This project demonstrates the setup of an Active Directory environment using VMware Workstation. A Windows Server 2019 domain controller (DC) was configured with two network interfaces: one for internal communication and one for internet access. I used a PowerShell script to create a few accounts just for testing purposes and logged in as a user from another vm. This vm was a Windows 10 virtual machine that had only a internal nic that would receive its IP address from the DC via DHCP.

The domain controller was configured with Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), DHCP for automatic IP distribution, and RAS/NAT for routing internal traffic to the internet. All of this was designed using VMWare as the hypervisor. This setup simulates a basic enterprise environment for managing networked systems and resources. You can check out the architecture here.

In this project, I gained hands-on experience configuring Active Directory Domain Services to manage users, devices, and network resources. Configuring the domain controller with dual NICs taught me how to manage internal and external network communication. I also got in-depth knowledge on how to setup DHCP, options, scope, etc. Using VMWare for this entire project familiarized me with the product and how to use it to create and manage vms. Finally, this project helped me develop problem-solving skills while resolving network connectivity issues, ensuring devices could communicate within the domain, and properly routing traffic.