Systems · Automation · Clarity

Structured deep-dives on Active Directory, PowerShell, and infrastructure that has to keep running.

Written for engineers who want to know why something broke, not just which command fixes it — a growing library of guides across identity, automation, and homelab infrastructure.

Start the AD series → Browse troubleshooting
KK
K Shankar R Karanth
Senior SRE · Mangalore, India
● karanth.ovh — active (running) writing since 2026-03 · new guides published daily AD concept series 13/13 complete
~/start-here

Start here

New to AD

Learn Active Directory from the ground up

The full 13-part concept series — forests and domains through Kerberos, replication, and trusts, in the order they actually build on each other.

Part 1: What is Active Directory? →
Something’s on fire

Diagnose a live incident

Troubleshooting guides organised by the literal error text — KRB_AP_ERR_SKEW, DFSR backlog, stale DNS after a DC decommission — so you can search the symptom, not the theory.

Browse Troubleshooting →
Homelab builder

Stand up your own lab

Proxmox, chrony/NTP, and the same automation patterns used in production — scaled down to a single box at home.

Browse Homelab →
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Latest posts

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~/topics

Browse by topic

Full sitemap →

# ground-up concepts, symptom-first troubleshooting, automation, and the homelab — post counts update automatically

~/series/ad-from-the-ground-up

Active Directory — From the Ground Up

A complete 13-part path from first principles to production-grade AD — forests and domains, FSMO roles, replication, Kerberos, trusts, GPO, and the failure modes of each.

[████████████████████] 13/13 complete
Start with Part 1 →
~/about · $ whoami

About me

KK
K Shankar R Karanth
Senior SRE · Mangalore, India

Built on curiosity. I spend my days keeping identity and infrastructure running — Active Directory, Windows platforms, and the automation that holds them together — and my evenings breaking things in the homelab to understand why they work. Everything here is written the way I wish documentation was: from first principles, with the failure modes included.

Read my full story →