Category Archives: Active Directory

Setting up the lab environment – DNS resolution puzzle

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I would prefer to have access from my local vlan and wireless vlan to the servers.
But didn’t want to all dns traffic into the VM’s (and depend on a testing environment)

Basically I want host resolution, and being able to utilizing the domain services in the testing environment, without interruption of my other services.

This is the solution in went for was using Conditional Forwarders

First the Hyper-V host:

I Installed the DNS Server role within Windows Server 2016.
Setup forwarders to google dns:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that i will add the Conditional Forwards for my testing domain
I  in my previous post I created 2 Domain controllers, both hosting DNS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will then add my Hyper-V hosts IP to the DNS server of my router/dhcp on the needed vlans.
When clients send requests for the testing domain, they will get forwarded to the Hyper-V guests (DCs) and all other requests will go to the Google DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) – more info: Getting started with Google Public DNS

I did want a backup as well, so I installed Synology DNS on my Synology DS1511+
Synology DNS supports forwarding zones, with up to 2 forwarders per zone.
That’s perfect for my setup, added the 2 Hyper-V guest DC’s.
The Synology DNS would of course also need Resolution services enabled, so we can forward requests to the Google DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4)

 

 

 

 

Then I will go ahead an update the DNS servers handed out by my DHCP on my normal client network and wireless clients.
This configuration offers failover/backup, because both the Hyper-V hosts and the Synology will be able to handle DNS requests and forwarding.

Setting up the lab environment – Hyper-V: Virtual Machines

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Now to the good stuff

Usually when working with Hyper-V I use reference disks, mainly to save space on rather expensive disks. But is there much to gain when using deduplication? I was on sure, so asked in Tech Konnect

The response from Tech Konnect confirmed, when using deduplication, it out wages the other issues with reference disks, rather than saving disk space.

Since it’s not possible to create folders or groups within the Hyper-V Management Console, I will be using a naming standard: <Group> – <Generation> – <OS> – <hostname>

The first Virtual Machine will be a Domain Controller, what better way to start?

Virtual Machine Configuration:
Generation: 2
Startup memory: 4096
Dynamic Memory: Enabled
Network Connection: External
Disk size: 60 GB
Boot from the ISO File – Windows Server 2016 Standard (Desktop Experience)

The quick wins for a Generation 2 Virtual Machine

  • PXE Boot by using a standard network adapter
  • Boot from a SCSI virtual hard disk
  • Boot from SCSI virtual DVD
  • Secure Boot (enabled by default
  • UEFI firmware support
  • Shielded Virtual Machines
  • Storage spaces direct
  • Hot add/removal of virtual network adapters

Note: IDE drives and legacy network adapter support has been removed.
For more info: Generation 2 Virtual Machine Overview and Hyper-V feature compatibility by Generation and Guest

The memory assigned might be a bit overkill, but for now it will be OK.
When configuring the second DC i will only assign: 2048.
The complete installation time to logon was 3 minutes and 9 seconds

Both DCs can actually live with 2048 mb ram, so it can always be cut down, but keep in mind we are using Dynamic Memory allocation.

I will of course be setting up MDT and ConfigMgr at a later point, to streamline and gain a bit of speed.

 

Join Mac OS X to Active Directory

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Simple script to join a Mac to domain

#!/bin/bash

HOST=”ADserver.domain.com”

DOMAIN=”domain.com”

ADUSERNAME=”admin”

ADPASS=”secretpassword”

# Enable SSH

echo “Enabling SSH”

systemsetup -setremotelogin on

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

# Add computer to Active Directory

echo “Adding computer to Active Directory”

dsconfigad -preferred $HOST -domain $DOMAIN -u $ADUSERNAME -p $ADPASS

Allowing non-Administrators to control Hyper-V

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By default Hyper-V is configured such that only members of the administrators group can create and control virtual machines.  I am going to show you how to allow a non-administrative user to create and control virtual machines.

Hyper-V uses the new authorization management framework in Windows to allow you to configure what users can and cannot do with virtual machines.

Hyper-V can be configured to store it’s authorization configuration in Active Directory or in a local XML file.  After initial installation it will always be configured to use a local XML file located at \programdata\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\InitialStore.xml on the system partition.  To edit this file you will need to:

Open the Run dialog (launch it from the Start menu or press Windows Key + R).
Start mmc.exe
Open the File menu and select Add/Remove Snap-in…
From the Available snap-ins list select Authorization Manager.
Click Add > and then click OK.
Click on the new Authorization Manager node in the left panel.
Open the Action menu and select Open Authorization Store…
Choose XML file for the Select the authorization store type: option and then use the Browse… to open \programdata\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\InitialStore.xml on the system partition (programdata is a hidden directory so you will need to type it in first).
Click OK.
Expand InitialStore.xml then Microsoft Hyper-V services then Role Assignments and finally select Administrator.
Open the Action menu and select Assign Users and Groups then From Windows and Active Directory…
Enter the name of the user that you want to be able to control Hyper-V and click OK.
Close the MMC window (you can save or discard your changes to Console 1 – this does not affect the authorization manager changes that you just made).

The user that you added will be able to completely control Hyper-V even if they are not an administrator on the physical computer.

Unable to use Power Shell AD cmdlets on Remote Server

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I came across this error when building a web service executing powershell cmdlets

When executing the commands directly on the server worked without problems

but when using New-PSSession to invoke the scripts I ended up with the following error:

WARNING: Error initializing default drive: ‘Unable to contact the server. This
may be because this server does not exist, it is currently down, or it does not
have the Active Directory Web Services running.’.
Unable to contact the server. This may be because this server does not exist,
it is currently down, or it does not have the Active Directory Web Services
running.
+ CategoryInfo : ResourceUnavailable: (:) [Get-ADObject], ADServe
rDownException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ActiveDirectoryServer:0,Microsoft.ActiveDirector
y.Management.Commands.GetADObject
+ PSComputerName : localhost

Note that PSComputerName was not defined in my script – default is localhost.

To resolve the problem i did the following:

  1. Added “-Computername <Server1>” to my script file (Server1 is a domain controller, that had Active Directory Web Services running (default on Domain controllers running Windows Server 2012 R2) (Check Link for running on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008)
  2. Executed “Winrm QuickConfig” on Server1

I was searching for groups with a specific like description with the following command: get-adobject -Filter {description -like “ps1*”}

and the result with the problem solved:

PSComputerName : Server1
RunspaceId : b83f4390-36b7-4cfa-8539-279b12fce09f
DistinguishedName : CN=Application Group
1,OU=Applications,DC=ThomasMarcussen,DC=com
Name : Application Group 1
ObjectClass : group
ObjectGUID : 4c57f3b5-726b-4de7-882b-2c80b3f0fdb8

PSComputerName : Server1
RunspaceId : b83f4390-36b7-4cfa-8539-279b12fce09f
DistinguishedName : CN=Application Group
2,OU=Applications,DC=ThomasMarcussen,DC=com
Name : Application Group 2
ObjectClass : group
ObjectGUID : 70289cdd-0277-457e-bc2d-162703342f74