Setting up Home Lab Environment->

sharptech

Question for you guys,

What is the virtual lab setup you guys have and how did you create it? I am looking to do one myself.

Right now I have virtual PC w/ Windows 2003 Server and Windows XP and I can switch between the both of them.

However I am looking to set up a virtual lab like you guys have- can you explain your set-ups? Thanks!

geekie

I use MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 for my home lab, works a treat and have found it to be a very useful resource to study with!!

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/virtualserver/deploy/cvs2005.mspx

This guide, although for setting up a cluster using VS, is very useful for creating VM's using differencing disks. Takes me a few minutes to create VM's now and was also very useful for 70-293 and the clustering topics!

Just an FYI but SP1 Beta is now available for MS Virtual Server

http://connect.microsoft.com/

sharptech

Thanks I will take a look at those links!

!30

I use Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 , a nice aplication.

Download :

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

Just download IT , be sure that you have some Windows server 2003 ISO's and XP ( or whatever Windows you like to use , if suported ) or real CD's and you'll see it's an easy thing.

Your computer must have plenty of RAM ( 1 Giga is enough ).

You can use : Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition to .

You can see a video demo with Virtual PC here :

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx



Good luck !

sharptech

Sounds good - thanks!

sharptech

Trying to setup an AD structure now.

I need to know what Static IP adress to get server started.. what address should I use ? Should I go with what is the dynamic IP now and switch it over to static?

Thanks!

!30

What do you mean man ? ..

If you mean , what I think you mean , you can use for your DC a static IP address , maybe a private one , a dynamic IP .. if it's change's .. many times.you understand me ..

sharptech

Yeah I got it now- the original static I used was not working- however got it going now :P

Might have more questions as I set this up - first time doing this :P

Danman32

Servers should always have static addresses, especially DCs. Although dynamic DNS should handle IP address changes on the DC, other mechamisms may not be able to handle or replicate the changes quickly enough that you may get errors. The errors may go away after awhile, or they may not. Even if the underlying mechanism straightens out the handling of the IP address change, the AD may be messed up that it would take manual intervention to fix, including demoting the errant DC.

As for what IP to use on your network, any unused IP that is included in your subnet, but excluded from the DHCP should be fine. If you haven't chosen a network address, one of the private number series (10., 172.16-31, 192.16 will do fine. You can use any other address, but if you plan on connecting to the internet, you may overlap an address that you are trying to reach on the internet, which since the net appears local to your hosts, would be unreachable.
For example, let's say you choose 216.239.0.0/16 as your network. Using this address range would make google unreachable, since www.google.com is 216.239.51.99, but to your network, that address is already part of your lan, so the router would not route it to the internet.

sharptech

Alright Dan - that sounds good. I will change the IP of the "server" tonight. This is new to me so will probably have a lot of questions as I go through with this.

Thanks.

sharptech

I set up my domain and want to use the other virtual machine to be added to it, however when I try it can not find the domain.

If I browse the network connections I can see the server etc..

Any ideas of what I need to do? Thanks.

Edit: Got it to work, left out the .com and it took it..