virtualbox.org

I need to have a W2K Primary Domain Controller running as Guest on Ubuntu.

Since I'am not very familiar with VirtualBox networking I'am having trouble with the network configuration.
I tried several types of networking, but it all ended up with errors when I was trying to connect with windows clients to the W2K PDC running as Guest on my Ubuntu.

If you have a router then you would need to use Bridged mode.
Where are the Windows clients in this setup? Are they local on on the network?

My Ubuntu Box is on a network. On the same network are several Windows Clients (w2k workstations, win 98, XP).

When I try to access the W2k PDC on the Ubuntu Box I get errors.
The name of the W2K PDC was myname.local and it has IP 10.10.1.1
Now if I do a tracert from a client to 10.10.1.1 its just one hop away but the resolved name does not match. The resolved name is not the name of the Ubuntu Box and not the name of the VirtualBox Guest.

What network mode are you using on the VBox guests? NAT, Bridged, Host only, Internal?
Do you have a router?

Perryg wrote:What network mode are you using on the VBox guests? NAT, Bridged, Host only, Internal?
Do you have a router?

All Clients and the UbuntuBox are on a switch. The network is closed, there is no need for outside communication to the world.
The ntwork mode of the VirtualBox is bridged on eth0. The interface eth0 on the Ubuntu Box has 10.10.1.10
The interface on the VBox Guest (W2K) has 10.10.1.1

I had this yesterday running and from the Clients (98, W2K Prof., XP) I was able to ping the VBox Guest, to work with a Pervasive SQL Database on the VBox Guest and to find the VBox Guest browsing the network from Explorer on the Guest. Still I'am not able to do a 'normal' login to that PDC.

Did you setup the DNS on the PDC, and are the guests pointing to that DNS?
What happens when a guest tries to join the domain (not just log into it)?

Perryg wrote:Did you setup the DNS on the PDC, and are the guests pointing to that DNS?
What happens when a guest tries to join the domain (not just log into it)?

DNS is setup on that PDC. The Box was running for more than 8 Years without Problems. A few month ago I went to routine check and then the RAID was inconsistent and one Fan was broken. This Box has to run since early 2010 and the Company has to work with it until then, I decided to migrate the whole thing to new Hardware. In these newer days there are a lot of RAID controllers which are unsopported by W2K and there will never be drivers for them so I put it in a VirtualBox.

The Box is a few Kilometers away and I'am mostly on Weekends at the Office of that Customer so I'am not able to check this out soon. But as you mentioned Problems with the DNS, I remeber that a made a tracert form one Client this Weekend and I got a name like __ger.msdc or something like that instead of what it should be -> customer.local

On one Client I tried to put the W2K DC in hosts and lmhosts file, but even then there was no Domain Login while I was able from all Clients to browse the "network neibghourhood" and find the W2K Server.

Sounds like a configuration problem on the domain controller like not demoting and promoting properly. Each DC has a unique ID and just making a DC and throwing it into loop will cause this kind of problem. Have/did you demote the PDC before you took it off line and made the new one active?

Perryg wrote:Sounds like a configuration problem on the domain controller like not demoting and promoting properly. Each DC has a unique ID and just making a DC and throwing it into loop will cause this kind of problem. Have/did you demote the PDC before you took it off line and made the new one active?

I dont know really how to demote a PDC and how to make it active again. Can you explain this in a few simple steps?

Is the original DC still active and working on the network?
If so it has the FSMO Role Holders. Since Win 2000 AD there really is no PDC/BDC but the first DC holds the PDC emulators.
What you should probably do is re-install Win2K and make sure that the install sees the network and the original DC before you install the AD.
Then when you install the ad make sure that you have the DNS installed first before you install the AD and that it actually see everything on the network.
Then when you install the AD it will be on the Domain. After that you can run dcpromo on the original to demote it.

Sounds like you need to do some reading though. Just remember that VBox is only giving you the environment. As long as you use bridged mode then the rest should work as it should.
Using Google search these terms:
replacing a win 2000 dc
dcpromo

emil.blume wrote:

Perryg wrote:Did you setup the DNS on the PDC

DNS is setup on that PDC

The only time I set up a PDC (on a one PC network...) the major hiccup I had was that a DNS lookup of the PDC must return the IP of the PDC to itself.

So like Perryg says, don't use NAT on the VirtualBox network card, because that will give a different IP to the PDC inside the VirtualBox netblock than the PDC has in the outside (real) network.

(Or try adding the internal VirtualBox assigned IP of the PDC to the PDC's HOST file, so that when it does a NDS lookup it gets its own IP?:
pdchostname.domain 192.168.x.x
pdchostname 192.168.x.x
Or do not try this... It worked for me, but may not be applicable to a real network.)