Introduction

If you are an aspiring systems admin or seeking to break into the IT field then it is important to install AD DS and practice before you get into the field. Active Directory is also known as Microsoft Directory Server. It is a centralized management system that is used by system admins to secure the Organization’s users and resources. ‘It is very powerful as it authenticates and secures user’s access to resources within an organization, manages accessibility of users and computers.

In this article, we will look at how to install active directory domain services.

Requirements

Windows Server 2019 must be installed. You must log in as an administrator and make sure your server has a static IP. Setting up a static IP has been covered in a previous article.

Getting Started

Click on manage as shown in the image below. Then Add Roles and features

After you click ‘Add Roles and features’, the image below appears

This would take you through the installation process, for installation type, select ‘Role-Based or feature-Based Installation’.After that click next

This brings you to a page to select your server and since its only one server you would see it highlighted so click next again

Then you would get to the page below where you are asked to select the server role, make sure you check the Active Directory Domain Services checkbox

Now check the Active Directory Domain services And DNS Box, We need to install a DNS server for the active directory to work so even if you bypass it you will be prompted to install it. After checking both boxes you should have a screen like this

Click on next, and next again until it brings you to the installation page, then click on install. Once It has been installed successfully it will ask you to promote this server to a Domain Controller. See the image below

Click on that, select ‘add a new forest’ and give your root domain a name and you would come to this screen below. I chose my myhomelab.server as my root domain name.

Click next and this screen comes up

Put in your password and click next, click next until you get to Prerequisites check, Once everything has been checked your screen will show you this

Click on install, note it will reboot after installation. After reboot, you can log in using the password you created during the installation process. Remember we also installed a DNS Server, so we will need to configure that also.

Configuring DNS Server

Click on tools and select DNS to get started

After clicking DNS.Expand your DNS  name to get the screen below

Next ,highlight on Reserve Lookup Zones and right click on it to create a new zone

Select new zone, click next on the installation wizard and this screen comes up

Click on next, next again until you get to the screen below

Next enter the first three octets of your network id which on this server is 198.17.64. The image below shows that

Click on next, next again and finish the installation. After that click on Forward Lookup Zones and select your zone(myhomelab.server)

Check the box for’ update associated pointer’ and then apply

Click apply and then okay. Next, let’s open the local server and click on ethernet

Now manoeuvre to IPv4 properties. If you don’t know how, please refer to this article and once you are there this is what you will see.

From here, change the Preferred DNS Server to the IP address and you are done. The image below as per this article  is what you should see before clicking ok

Conclusion

From this set up you can now connect computers to this domain and start using Active Directory.