Installing Active Directory Part 2 - Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations On-Premise at Home - 05

In the prior post we created the primary domain controller.  In this article we will configure Active Directory and add a second domain controller.

In a later post we'll set up ADFS and Azure Active Directory (AAD)- both of which are required for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.

Add an OU and Domain Admin Account

25. Open the Active Directory Administrative Center
26. Right-click your domain name > New > Organization Unit

27. Type in "Lab" for the name and accept the defaults for the other fields.
28. Create two organization units (OUs) underneath, one for computers, another for users.
29. Create a user under the Users OU.

30. Fill out first name, last name, user SamAccount, and passwords.

31. Add the user to the "Domain Administrators" group on the "Member Of" group.

32. (Optional) This is a test domain, so you can change the account to not expire the password (not recommended in real environments) and prevent the account from accidental deletion.

Add the second VM to the existing domain

33. Perform steps 10 through 13 on the second VM, then set a static IP with the DNS server referencing the first virtual machine.  This is necessary because Active Directory creates SRV DNS records which need to be referenced to join computers to the domain.

34. Join the second virtual machine to the domain (requires a restart).

35. The installation of the role is the same, however we will configure/promote the AD server differently.  Complete steps 17 and 18 above on the second VM.
36. In server Manager, click on the pending notifications and then "Promote this server to a domain controller"

37. We will use the "Add a domain controller to an existing domain" option, using the credentials of the user created earlier.

38. Specify the same Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) password as used on the other server.

39. Accept the default settings for the rest of the wizard and "Updating DNS delegation" is not necessary.  Click Install.

40.  The server should reboot.  Finally, kick off Windows updates, as per the usual.

Congratulations we now have a two-DC Active Directory domain!

Installing Active Directory Part 1 - Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations On-Premise at Home - 04

One of the 'shared service' environment requirements for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations is an Active Directory domain.  There should never be just one Active Directory server, so we'll create two Windows Server 2016 virtual machines.  AX needs an Active Directory functional version of at least 2012 R2.  The requirements when using Windows Server 2016 are 1 vCPU and 2GB of RAM (although I allocate 4GB and use dynamic memory).

In a later post we'll set up ADFS and Azure Active Directory (AAD).

Creation of the Hyper-V VM

1. Open Hyper-V Manager
2. Click "New virtual machine"
3. Specify a name, i.e. LabDC01

4. Select "Generation 2" for the generation of the virtual machine
5. Specify 4096 MB of dynamic memory

6. Create a new virtual hard disk.  I specified 80 GB to be save, as the disk will only take the space it requires.  After I completed all the steps here, including Windows Updates, the disks were taking less than 20GB.
7. Attach an iso file of Windows Server 2016 as your option for installation.
8. Click finish

9. Start the VM

Do the same for the second VM.

Setting up the first Domain Controller

10.  Go through the installation of Windows Server 2016.  There are very few questions, however, I did chose to install the Desktop Experience.  For the key, I chose to install without a key to see if the AVMA feature of Hyper-V works.

11. After installation, change computer name, i.e. LabDC01.

12.  Disable the firewall (this is an internal server which can be scrapped if needed).

13. Enable RDP connections

14. Give it a static IP- this is required for setting up these servers to host DNS.  Choose an IP address which will be reserved for this server.  Make sure that you do not give this IP address to another device later.  The DNS setting in the screenshot is the upstream DNS, which in my case is a local pfSense firewall/server.

15. Turn off IE Enhanced Security
16. Restart

Add the Active Directory Domain Services and DNS Server roles

17. In the server manager that automatically opens when the server restarts, click "Manage > Add Roles and Features"

18.  Chose "Role based or feature-based installation" and the current local server, check mark both "Active Directory Domain Services" and "DNS Server."  For each, a popup will ask if you want to add the features required for that service, click "Add features" in both occasions.

Promote this server to a domain controller

19. After installation, click the warning icon and then "Promote this server to a domain controller" wizard.

20. Click "Add a new forest" and give it a good domain name- for this purpose we'll use two words separated by a period.

21. Type in a password for the directory services restore mode.  The rest of the options are the defaults.

22. Accept the default paths and click "Install."
23. The server will automatically reboot.

24. Finally go ahead and kick off Windows Updates, as per the usual.

We have created the primary domain controller and in the next post we'll cover configuration and adding a second domain controller virtual machine.