For detailed information about using the appropriate accounts and group memberships, see Local and Domain Default Groups.Ī 64-bit architecture is required to run the Windows PowerShell commands which are used to administer group Managed Service Accounts. Membership in the Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins groups, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure. The Key Distribution Service (KDC) should be restarted on all domain controllers if the root key is recreated. gMSA password retrieval failures can also occur when using DCs with limited replication schedules or if there's a replication issue.ĭeleting and recreating the root key may lead to issues where the old key continues to be used after deletion due to caching of the key. Trying to use a gMSA too soon might fail when the gMSA host attempts to retrieve the password, as the key may not have been replicated to all domain controllers.

Waiting up to 10 days is a safety measure to prevent password generation from occurring before all DCs in the environment are capable of answering gMSA requests.

The domain controllers will wait up to 10 days from time of creation to allow all domain controllers to converge their AD replication before allowing the creation of a gMSA. This article for the IT professional describes how to create a Microsoft Key Distribution Service (kdssvc.dll) root key on the domain controller using Windows PowerShell to generate group Managed Service Account passwords in Windows Server 2012 or later.ĭomain Controllers (DC) require a root key to begin generating gMSA passwords.

Create the Key Distribution Services KDS Root KeyĪpplies to: Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016

Key root master