Question

I’m developing a .NET application which requires user authentication and role management to happen through Active Directory. I was wondering whether there was a way of installing a test instance of AD on a Virtual Machine (have Windows Server 2003 through Virtual PC) and connecting from my desktop environment to the VM AD instance?

I have tried AD LDS and ADAM on my local desktop, and for whatever reason kept encountering problems.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well if you are running Server 2003, then you can just add the Domain Contoller (Active Directory) role to it via ‘Manage Your Server’.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324753

What problems did you encounter with AD LDS? It’s perfect for your needs as it just provides a directory service for applications (creating a whole new domain as above may be a bit of an overkill).

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa705886(v=vs.85).aspx

Once you’ve created the AD instance via whatever method, you could create a private network between the host workstation and client virtual machine – IE ‘host-only’ under the network adaptor settings in VMware workstation/player for example. This means you can run the VM and just have communications between it and the host without fear of breaking anything else.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_net_advanced_ipaddress.html

I’m doing it right now to test some PowerShell code against a copy of a production DC.