Active Directory Tombstone Lifetime And Changing Tombstone Lifetime Attribute

Tombstone is a container object that contains the deleted objects from Active Directory. When an object is deleted from Active Directory, it is not physically removed from the Active Directory up to few days. The tombstones cannot be accessed through MMC Microsoft Management Console  or Windows Directories, Active Directory sets is Deleted attribute of the deleted object to TRUE and move it to a special container called Tombstone, knows as CN=Deleted Objects. The default set value for tombstone lifetime attribute is 60 days, you can extend this value if required, and lifetime value is kept longer than the expected. The tombstone lifetime attribute remains same on all the domain controllers and it is deleted from all the servers at the same time.

Tombstone Lifetime Attribute Can be Changed in Three Ways

1.Using ADSIEdit tool
2.LDIF file
3.VBScript