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TherealKillerbe's avatar
TherealKillerbe
Brass Contributor
Sep 20, 2023

The Sensor fails to start

We are implementing Windows Defender for Identity. As our domain controllers are not allowed to communicate with the internet, we have setup  a dedicated member server for the sensor.   The operati...
  • EliOfek's avatar
    EliOfek
    Sep 20, 2023
    What happened is that the deployment found the adfssrv service running on the machine, thus assuming it has the ADFS role, instead of what I think you expected to be "Standalone sensor" role to remotely monitor the DC via port mirroring and event forwarding.
    For some reason, even though adfssrv is there, the ADFS Cmdlets that we use to learn data on ADFS are not.
    If you want a standalone sensor, the machine should not run any other role. it should be a plain windows server.

    Note that standalones are generally a poor choice. less than 2% of sensors WW are standalone.
    You get much less detections, and it is much harder to setup correctly.

    Why not use a limited authenticated internet proxy so the machine does not have direcet access to the internet.
    The sensor supports "private proxy" which means you give it the proxy details during deployment, and only the sensor processes can use this proxy, and no other process.
    Also, the proxy can limit access only to MDI's endpoints in azure.

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