Installing Windows Server 2012 as a Domain Controller

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFvhQeUbNhc[/embedyt]

Objectives

  • Download Windows Server 2012 r2
  • Download and install VirtualBox
  • Install Windows Server
  • Configure Windows Server to act as our Domain Controller

First Steps

We need to download the evaluation Windows Server 2012 r2 ISO image from Microsoft. However, we do need to sign in to our a Microsoft account. Once you have logged in, you will be able to choose how you would like the download. For this we select ISO. A form is then presented to us, proceed to fill out the form and select continue to start the download. Once it has downloaded. We can then acquire the VirtualBox installer from VirtualBox. Once VirtualBox has downloaded we can then proceed to install it, we just follow the steps within the wizard.

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VirtualBox and Installing Windows Server.

Now we can click new on VirtualBox and name the OS (Operating System) and select what type of OS we are choosing, in this case, it is Microsoft Windows, the version we select is Other Windows (64bit). Select next, and we can allocate 4GB of memory, and then we can create a virtual hard disk with the next option of VDI and keep the next option to dynamically allocated. For this machine, we need to increase the size of the hard disk to 30GB. The ISO that we downloaded can now be loaded to our IDE controller via the settings. We are now ready to load Windows server. Following the installation wizard. Select your language and then be sure to select “Windows |Server R2 Standard Evaluation (Server with GUI), Accept the T&C’s. Then choose the option of custom and select the only drive available and click new, apply. ok then next.

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Configuration of Windows Server

We are presented with a request to enter a password, once this is done we can then access the server by pressing right ctrl (which the default host key in VirtualBox) and delete which then we can enter the password. For this tutorial, I installed the guest additions to the machine to allows us to use the features that it gives us.

Once the installation and restart have finished we can go ahead and configure the Server to act as a Domain Controller for us, by choosing the add roles and features button. Click Next until we reach Server Roles, at this point, we want to select “Active Directory Domain Services” and add all the features and proceed to install. Once this is installed we can click “Promote this service to a domain controller” Which will show another wizard.

On this wizard, we add a new forest and give it a name of demmsec.local, proceed to the next step and enter a password, and continue to click next until we reach the prerequisites check and click install (ignoring any warning it may present) the machine will then restart and we have a Windows Server with a functional Domain Controller.

It is important that after this is done that we add a snapshot of the image, this allows us to essentially roll back to this point in the future, much like a restore point. Just in case an error occurs. This can be found in the Machine tab within VirtualBox and then select “Take Snapshot” and click OK

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