How to Create Users and User Templates in Windows Server 2008 Active Directory

You probably already know that a User Account in Active Directory is an Active Directory Object, or simply said, a record in an AD database. Most of the time we create user accounts for people, however user accounts can also be created for applications or processes.User accounts allow a person to access resources on a network. But we can just as easily deny access to certain resources on the network through the user account. That’s why, User Account Objects are quite important and very useful.Today I’ll show you how easy it is to create a new user account, create a user template and how to use a template in Server 2008 Active Directory. Next week we’ll discuss User Groups and Organizational Units. Now, let’s get started with creating a user...

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Posted in: Window Server

Configuring Windows Server 2008 Server Core Basic Networking Settings

In my previous articles (see list below) I have written about how, in Windows Server 2008, Server Core installation does not include the traditional full graphical user interface (GUI). Therefore, once you have configured the server, you can only manage it locally at a command prompt, or remotely using a Terminal Server connection. Like any other server, Server Core machines must be properly configured to be able to communicate on your network. Some of these settings include: Configuring an IP address Configuring an administrator's password Configuring a server name Enabling remote MMC snap-in management Enabling remote RDP connections Enabling remote Windows Firewall management Enabling remote shell management Activating the server Joining a domain Configuring Windows Updates Configuring...

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Posted in: Cisco,Network,Window Server

IP Address Management (IPAM) in Windows Server 2012

To us Windows systems administrators, the term “TCP/IP network infrastructure” typically brings the following technologies to mind: IP addressing strategy (IPv4 and IPv6) Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Domain Name Service (DNS) Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) (Optionally) Network Policy Server (NPS) Historically, Microsoft hasn’t had a great deal of integration among the various Microsoft network infrastructure tools. Sure, Microsoft DHCP has the ability to automatically update DNS records. However, how can we, for instance, monitor IP address utilization at a glance? How can we maintain compliance with industry or internal regulations by auditing IP addressing and configuration changes? Microsoft has given us...

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Posted in: Window Server

Windows Server 2012 DHCP High Availability

One of the new features I really wanted to check out in Server 2012 was the ability to setup a highly available DHCP server. Prior to Windows 2012 if you wanted to setup a highly available DHCP solution, you only had a couple of options. 1.  You could setup up a split scope, which required you to setup identical DHCP scopes on two servers, and then adding exclusion ranges on each of them so they didn’t both hand out the same IP Addresses.  Usually this was done in an 80/20 fashion. 2.  Introduce windows clustering, which required shared storage and sharing IP Addressses, let alone the additional licenses that would need to be purchased for an Enterprise version of Windows Server. 3.  Create a standby server,...

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Posted in: Window Server

Installing And Configuring DHCP With Windows Server 2012

Installing and configuring DHCP with Windows Server 2012 is thankfully pretty easy, and doesn’t take much longer than 15 minutes if you’re starting with a fresh network.  For this tutorial, you’ll learn how to configure basic DHCP services only – future tutorials will include more advanced DHCP configuration.  Keep reading to learn how to install and configure DHCP on Microsoft Server 2012. First things first, you’re going to want to start with as fresh of a server as possible, but if you’re using a machine that’s already in production, that’s fine as well.  You also want to start this process with an end goal in mind, keeping in mind exactly what you are trying to accomplish with this DHCP installation. ...

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Posted in: Window Server

Window Server 2012 New Features - DHCP failover

While replacing my 2 Domain Controllers today I also took the opportunity to clean up DHCP and DNS and DHCP which led me to one of my favorite new features in Windows server 2012 DHCP Failover. My only question is was there any reason beyond the lawsuits over giving away free software to end users that we didn’t have this years ago. If you haven't used Windows Server 2012 with DHCP failover, you are missing out.. I know we had Split DHCP and DHCP Clusters with Windows Server 2008 R2 but this is much cooler. DHCP failover: This feature provides the ability to have two DHCP servers serve IP addresses and option configuration to the same subnet or scope, providing for continuous availability of DHCP service to clients. The two DHCP...

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Posted in: Window Server

Mapping Drives in Logon Scripts Is There a Better Way

It sure seems like there should be. Mapping drives for users has been a task IT has needed to do since the first network drive. Yet getting those drives correctly provisioned to users isn't a task that's come easily ' even with today's newer technologies like PowerShell and Group Policy Preferences. In fact, some of those newer technologies might even be more difficult than our old friend the net use command, depending on what you need to accomplish. Considering how mapped drives exist in companies everywhere, you'd think a super-simple solution would exist right inside Windows itself. Without help from third-party solutions, you'll be surprised to find that'well'there isn't. Let's take a look, however, at what you can...

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Posted in: Window Server

How to Create Multiple Users in Server 2008 with PowerShell

Creating users through the AD Users and Computers snap-in is a very easy process, but you’ll frequently face the situation where you need to create accounts for a whole group of people at once. There’s no need for this to be a time consuming process for you though, and we’ve done all the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. We’ve just got a list of new employees from the HR Department, and they’ve been kind enough to give it to us in an excel format. The first thing we are going to do is save the file as a .csv, and to do that, we click on the Office Button and select Save As. We’re going to name our file users.csv, and make sure that we pick CSV (Comma delimited) in the Save as type box, and then click Save. Next we’ll create a new text...

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Posted in: Window Server