In this lecture we are going to download and install Oracle VM VirtualBox, a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.  For more information, visit https://www.VirtualBox.org/wiki/VirtualBox.

Now it’s time to download Windows Server 2016. Thankfully Microsoft offers a free trial version for 2016 that anyone can download for evaluation (or in our case, training) purposes. 

let’s learn what a VM is. The short answer is that a Virtual Machine is a software computer, or a computer within a computer. A computer that is stored on a physical computers hard-drive. You can use a VM just like you would use any computer or server. You can power it on, install Windows (or Linux), browse the web, install server applications, connect it to internal and external networks, etc…

Now it is time to create a virtual network with our VirtualBox software! Thankfully this is really easy and only a matter of a few clicks! We want to have a virtual network that allows our VM to access the internet, as well as communicate with other virtual machines (if you choose to create them).

At this point you have downloaded and install VirtualBox, downloaded Windows Server 2016 and created a virtual network... The next step is to create the virtual machine that will use everything we have done so far!

Now that we have created our virtual machine, we are also going to connect it to the virtual network we created and we are going to "mount" the Windows Server 2016 ISO file we downloaded earlier. To "mount" an ISO, means to virtually insert a CD into a virtual computer. Don't let the lingo confuse you!

In this lecture we are going to Install Windows Server 2016. We will create the local administrator account and rename the computer. Next, we will configure the firewall to allow our second network adapter to bypass it entirely. This will allow our VMs to communicate with each other and with the Host computer.

In this lecture we are going to install VirtualBox Guest Additions, setup the computer's network configuration and make sure it can reach the internet as well as communicate with our Host computer and finally, we will change the computer name.

The goal of this lecture is to help you understand how you are supposed to use Windows Server 2016. We are going to cover various key components that are commonly used by System Administrators who manage Windows Server 2016 servers.

The goal of this lecture is to help you understand what a Windows Domain and Domain Controller is. Windows Domains have been around since 1993 with the release of Windows NT.  They provide System Administrators an efficient way to manage small or large networks. You only need one Domain Controller (DC) to build a Windows Domain although most Windows Domains contain several servers and computers.

A DC is any server that has the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) role installed. The server’s job is to handle authentication request across the domain. Domain controllers hold the tools Active Directory and Group Policy among others - so when you need to create new user accounts or change domain policies, this is all done from a domain controller. You can have several domain controllers within a domain but there is only one primary or main domain controller. The primary reason for having more than one DC is fault tolerance. The critical information (user, computer account information, etc) is replicated between the DCs so if one goes down the client computers will switch to the other DC that is still functioning. 

In this lecture we are going to create a Domain Controller by installing the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) role. Remember that any server running the AD DS role is considered a domain controller. We are going to add this role to our server and create a new domain called “itflee.com”. This is the name of my website and if you would like you can create any domain name you want. You won’t break any “real” websites since there are no internet DNS servers pointing to the domain that we are about to create. Finally, once we add the AD DS role we will promote the server as a Domain Controller.

In this lecture, we are going to download a Windows 10 ISO installation file from Microsoft. An ISO file is a disc image file that can emulate a CD or DVD. This file cannot be natively opened on Windows, but VirtualBox will be able to read the ISO file and get the Windows installation files from the file. It’s important for you to know that we are going to complete this lecture from our Host computer and not from a Virtual Machine. 

In this lecture we are going to create a new VM and install Windows 10. The reason why we are doing this is so we can later join the new computer to our Windows Domain and learn how to manage a client computer from a DC.

In this lecture we are going to join our newly created Windows 10 VM to our itflee.com domain. The first thing we will need to do is manually configure our TCP/IP settings so we can communicate with our DC then we can rename the computer and join it to our Domain. We will also switch over to our Domain Controller and see where our new computer was automatically placed in Active Directory. In order to complete this lecture, we will need our Domain Controller running so we can join our new Windows 10 VM to the domain.

If you are running the server as a virtual machine make sure you read over this lecture to turn off the DHCP element of the VirtualBox network before we set it up on our Windows Server.

The goal of this lecture is to help you understand what DHCP is and how it works. But before you can understand DHCP you need to understand how to set static IP addresses. We are going to cover a lot in this lecture so get your notebooks ready! Remember the process for a client obtaining a TCP/IP configuration from a DHCP server can be memorized with the D.O.R.A. acronym!

In this lecture we are going to create a DHCP server by installing the DHCP server role on our Windows Server 2016 server we created earlier. This DHCP server will service our Host-only network that our VMs are using.

In this lecture you are going to learn how to create a DHCP scope. A DHCP scope is a pool of IP addresses on a specific subnet that can be leased by the DHCP server. Each subnet can only contain one scope with a continuous range of IP addresses. This means that you cannot create scope ranging from 192.168.0.1 – 25 and 192.168.0.30 – 50. The scope would instead need to be 192.168.0.1 – 50 and you would need to create an exclusion for the IPs ending with 25 - 30. Check out this lecture for the full details on creating a scope in DHCP.

In this lecture we are going to learn how to create a DHCP reservation. We are going to create a reservation for our Windows 10 workstation with an IP address of 192.168.0.113. In order to create the DHCP reservation we will need to have our Domain Controller and Windows 10 VMs powered on. The first step is to grab the MAC address from our Windows 10 workstation and then we will create the reservation on our DHCP server (ITFDC01). Next we will configure our Windows 10 VM to use DHCP for our second networking adapter and see if it grabs the IP address we reserved for it.

In this lecture you are going to learn what DNS is and how it is used by everyone from major IT companies down to every day home use all around the world. You are also going to learn how to open and use the DNS manager.

DNS (Domain Name System) is something that you constantly use when you browse the internet. You can think of DNS as being the phonebook of computer networks and the internet. Just like a phonebook would list businesses and their related phone numbers, DNS lists domain (and / or host) names and their IP addresses. A DNS (or Domain Name System) server maintains this directory of host names and their related IP addresses.

Before DNS servers were in use, Windows computers used a “Hosts” file to map an IP address to an easy to remember name (like itflee.com). The hosts file is still in use and can be found on your Windows computers. In this lecture I will be teaching you everything you need to know about the Hosts file.

A DNS zone is a is a collection of DNS resource records (like itflee.com and its associated IP address). There are two main types of DNS zones; forward and reverse lookup zones. Forward lookup zones are the most common, and translates host names to IP addresses. A reverse lookup zone does the exact opposite in that it translates an IP address to a host name.

Now that you have an understanding of the different types of DNS zones, you need to learn how to create them. In this lecture I will be showing you to create a DNS Zone.

DNS servers hold different types of entries which are called resource records. These recourse records are used to provide DNS based data about computers on a network. In this lecture, I am going to provide a general overview of the most common types of resource records that you will encounter while working on DNS.

In this lecture you are going to learn how to create a DNS resource record for both Forward and Reverse lookup zones. Let’s start by creating a DNS resource record in a Forward lookup zone. I am going to create an entry in the “mytestzone” I created earlier.

Active Directory Users and Computers (also known as Active Directory or AD for short) is a tool that is installed when a server has the Active Directory Domain Services role installed. Just as the name implies, Active Directory is a live directory (or database) that stores user accounts (and their passwords), computers, printers, file shares, security groups and their respective permissions.

In this lecture you are going to understand the difference between containers, organizational units, and the builtinDomain object types. We will also cover the purpose of the default containers and OUs.

In this lecture, you are going to learn how you can create and manage user accounts within Active Directory. Creating and managing user accounts within Active Directory is a common task that you will need to fully understand to have a successful career as a Windows Server administrator. 

When it comes to creating and managing user accounts you really have two options, first use the Active Directory graphical user interface (GUI) or use the PowerShell command line. In this lecture, you are going to learn how to use the Active Directory GUI for Active Directory.

In this lecture you are going to learn how to create and manage groups and object memberships within Active Directory. I also want to help you understand the purpose of groups within Active Directory. This lecture will be completed from the Active Directory console so if you have not launched it already, go ahead and do so now.

The goal of this lesson is to show you how you can create Saved Queries to make redundant tasks much easier. For example, you can create a saved query that will list all the users who have not logged in in the last 30 days.

In this lesson you are going to learn what Group Policy is and what it is used for. Group Policy is a tool used by system administrators to quickly and easily make configuration changes to users and computers within Active Directory.

A Group Policy Object (commonly referred to as GPO) contains settings and configurations that can be applied to users or computers that are stored in Active Directory. A domain can contain several GPOs, and you will almost never see a domain that contains only one GPO. It’s also important to know that one individual GPO can be linked (or applied) to multiple OUs simultaneously.

The goal of this lecture is to help you understand Group Policy Precedence. Use the acronym LSDOE to easily remember the correct order!