Active Directory Installation on Windows
Server 2012
What really active directory is..? Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) is
an extensible
and scalable directory service you can use to efficiently manage network resources. As an administrator, you need to
be
deeply familiar with
how
Active Directory technology works. Active Directory uses Domain Name
System (DNS). DNS is a
standard Internet service that organizes groups of computers
into domains. DNS domains are organized into a hierarchical structure. The DNS domain hierarchy is defined
on
an
Internet-wide basis, and the different levels within
the hierarchy identify computers, organizational
domains, and top-level
domains. DNS is also used to map host names to numeric TCP/IP addresses. Through DNS, an
Active Directory domain hierarchy can also be defined on an
Internet-wide basis, or the domain hierarchy
can be separate from the Internet and private.
With Windows Server 2012,
you install
Active Directory in a two-part process. First you start the process in Server Manager by tapping or
clicking Manage and then Add Roles And Features.
This runs the Add
Roles And Features Wizard, which you use to specify that you want to add the AD DS role to the server.
This installs binaries needed for
the
role, and the
progress of this process is shown on the Installation Progress page. Binaries needed to install
roles and features are referred to as payloads. With Windows Server 2012, not only can you uninstall
a role or feature, but you also can uninstall and remove the payload for that feature or role using the –Remove parameter of the Uninstall-WindowsFeature cmdlet.
You
can restore a removed payload using the Install-WindowsFeature cmdlet. By default, payloads
are
restored via
Windows Update.
Use
the –Source parameter to restore a payload from a WIM mount
point.
Ok lets begin the first part process of Active Directory Installation on Windows Server 2012. To do this we need to add ADDS
role to server 2012 as below:
· Click Manage and then
Add
Roles And features
in Server Manager
· This run the Add Roles and features wizard. Click next.
· Select
Role-based or feature-based installation. Click next.
· If you have multiple
servers
in available pool, select the server which you want to promote as
a
Active
Directory Server.
In this lab I have a single server name DC2k12, so I select this server
· On Select Server roles page,
click Active Directory
Domain Services
and it prompt feature window that
are
required for Active Directory Domain Services.
Click Add features.
· Make sure Group Policy Management Console and remote
server administration tool is
selected. Click next.
· Click next and click
Install to add the roles to
this local server. View the Installation progress and
wait till it complete.
Ok so once it complete we have to start our second part process on the same wizard page
to install
Active Directory on server.
When the installation completes, you start the Active Directory Domain
Services Configuration Wizard by tapping or
clicking the Promote This Server To A Domain Controller
link on the Installation Progress page and then use
this wizard to configure the
role.
· On Deployment Configuration page, select
Add a new forest, since we are going to install
first Active Directory server in
this
lab. If we have already a
domain in our
network and we are
prompting windows 2012 server as active directory server we have to choose other two option depend on our need.
· On Domain Controller Options page, Select Forest Functional level and Domain Functional level
which suite to your environment. With Server 2012 Active Directory we have a
new
Forest and Domain Functional
level which is Windows Server 2012. And since this
is going to be first
Domain controller in
this lab network
it
automatically checked the Global Catalog option and it
ready to advertise itself as a GC.
· Verify
the NetBIOS
name assigned
to the domain and click next.
· Enter the location of the
Database, Log Files and SYSVOL folder and click next.
· If you want to view Windows Powershell script to automate installation click View Scripts on
Review Options page and click
next. Script for this
lab network
shown below:
· Make sure all
prerequisites Checks passed
successfully.
If its Green then
click Install to begin
installation.
· View the installation progress and once it complete server will automatically reboot.
Once server rebooted successfully login the server with
domain account.
Open Server Manager Dashboard and select Local
Server to view the details:
· On the server manager page click tools to view the tools available for Active Directory on this
server.
· Open Command prompt window, and run following command to view the FSMO role
status:
Nertdom query fsmo
So we have now learned how to install
Active Directory on Windows Server
2012 from the Active
Directory Domain Services Configuration Wizard by tapping or
clicking the Promote This Server To A
Domain Controller link on the Installation Progress
page.
This wizard replaces Dcpromo.exe,
which was used previously for promoting domain controllers. The
wizard also will run Adprep.exe to prepare schema as appropriate.
If you do not run Adprep.exe separately beforehand and you are installing the first domain controller that runs Windows Server 2012
in an existing domain or forest, the wizard will prompt you to
supply credentials to run Adprep commands. To prepare a forest, you need to provide credentials for a member of the Enterprise Admins
group, the Schema Admins group,
and the Domain Admins group in the domain that hosts the schema master. To prepare a
domain, you need to provide credentials
for a member of the Domain Admins group.
