DirSync: Password Sync Frequently Asked Questions
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Good starter resources for Password Sync
To start, here are a couple resources that may help you understand and deploy Password Sync:
Does this feature work for both Office 365 and Windows Azure Active Directory?
Yes. This feature works for both Office 365 and Windows Azure Active Directory.
What are the differences/similarities between Office 365 and Azure AD? Do I need to set up DirSync and Password Sync for both?
This is a great question. We sometimes refer to Office 365, and other times refer to Windows Azure Active Directory (or just Azure AD). So what's the difference?
Windows Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is the directory behind Office 365. Just like your on-premises Active Directory stores the information for Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and your custom LOB Apps, Azure AD stores the information for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and any custom applications you build in our cloud!
So when you set up DirSync for your Office 365 tenant, you've actually set up DirSync with your Azure AD tenant. And because Office 365 is built on Azure AD, Office 365 (and all our other Online Services such as InTune, CRM Online, etc.) benefit from this setup. The same holds true for Password Sync and ADFS.
Is this feature just PCNS integrated into DirSync?
No. This new Password Sync feature is not based on PCNS. PCNS relies on the deployment of Password Filters on all of your Domain Controllers to intercept password change events. This new Password Sync feature integrates directly with Active Directory and retrieves updated passwords in the form of a password hash. This password hash is subsequently re-hashed before we sync it to Windows Azure Active Directory.
Are my user passwords safe? How secure is this new Password Sync?
Yes. The information we retrieve from Active Directory aren't your users actual plaintext passwords - they're hashes of those passwords. Hashes are mathematical functions that are nearly impossible to crack. The hashes that we retrieve from AD cannot be used to gain access to any of your on-premises resources (Active Directory won't accept the password hash as a means to log a user in).
Here are some additional details to help you feel comfortable with the security of Password Sync:
- we never see your plain text password during the sync process. Ever. We only retrieve the hash of the user password from Active Directory.
- we re-hash the hash of the user password using a SHA256 algorithm before transport to Azure Active Directory Authentication Service
- transport of the digest (re-hash of the AD password hash) is done over an encrypted SSL session
- we store the digest in our system
Can I control which passwords synchronize to the cloud?
There are two parts to the answer:
We only synchronize passwords for those user objects that are DirSync'ing.
See Configure filtering for directory synchronization for more information on how you can configure filtering for DirSync.
You cannot specify additional filters to (1) above to control which users have their passwords synchronized to the cloud.
How can I trigger a full password sync?
A full Password Sync, and a full Directory Sync are two distinct activities. A full password sync will synchronize password hashes for all DirSync'ing users. A full Directory Sync does not trigger a full password sync. By default, the only activity that will trigger a full password sync is completing the Windows Azure Active Directory Sync tool Configuration Wizard.
Note
You must have Directory Sync tool version 6438.0003 or greater installed in order to perform the process below.
To trigger a full password sync, perform the following steps:
- Open PowerShell, and then type Import-Module DirSync
- Type Set-FullPasswordSync, and then press Enter
- Type Restart-Service FIMSynchronizationService -Force , and then press Enter
Once this is complete, you should see a series of EventId=656 (Password Sync Requests) and EventId=657 (Password Sync Results) indicating that your full password sync has kicked off.
Can I use Password Sync and Single Sign-On at the same time?
This depends on what you mean by "at the same time". You can synchronize passwords for a user that is currently federated.
However, their login will still happen against your on-premises STS (ADFS or 3rd party STS).
If your on-premises STS becomes unavailable, you may temporarily switch to enable your users to sign-in with sync'd passwords.
The process for accomplishing this can be found in this article.
You may have some set of namespaces / domains configured for Single Sign-On and also have enabled the Password Sync feature of DirSync.
Can I switch from using Single Sign-On/Federated Authentication to use Password Sync?
Yes. You can switch either individual users or else entire namespaces from Federated Authentication to Password Sync.
You can also temporarily switch from SSO to use synchronized passwords if your on-premises STS becomes unavailable.
This allows you to resolve the issue then switch back to Federated logins.
Please see this wiki post for information on how this can be done: How To Switch From Single Sign-On To Password Sync.
How can I determine if Password Sync is enabled on an existing installation?
If Password Sync is enabled, you can watch it work by monitoring activity application log.
Additionally, there is a script available here, which definitively states whether or not the feature is enabled.