Creating a lab but can't join domain

I am currently reading MS press 70-290 while getting some hands on experience.

My setup

Desktop
Server
Win 2k3
contoso.com is the domain

TCP/IP properties
IP add: 192.168.1.8
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default gate: 192.168.1.1
DNS: 127.0.0.1

Laptop
Windows 7

TCP/IP properties
IP add: 192.168.1.9
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default gate: 192.168.1.1
DNS: 127.0.0.1

I am using a Linksys router WRT54GC

When I try to join the domain I am prompted with a login window which I login with a user acct that I created. It would hang and return with a error msg about my DNS being wrong.

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Comments

dynamik

So fix your DNS

Seriously, the client needs to have the server's IP for the DNS.

RobertKaucher

Change DNS on the Win 7 computer to pint to the server's IP. It is DNS 9/10 times.

Remember that 127.0.0.0/8 is the loopback. So you have the win 7 machine configured to use itself as a DNS server.

passcert23

Thanks guys I was able to join the domain. Do you guys think I should put xp on my laptop to have a better learning experience or should i just stick with win7.

dynamik

It really won't matter as far as 290 is concerned.

passcert23

dynamik, how do you feel about incorporating virtualization into my lab? is it a good idea? should i go with virtualbox or vmware?

dynamik

Do it if you can; it makes things so much easier. I prefer VMware Workstation, but VMware Player (I believe you can now create VMs in 3.0) or Virtual Box are good options if you're looking for something that's free.

undomiel

VirtualBox is great and easy to use. I do all of my studies on it. If you run your whole lab in it with networking set to internal then it will simplify a lot of the networking issues so that you can focus on learning the server side of things.

passcert23

undomiel, can you please elaborate.

So basically you were using just one pc to setup your entire lab network? how many client did you had? Better yet can you please write down your setup.

undomiel

I have a Q6600 with 4 gigs of ram. At the time I was running a 64-bit Linux distro for the base. Using VirtualBox I was able to comfortably run 6-8 virtual machines, though it all depended upon what I needed the machines for. I generally kept things down to a minimum for whatever I was practicing i.e. for practicing clustering I ran with 1 dc and then 2 servers for the cluster, no need for any workstations. When I needed it I would bring up another server to add to the cluster for testing.

MentholMoose

I also use a single workstation for (almost) all of my labbing. The specs are an Intel Q9550 CPU, 8GB DDR2 (bought a year ago for only $100!!!), and four SATA drives in a RAID 10 array. I've also used VirtualBox and may switch everything in the future, but for now I use VMware Workstation on Linux.

This setup has served me well for MCITP: SA, EA, and EDA7. The main limiting factor is the IOPS of the drive array, the CPU and RAM are not maxed at all. Once SSDs get more affordable (either they get cheaper, or I get richer

) I will switch to them.

I've been studying Hyper-V as of late (for the beta exams) so I've had to use dedicated PCs for that since (AFAIK) you can't run Hyper-V in a VM.

ronzilla

I am trying out virtual box based off of this post. I was using windows virtual server which seemed kinda nice but I am having networking problems with the DNS as well. The host system I am running is windows 7 64bit. I should change the DNS on my host machine?

ronzilla

dynamik wrote: »

So fix your DNS

Seriously, the client needs to have the server's IP for the DNS.

That was my problem too actually....thanks