Active Directory Project
Project Concluded: October 05, 2020
DB Reference: dc_access_ad
Last Updated: September 26, 2023
Introduction
Due to the requirment from different projects, the server cluster contains a a number of Windows machines, especially for those in the storage cluster. This project aims to provide a centralized authentication for all windows computers and some of the Linux machines. In that case, a user can switching between servers and access domain resources quickly without a hassle.
Specification & Structures
As of April 2023, the system has the following specification:
Hardware: 2 * 2 Core CPU & 4G Memory Virtual Server for AD1
Hardware: 2 * 2 Core CPU & 4G Memory Virtual Server for AD2
OS: Windows Server 2019 for Primary DC, and Windows Server 2022 for secondary DC.
Detailed Description
Prior to beginning, I conducted an detailed search online to confirm that Active Directory was what I want. I studied various guides on the functionality of AD and how to configure the domain controller. Finally, I created a virtual machines, installed Windows, and configured a domain controller for non-research servers(AD2). The reason is that I dont want to risk damanging the running research machines unless I'm sure on the outcome
Once I finished setting up AD2, I start working on AD1, which is AD for the research machines.
Initially, each domain has only one domain controller. However, as the need for increased reliability emerged, I opted to include a secondary domain controller for each domain. The secondary DC was deployed on virtual machines with a different hypervisor, with the purpose of minimizing the impact of possible hardware failures.