Promoting OS to AD server

Once we have installed the windows server now we will move on to configuring & promote the server to work as Active Directory domain controller (AD Server)

To promote the server we need to setup some basic configurations first so we will move into windows server manager to set it up.

Here we can see the windows server is set to download and install updates on it own in the background but we dont want windows to update automatically so we will set it to manual or disabled. To perform this action we need to open powershell.exe in the administrator mode & then using sconfig to set the windows update to manual

Now we will proceed further and change the computer name to our ADserver name

Server manager > Local server > Computer name

After changing the computer name the windows server will ask for restart and after restarting we will again come back to the local server settings of the server manager

We can see the server name is now configured and now we will enable the RDP remote desktop to ensure we have some maintainance access over the server.

This setting will enable the windows server RDP connections for maintenance access , Now we will setup the Static IP address to the server and disable IPv6 in the Ethernet port

To setup the static ip we can either directly open ncpa.cpl or enter the network connections from the server manager local server settings

Ensure the Default gateway value is either set to the network router or the Firewalls LAN to ensure connectivity with the internet. Now we will return back to the local server settings under the server manager.

Adding Active Directory AD services roles & features

No Additional features are selected

Once the feature is installed we will promote this server as the domain controller by clicking promote this server as domain controller under the notification section in the top right of server manager.

Here there are few options while promoting the server as the domain controller , I will explain the use cases of all the domain options later but we will now select the option Add a new forest & enter the favourable domain name and proceed

• Add a new forest = The server configuting will be the primary server

• Add a new domain to existing forest : We are making primary server but we will use the existing forest under the domain network

• Add domain controller to existing domain ; We will make this server as the dependent server for other primary domain controller in the same nework

For now we are making AD primary server so we will choose option3 and enter the domain name

Ensure the forest policies are set to windows server 2016 and set the DSRM password to proceed further

We will skip the DNS delegation page and move to next section of the process

The domain will automatically determine the netbios name just proceed to the next section . NOTE : you can change the netbios name here

We will keep the database, log & sysvol folders to the default paths and proceed further, you can change the paths if necessary in your environment

Now the installation will begin shortly and the domain will be promoted as the domain controller role

Now as we can see we are now login as the domain administrator & the changes are also reflected in the local server settings under the server manager

Now we have successfully configured the windows server and promoted the server as the domain controller in the domain. In the upcomming sections we will configure the windows server DNS to be able to perform forward & reverse lookups ensuring FQDN resolution for AD clients.