ACS 5.4 Domain Controller Connection

rkallas · ‎03-19-2015

I have a pair of test ACS appliances running 5.4. We are using AD for our external authentication, the ACS has a proper domain account and has pulled down the AD group list.

Recently, I noticed that the domain controllers that the ACS is associated to has changed. I'm not sure how this happened as I'm not a Windows admin.

My question: Can the domain controllers be "hard set" on the ACS so that it doesn't move to another DC? I know there is a down side to this if the DC goes down, but that's OK for now.

Ray

Javier Henderson · ‎11-05-2015

Ray,

While it's possible to hard-code the list of DCs used by ACS, it's not recommended, as it requires manual editing of a configuration file, which in turn requires installing a patch that allows access to the filesystem. The configuration file would have to be edited again in the future as you upgrade ACS, as it's likely to be replaced at that time.

ACS will pick a DC from the list of DCs returned when it resolves the name of the domain to which it's joined, and if/when that DC becomes unreachable it will pick another one from the list.