Lessons

Lesson 0: Installing Prerequisite Software

Tags: Windows Installation

Estimated time: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Operating Systems: Windows 7 and Up

Tools Used: cmd.exe

Preparation

  1. We will start by downloading the three applications Project BrightSun needs to work. Go to the download pages for VirtualBox, Vagrant, and Packer. Download the VirtualBox and Vagrant installers. For Packer, you should download a .zip file. Open the file and extract packer.exe to a directory you can remember.

  2. Run the VirtualBox installer and then the Vagrant installer. After both installers have finished executing, restart your computer.
  3. Packer doesn't have an installer: packer.exe is the application itself. As such, we need to move it to the "Program Files" directory and then tell Windows where it is so that packer can be accessed from the command line. We're going to do all of this from the Windows command line in order to learn cmd.exe basics.

    Open an Administrator session of command prompt. This can be done by navigating to "C:\Windows\System32". Scroll down until you find cmd.exe, right-click, and select "Run as administrator".
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    We are now going to make a directory within "Program Files" for packer. Type mkdir "C:\\Program Files"\packer and click enter. "mkdir" tells command prompt to make a directory at the path we specified. We now need to move packer.exe to the directory we made. This can be done by typing copy PATH/TO/PACKER.EXE "C:\\Program Files"\\packer.exe into the command prompt. The "copy" command will a move a file from the first filepath specified to the second filepath. In the example shown below, you can see that I copied packer.exe from my Downloads directory to the packer folder we made earlier.

    Finally, we need to add packer.exe to something called the "Path". In Windows, when a command is run from the command prompt, the "Path" is searched for files and directories that could contain the command. "Project BrightSun" needs to be able to call packer from command prompt, so it needs to be added to the Path. This can be done by typing setx PATH "%PATH%;PATH/TO/PACKER/DIRECTORY/. This command is a little complicated. setx allows you to set system variables such as PATH permanently. The second parameter it takes in is the variable we are setting, the PATH in this case. The third parameter is what we are setting it to. Surrounding PATH with percentage signs (%PATH%) in the third parameter inserts the current path. From there, we add a new PATH variable called PATH/TO/PACKER/DIRECTORY/. Note that it's a path to the directory, NOT to packer.exe. An example of all the commands can be seen below.
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  4. Now, we should verify that everything was installed correctly. VirtualBox can be tested by just searching your computer for the application and launching it. Vagrant and packer can both be tested by typing their names in command prompt. If they were properly installed, you should see an output telling you about possible commands.
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Lesson 1: Creating your first Domain Controller (DC)

Tags: Windows Active Directory

Estimated time: 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core

Tools Used: cmd.exe, netsh, dism, dcpromo, and dsquery/mod

Basic Setup:

  1. Go to the Config page and add two machines with the following settings:
    2. dc1
    Platform: Windows, Operating System: windows_server_2008_r2
    workstation1
    Platform: Windows, Operating System: windows_7
  2. Download and extract the .zip file. Launch an Administrator Powershell prompt and navigate to the folder you unzipped it to.
  3. Run .\build.ps1 in order to build the boxes. This will take ~40 minutes depending on your computer and internet connection.
  4. Once both machines have been added to VirtualBox, edit their Network Settings to be the following:
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  5. Turn on both Virtual Machines, and proceed through the installation proceedure. For the Server 2008 R2 machine, be sure to select Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Server Core Edition) when prompted for which Windows version to install.

Setting up the Domain Controller:

  1. Once the machine boots and you log in, you should see only a Windows Command Prompt. That is normal! Server Core is a stripped down version of the regular Windows Server, and it only has a command line interface.
  2. Create new Active Directory Domain and DNS Server:
    3. dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:"NetFx2-ServerCore"
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:"NetFx3-ServerCore"
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:"DirectoryServices-DomainController-ServerFoundation"
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:"DirectoryServices-ADAM-ServerCore"
dcpromo /ReplicaOrNewDomain:domain /Sitename:ad-jambajuice-com /InstallDNS:yes /NewDomain:forest /NewDomainDNSName:jambajuice.com /SafeModeAdminPassword:Chiapet1
  3. Promote the Computer to DC:
    4. dcpromo /ReplicaOrNewDomain:Replica /ReplicaDomainDNSName:jambajuice.com /Username:Administrator /password:Chiapet1 /SafeModeAdminPassword:Chiapet1
  4. Set a static IP Address:
    5. netsh interface ip set address "Ethernet" static 10.0.0.10 255.255.0.0 10.0.0.1 1
  5. Allow the DC to be pinged:
    6. netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ICMP Allow for IPV4" protocol=icmpv4:8,any dir=in action=allow

Setting up the Workstation

  1. Launch and Administrator cmd.exe
  2. Ensure the workstation can communicate with the DC by running ping 10.0.0.10
  3. Join the Domain. Note you will need to use the Domain Administrator password you configured above
    4. netdom join %COMPUTERNAME% /domain:jambajuice.com /userd:DA /passwordd:Password

Manage Active Directory

  1. On the DC, experiment with the below commands to manage the Active Directory users
    • List Domain Users:
      • dsquery group -name "Domain Admins" | dsget group -members
    • Add a new Domain Admin:
      • dsadd user cn=Bob,ou=Cake,ou=Finance,dc=jambajuice,dc=com -disabled no -pwd Chiapet1
dsquery user -name "Bob" | dsmod group cn="Domain Admins",cn=Users,dc=jambajuice,dc=com -addmbr
    • Rename User Account:
      • dsquery user -name "Bob" | dsmove -newname "Joe"

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