This article walks you through the installation process for the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Connect provisioning agent and how to initially configure it in the Azure portal.

Important

The following installation instructions assume that you've met all the prerequisites.

Note

This article deals with installing the provisioning agent by using the wizard. For information about installing the Azure AD Connect provisioning agent by using a CLI, see Install the Azure AD Connect provisioning agent by using a CLI and PowerShell.

For more information and an example, view the following video:

A group Managed Service Account (gMSA) is a managed domain account that provides automatic password management, simplified service principal name (SPN) management, and the ability to delegate the management to other administrators. A gMSA also extends this functionality over multiple servers. Azure AD Connect cloud sync supports and recommends the use of a gMSA for running the agent. For more information, see Group Managed Service Accounts.

To update an existing agent to use the Group Managed Service Account created during installation, upgrade the agent service to the latest version by running AADConnectProvisioningAgent.msi. Now run through the installation wizard again and provide the credentials to create the account when you're prompted to do so.

Note

If you are installing the provisioning agent for use with on-premsise app provisioning then select On-premises application provisioning (Azure AD to application).

To continue, select Next.

On the Connect Active Directory screen, if your domain name appears under Configured domains, skip to the next step. Otherwise, type your Active Directory domain name, and select Add directory.

Sign in with your Active Directory domain administrator account. The domain administrator account shouldn't have password change requirements. In case the password expires or changes, you'll need to reconfigure the agent with the new credentials. This operation will add your on-premises directory. Select OK, then select Next to continue.

On the Configuration complete screen, select Confirm. This operation will register and restart the agent.

Once this operation completes, you should be notified that Your agent configuration was successfully verified. You can select Exit.

Agent verification occurs in the Azure portal and on the local server that's running the agent.

To verify that the agent is being registered by Azure AD, follow these steps:

To verify that the agent is running, follow these steps:

Important

After you've installed the agent, you must configure and enable it before it will start synchronizing users. To configure a new agent, see Create a new configuration for Azure AD Connect cloud sync.

To use password writeback and enable the self-service password reset (SSPR) service to detect the cloud sync agent, use the Set-AADCloudSyncPasswordWritebackConfiguration cmdlet and the tenant鈥檚 global administrator credentials:

For more information about using password writeback with Azure AD Connect cloud sync, see Tutorial: Enable cloud sync self-service password reset writeback to an on-premises environment (preview).

By default, the Azure AD Connect provisioning agent is installed in the default Azure environment. If you're installing the agent for US government use, make this change in step 7 of the preceding installation procedure:

Instead of selecting Open file, select Start > Run, and then go to the AADConnectProvisioningAgentSetup.exe file. In the Run box, after the executable, enter ENVIRONMENTNAME=AzureUSGovernment, and then select OK.

If your server has been locked down according to the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), MD5 (message-digest algorithm 5) is disabled.

To enable MD5 for password hash synchronization, do the following:

For reference, your code should look like the following snippet:

For information about security and FIPS, see Azure AD password hash sync, encryption, and FIPS compliance.