Practice Lab for Migrating Active Directory
-
If I want to spin up two servers just to test out some concepts - like setting up a Domain and AD with DNS, then migrate it to a new server for instance, is there a way to do experiments that aren't related to a specific course? I'm going through the course "Working with Active Directory" and I don't see a lab for that, but even so, could I just get a couple servers running that I can mock up and environment and go through these things on? I need to learn how to do it as 2012 server is EoL and need to move to Server 2022, and I don't want to try this on my on in a live environment without testing it and making sure I understand it first.
-
Hey @Matthew-Dudek great question! You can accomplish this through a local lab setup, or in the Practice Labs infrastructure as well. It is easier in the PLABS environment for a couple of reasons:
1 - The virtual machines and the infrastructure are setup for you. 2 - The environment can be completely reset, should you make a configuration error, with the click of a button
With PLABS, you can use any of the titles that contains a DC and or a DM (which is most course titles). You can promote the ACI-DM01 or PLAB-DM01 to a DC and integrate DNS with the ADDS. When you are done you can click the Reset button or log out. When you are ready to try again, log in and repeat. This is what I recommend, as a member who has access to our Practice Labs environment.
Alternatively
I also recommend setting up your own local lab environment. You are going to need a few components:- Windows Server 2022 Standard Edition Trial: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2022
- (Optional) Windows 11 Enterprise Edition Trial: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-11-enterprise
- A virtualization platform such as Hyper-V: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/about/ or VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/ to run the virtual machines.
- A 64-bit Windows 11 Client OS (on the host machine, that will provide the lab environment)
- A Intel or AMD processor with hypervisor capabilities enabled in (BIOS/UEFI)
These are the components needed to run the virtual machines environment on your own PC!
-
Thanks, I spun up a couple Server ISO's on some VirtualBox VM's and was able to accomplish what I needed.
Thanks! -
@Matthew-Dudek you are most welcome, when you need help reach out to me!
-
Okay, now that I have spun up a test environment, I am running into trouble with a couple things- Group Policy for one, and other administrative tasks that it says I don't have permissions for even though I am logged in as the domain Administrator.
I created a group policy to create a mapped drive for all the domain users, but it is not working- none of the users get a mapped drive when they log in. -
@Matthew-Dudek permissions can get tricky, ensure that you are logged into the domain account and not the local administrator account. You can try logging into the domain controller as the default domain administrator and test permissions & privileges.