SIDspersistent

SIDspersistent is a term used in identity and access management to describe a design principle whereby a security principal's security identifier (SID) is preserved or remapped in a consistent, persistent way across system changes, domain migrations, or re-imaging. In Windows and other systems, a SID uniquely identifies a user or group for access control lists. Persistent SIDs aim to ensure that the same principal retains the same identity across hardware refreshes or domain transitions, reducing the need to rewrite permissions.

Implementation typically relies on maintaining an authoritative identity store that maps old SIDs to new ones, or on migration mechanisms that carry prior SIDs in the target object. In Windows Active Directory, the SIDHistory attribute can preserve access rights by carrying historical SIDs in the target object's SIDHistory; in federated or cloud environments, persistent identifiers such as user principal names (UPNs) or globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) can serve as anchors while ACLs are translated. The goal is to minimize permission drift when accounts are moved, cloned, or re-created.

Applications include simplifying re-imaging and disaster recovery, enabling smoother domain migrations, and supporting cross-domain file sharing in hybrid environments. Limitations and considerations include limited support across all systems, the need to maintain accurate SID mappings, potential ACL churn if mappings change, and security implications of exposing historical SIDs. Proper governance and robust auditing are important to prevent privilege escalation or exposure of historical identifiers. See also Security identifier, Access control list, SIDHistory, Active Directory, Identity federation.