virtual lab server setup

[McCloud]

Hey guys,

I tried this several times and spent quite a lot of time on it, but always failed... I need to figure out how to set up virtual box in the following way:

(just delete the space before the org - sorry about the images posted this way, but describing the situation is most accurate by images)

s7.postimg. org/q9jmfi3wb/image.jpg
(client instead of klient )

Win7 machine:
s10.postimg. org/fuagj0njd/image.jpg

Win Server 2012
s10.postimg. org/f27sjtjc9/image.jpg

As you can see from the ipconfig above, I had a DNS, DHCP and a domain controller installed on the server. But when I tried joining the domain, this is what I got.
s10.postimg. org/jmtyyr31l/image.jpg

The server machine has an internal and a bridged adapter. The windows machine has an internal NAT. I was able to get a connection between the two machines (tested using ping).

I would be really happy if I can solve the issue at last, as I need it quite a lot for my work and university.
I'd appreciate any help from you guys, thanks.

[Perryg]

Images can be posted directly here by using the upload attachment tab below. I for one do not go to off site links.

[McCloud]

"You must be a member for 1 days and have 1 posts before you can post urls."

This is the reason..

[Perryg]

I did not say URLs I said you can upload attachments. Look at the bottom of the reply window.

See below:

virtualbox.png (22.58 KiB) Viewed 2076 times

[Legorol]

There are a few unclear details in your post, so let me ask you to clarify these things:

1) On your diagram, you indicate two virtual machines, the "Server" and "Client". On the diagram, the Server has two NICs, the Client has one NIC. In your post, you then link to the IP configuration for two machines labelled "Win Server 2012" and "Win7 machine". In these configurations, "Win7 machine" has a hostname of UWS and has two NICs. The "Win Server 2012" has a hostname of "Test" and has one NIC. I suspect that you posted something incorrectly, could you please doublecheck? Could you please clarify which of the virtual machines do you intend to be the "Sever" and "Client" in your diagram?

2) You mention that "The windows machine has an internal NAT". This statement doesn't make much sense, because a) both virtual machines are running Windows and b) your diagram shows no virtual NICs that are using NAT. Could you please clarify where exactly the NAT is? Which machine (virtual or physical) is the NAT gateway? I strongly suspect that for what you are trying to do you shouldn't actually have a NAT enabled anywhere.

Now for some actual troubleshooting:

3) You show the Server's WAN NIC is bridged, presumably with the physical NIC of the laptop connected to the WAN. This means the virtual WAN NIC of the Server is directly connected to the WAN, and is therefore getting its IP address from a real DHCP server somewhere on the WAN. Is this correct?

4) Both virtual machine's IP configuration is showing a spurious and unexplained default gateway address of 10.0.5.1, but there is no machine in the entire setup with that IP address. This doesn't make sense. Worse still, the virtual machine with the two virtual NICs has two default gateways. This is definitely incorrect, because a machine should never have two default gateways (except for rare scenarios involving multiple, redundant paths to the Internet, but that doesn't apply to you). You should probably correct this issue.

5) You are attempting to join a domain named "UWS0". Are you sure that this is, in fact the correct domain name? The IP configuration is showing a DNS suffix of uws.ac.uk. The domain name and the first portion of the DNS suffix usually should match.

6) The virtual machine with the two NICs has these IP addresses:
WAN: 146.191.28.168
LAN: 10.0.0.1
The virtual machine with the single NIC has this IP address:
LAN: 10.0.0.2
The virtual machine with the single NIC has its DNS server address set to 146.191.28.168. However, the virtual machine with the two NICs doesn't have IP routing enabled. While it's possible for 10.0.0.1 <-> 10.0.0.2 to ping each other, the machine with the single NIC will not be able to reach the IP address 146.191.28.168, so it's unable to contact the DNS server.


Once you clarify my questions above, and troubleshoot the problems I pointed out, this issue can be taken further.

PS: this post should probably be in the "Windows Guests" section of the forum. Your virtual machines are Windows, and the OS of the host is not relevant.

[McCloud]

I did not say URLs I said you can upload attachments. Look at the bottom of the reply window.

oh, I see.. thanks. Sorry about that.

You are absolutely right. I see now my post has a lot of errors. I was writing it on my way home, so didn't concentrate too much on it. My apologies, again.
1. I have attached the images again, labeled correctly.
2. I guess I meant to write NIC instead of NAT... internal NAT is just pure nonsense
3. Exactly!
4. I think the 2nd default gateway was left over from when I tried some routing. But I have no idea how that 10.0.5.1 appeared there.
5. yes, I know this is wrong theoretically. But this was the only name where it showed at least an error. With other variations (including uws.ac.uk - this was the 1st I tried of course) it didn't even find anything. Weird..
6. Ok, I see. How can I correct it?

Your PS - Good point. My first post, so I wasn't sure what's the best section. I don't think I can move it myself, but I'd be glad if Perryg could do it.

Anyway, I am not too concerned with the current setup in terms of specific IPs and config. I did this quite some time ago, so I don't remember what was my reasoning behind all this.
I can setup the whole thing again from scratch (which is probably the best thing to do now) but this time finally correct

[Perryg]

The actual configuration of the server and the client is not within the scope of this forum, but it would help to know exactly what interface you chose when setting them up. Let's assume that the server and the client are both guests. The server would connect to the Internet using either NAT or Bridged and have a second adapter set to internal. You then set the client to use the same internal adapter making sure that they both have the same name. The guest will then use the server for all of its access ( virtual LAN and Internet ) and you would setup RRAS to provide the address to the guest. Don't make the mistake of trying to use the host as part of your lab unless you are ready to work on multi-homed networks.

[Legorol]

Based on the clarifications, do these things:

* Remove the default gateway of 10.0.5.1 from Server's WAN interface.
* Set the default gateway of the client's LAN interface to 10.0.0.1
* Set the DNS server address of the client's LAN interface to 10.0.0.1
* Verify that the Server has been promoted to an Active Directory Domain Controller
* Verify the name of the Active Directory domain on the Server (it probably should be set to UWS).
* Verify that the Server has a functioning DNS server with correct settings.

Now you can try and join the domain named UWS from the Client. If you want the Client to be able to access the Internet, then you need to install Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) on the Server and configure it to act as a NAT gateway.

Your VirtualBox settings appear to be correct. These issues are not with VirtualBox, but instead with Windows configuration, so I'm afraid I won't be able to help you further here.

[McCloud]

wow! I am in. Thanks Legorol.
Now the last thing I'll have to do is the RRAS. I've never done that before and looking on the internet, people are doing it several different ways. So I'll have to understand the mechanism behind it first myself.

But anyway, thanks for help guys