Active Directory Home Lab for Beginners: Initial Setup - Part 1

This is a step-by-step guide to setting up a basic home lab with Active Directory. It’s designed for everyone, from novices to experts. The goal is to create a working Active Directory setup where you can learn and try out real-world situations and gain practical experience.

Tasks

• Downloading Active Directory Infrastructure

• Installing Windows Server 2019

• Installing Windows 10 Enterprise

Downloading Active Directory Infrastructure

For this part, we will need two ISO files:

• Windows 10/7 Enterprise.

• Windows Server 2019

Installing Windows Server 2019

I am writing the following steps with the assumption that you have Oracle VirtualBox already installed in your working computer. If not, please do it first.

Once you have installed your Virtual Box and started running, select Tools at the very top of your screen, then navigate to Machines.

Select New, and the following window will appear on your screen**.**
Proceed to give in a name of your choice, (WinServer2019 for my case). While in the same window, select “ISO Image”, then select “Other”. You will now select the ISO image that you downloaded in the Tasks section, and the rest of the fields will fill in automatically.

Note: The "name" and "folder" fields can be any name you want and any folder you choose. They are just labels to help you identify and organize your files.

If the other fields do not automatically fill, do it manually: Choose the appropriate options for the “Type” and “Version” fields from the drop-down menu.

Do tick the "Skip Unattended Installation" box to prevent any potential issues with the License key.

Well done, you can click Next, then proceed to allocate the virtual machine resources depending on your machine capabilities.

Click on “Next” to proceed, and on the following window, select “Create a Virtual Hard Disk Now” choice and ensure that the disk size is set to a minimum of 32GB. As shown below.

In the next window, select “Finish” and finish setting up our Virtual Machine.

Once done, you’ll be taken back to the main page. Here, you need to click on “Start” to get your virtual machine up and running.

On starting the machine, this is the window that you will see:

After making your preferred selections, Click Next then click Install now.

And then you will see the following window.

Give it a minute to set up, then select “Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation (Desktop Experience)” from the options provided and select “Next”.

Mark that you accept the terms, and then click Next.

Select the Second option which is the “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)”, then click “Next”

After this, you will be led to a window to select a drive, do so, and click next.

Please be patient and let all the files install. After it is done, the machine will reboot on its own then lead you to the following window.

While setting up our AD Lab, (even in the real one), we’ll be creating several passwords. Feel free to use your credentials of choice or the same credentials as me for this exercise, since it’s just a test environment.

The Administrator password: Cybergirl$@4

Important:*If you decide to use a different password, make sure to note it down and keep it in a secure place.*

To log in, navigate to the VirtualBox client and press the button that performs the Ctrl-Alt-Delete function.

Enter your password, and after a short while, you’ll be directed to the Server Manager.

First things first! We are going to assign a suitable name to our Domain Controller. For instance, you could use something like BigGirls-DC, (no spaces) or choose a name that you like.

To do this, we will navigate to the search bar, type in “computer”, and then select the “View your PC name” option.

In case this dialog box pops, just click continue.

The next step is to install Domain Services. To do this, click on “Manage”, followed by “Add Roles and Features”.

Proceed by clicking “Next” on all the prompts until you reach the section with several options and square checklist boxes against them. You will choose “Active Directory Domain Services” and DNS Server. Select it and then click on “Install”.

Proceed to confirm what you need to install before actually installing them. If you are sure about what you have chosen, click on install. You can optionally choose the option that restarts the server whenever required. Click on close once it is done.

Next click on the flag, then “Promote this server to a domain controller”

Next, select the “Add a new forest” option and give your root domain a name, such as “cybergirl.com”

Next, leave the defaults checks, and input your password of choice. For this demonstration, we will use cybergirls@001

Next, click on Next,to follow through the installation, then finally click install. If on the next page ( DNS Options), you see an error on top with the words “A delegation for this DNS server cannot be created because the authoritative parent zone name server cannot be found”. Ignore it and click “Next”.

On the next page of the setup process, you have the option to leave the NetBIOS domain name as default or change it, provided it is not longer than 15 characters. After making your selection, click “Next”.

Following this, you will be prompted to set paths. It's recommended to leave these as default and proceed by clicking “Next”. The server then presents a review step, allowing you to go over the selections you've made so far. If you're satisfied with your choices, hit “Next”. Upon completion of these steps, the server will reboot. Once it's back up, you can log into the Domain using the credentials you set up.

Good job! Wait for the process to complete, then your machine will restart automatically.

Next we will need to install Windows 7/10 Enterprise. Remember, An active Directory needs some users inside it, right? So we will do the needful, and create a workstation. Once you have understood and mastered this step, you can create as many workstations as your machine allows. How curious can you get?

After you have downloaded the Windows 7/10 Enterprise, we will follow about the same steps when loading the machine to a virtual box. You can refer to the beginning of this walkthrough for a visual representation.

In the next guide, we will be creating users, creating groups and adding users to it, OUs and so much more.