In this blog post, I will go through the process of promoting a server as a domain controller. I have already built a server within Azure.
The below links may be of interest to you if you’re starting out:
– How to Add a custom domain to Azure AD
– How to create a VNET in the Azure Portal
– How to configure Azure Bastion
– How to build a server in the Azure Portal
– Assign a static IP to server in Azure
- Connect to your server. For the purpose of this demo, I have built a server, assigned a public IP address and allowed port 3389 (RDP). You won’t want to do this in a production environment. Note that the local account you use to login, will become the domain admin account. Local accounts don’t exist once a server becomes a domain controller.
- Login to you server
- From server manager, click Add Roles and Features and install the roles, Active Directory Domain Services and DNS
- Once the roles have been installed successfully, click Promote this server to a domain controller
5. This is a new setup so i’ll be creating a new forest, a new domain. Click next
6. Wait for a few minutes. The options will remain greyed out until the process has completed.
7. Enter a Directory Restore Mode Password – Directory Services Restore Mode is a safe mode boot option for windows server domain controllers. Directory Services Restore Mode will allow administrators to repair, recover or restore an Active Directory database
8 . Click Next
9. Click next. There are different views about whether the AD DS Database should remain on disk C or on a different disk.
10. Click Next, Next and Install. The process may take up to 10 minutes to complete.
11. When done, click close. The server will reboot automatically
12. Login to your server
Stay tuned for the next post
