Setting up domain controller and Active Directory on a Virtual PC.
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I would like to set up an environment where I have a primary domain controller and AD on a VPC, and then authenticate to that domain from my VPC host, which plays the role of a workstation. How can I go about this? I am running SBS 2003 as the guest VPC
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I would like to set up an environment where I have a primary domain controller and AD on a VPC, and then authenticate to that domain from my VPC host, which plays the role of a workstation. How can I go about this? I am running SBS 2003 as the guest VPC
I'm not 100% sure, but I think you may need a second DC off that host. If the host goes down, it will not be able to authenticate to the DC because the DC went down with it. With a second DC off the host the host will be able to authenticate to the backup, which will be a copy of the primary DC. edit: After looking around a bit I found this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239199(WS.10).aspx[^]. It shows the best practices of 2008 but the principles filter down to 2003.
AD Best Practices wrote:
2003 Do not join the instance of Windows Server 2008 that is running on the parent partition to the Windows SBS 2008 domain. If you install the primary and second servers on virtual machines on a single physical computer, and you join the instance of Windows Server 2008 that is running on the parent partition to the Windows SBS 2008 domain, a cyclic dependency is created between the parent and child partitions. If this occurs, the domain controller on the virtual machine is unavailable, and it can become more difficult to manage the parent operating system. However, you can mitigate this issue if you have an additional Active Directory domain controller on a different physical computer in the domain. In this case, you can join the parent partition to the domain.
/edit
Zach
modified on Monday, November 9, 2009 10:00 AM