[AccessD] Setting up a Domain.

Many people think that a domain is something you only use in a company
network environment.  While domains are more common there, domains
certainly have enough usefulness to be used at home too.

Here are some situations where having a domain at home can be useful:

You have more then two computers on your home domain.
You have children accessing your home network.
You develop for businesses that have domains.


If you have more then two computers on your home domain, a domain
controller can make your home network much easier to manage.

Have kids that use your computers? Let's face it, computer security
usually only keeps honest people honest.  Give me a home computer you
think you have 'secured', and I can show you how to break into it with
full admin rights.  Local access to a machine can open a lot of security
holes.  That is one of the big advantages of a domain.  In a domain,
your security is centralized, and as long as you don't give anyone
direct access to the domain controller, security settings are all but
impossible to get around.

If you developer for a business, that uses a domain, there are a lot of
features of Active Directory that you can use in your systems to make
your systems more powerful/intuitive.

So, let's build a domain:

First, we'll start with a box running Windows 2003 server.  Have this
machine plugged into a switch, with nothing else.  (we don't want any IP
addresses to be given out, so if your 'switch' is a router with DHCP,
turn that off). This should be a clean install of 2003, nothing extra
added.

I have posted screen shots:
http://www.marlow.com/downloads/DCPromo1.jpg through
http://www.marlow.com/downloads/DCPromo18.jpg (for space considerations
I am just going to go through them with numbers, not full links:

1: Welcome Screen, click next
2: compatibility info, click next
3: Type of DC.  First (default) option (DC in new domain).  Click next.
4: Type of Domain. First (default) option, domain in a new forest, Click
next.
5:Name your domain.  I named my test domain AccessD.net (click next)
6:NetBios name, it'll assign it automatically, click next.
7 & 8:Default folder locations, assigned automatically, click next.
9:DNS, select second option (install and configure DNS), click next
10: permissions, select second (default) option, click next
11: Restore mode password, enter password twice, click next.
12: Summary: click next
13: During the setup/installation of AD, it will get to the part about
installing DNS, and should prompt you for your 2003 CD, put it in.
Since your network connection is connected, but not getting an address,
it will prompt you to change the 'dynamic address' to a static one,
click the ok, and you'll get your LAN settings window.  Select TCP/IP
and click Properties
14: Setup your IP address info like this.  Your DC IP will be
192.168.0.2, and your Gateway (router) will be 192.168.0.1
15: Go into your addition settings and put your domain in as the DNS
Suffix, click Ok.
16: We're done (so far), click Finish.
17: Click Restart Now
18: When you click ctrl-alt-del, click options, and now you have a Logon
to: option with your new domain.  Select the domain, and log in as
Administrator (your administrator password will be the same as the one
you setup before setting up active directory (NOT the recovery password
you put in, unless they happen to be the same password).

Next up.... setting up DHCP and WINS.

Drew

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