Installing domain controller on Windows Server
A domain controller is basically a server that hosts the Active Directory database among other associated services such as those related to authentication within the network.
Until the 2008 R2 version of Windows Server, to start the installation wizard for a new domain controller, we used the "Dcpromo" command. As of Windows Server 2012, this changes and the dcpromo command is kept only for the case of unattended installations (mechanism « legacy” so to speak).
Within the domain controller configuration process we have the following options:
- Install the first domain controller in the forest . This would create a new Active Directory forest and would apply to scenarios where Active Directory does not yet exist or for some reason you want to create an additional forest.
- Install an additional domain controller within an existing domain . In this case we could be configuring a second (or third, etc) domain controller for the purpose of redundancy, balancing, etc. Good practice indicates that we should have at least 2 domain controllers (remember that Exchange depends on Active Directory as it uses it as its directory service). These additional domain controllers are synchronized with each other through replication.
- Create a new domain in an existing forest . This would allow a new domain tree or child domain to be created in an existing forest.
In this article we are going to see how to install the first domain controller of the forest in Windows Server 2012 / 2012 R2 / 2016. Regardless of this, the procedure is very similar if what you want is to configure a replica or a new domain in an existing forest. .
Installing the Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) role
Before promoting the server to domain controller it is necessary to install the ADDS role.
1. Login with local administrator
2. Go to the Server Manager and in Manage select Add roles and features.
4. Select the Active Directory Domain Services role and click Add Feature
5. In the role selection window, click Next
6. In the selection of features, click on Next (You may select DNS server if you want to install it in DC)
1. In the Server Manager, wait for an alert to appear next to the "flag" and click (it may take a while to appear)
2. Click on Promote this server to a domain controller
3. In the configuration of the type of implementation of Active Directory select Add a new forest and enter the DNS name (for example domain.com)
4. Select the domain and forest functional level. In this case, because we are installing Active Directory from scratch, we are going to use Windows Server 2012 R2 ( this would enable us to have domain controllers in 2012 R2 or higher but not older versions )
5. Since it is the first server and Active Directory depends on DNS we are going to install the service, click on Next
6. Specify the Netbios name of the domain. In general we use the left part of the DNS name ( but this would be optional ), for example if the DNS name of the Active Directory domain is Mycompany.com, it would use Netbios as “MYCOMPANY”. We use this Netbios name for example when we authenticate using DOMAIN\USER
7. Select the location of the database, Active Directory logs and SYSVOL (in this folder part of the information of policies and login scripts among others is stored)
8. Validate the selected options
9. If we do View script we can see the command that would be executed in powershell to install the domain controller, even if we prefer to do it by command line we could cancel the wizard and execute the code inside Powershell.
10. Click Install ( warnings are normal )
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