or MMC snap-ins required for this purpose, you as an admin should opt for an automatic tool, which can help you set logon hours with ease.

Chily Active Directory Management and Reporting is an outstanding tool that helps you set logon hours in just few mouse clicks. As an admin, you may need to set logon hours for local computer users as well as domain users, which is very tedious and time-consuming. Chily Active Directory Management and Reporting software provides you a central location to set logon hours for both local and domain users. Therefore, you do not need to personally visit every computer in a domain for setting logon hours. Thus, the software apart from simplifying your tasks as an admin also saves substantial time.