Introduction to Network Authentication Guides

These Network Authentication guides will help you configure your Windows network domain for smartcard logon using PIV credentials.

There are many useful pages and technical articles available online that include details on configurations and using generic smartcards. The information presented here addresses common questions and configurations specific to the US Federal Government, PIV smartcards, and US federal civilian agency Certification Authorities.

Pre-Launch Checklist

Check the following items before reviewing these network guides and lessons learned:

1. Users have PIV credentials and PIV card readers
2. You are using Microsoft Active Directory to manage your Windows network
3. Domain Controllers are Microsoft 2008 R2 or 2012 or above
4. User workstations are joined to your network and are Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10-based

Configuration Checklist

There are five configuration categories to review with your colleagues:

• Network Ports and Protocols
• Domain Controllers
• Trust Stores
• Account Linking: Associating PIV credentials with User Accounts
• Group Policies and Enforcement

We want to add additional information for installing online certificate status protocol (OCSP) services, tuning configurations, common errors and troubleshooting, and configuring Mac OS X and other operating systems.

Submit an Issue to identify information that would be helpful to you, or consider contributing a page to these guides with your lessons learned.

There are options for workstations and devices that are Mac OS-based and joined to a Windows network; these will be covered in additions to these guides.