This video will shows you how to Join a Windows 11 Professional machine to a Zentyal Active Directory Domain (Linux). It also covers the steps to configure Windows 11 Pro to Trust a Private CA (Certificate Authority) so that any websites using SSL certs issued by the private CA are trusted. We also install some of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) to review their capabilities and potential issues. Finally, we explore some shared folders from different Active Directory Accounts.

When deploying new machines/devices on a network, it is convenient - sometimes required - to have DHCP available. A DHCP server will dynamically allocate IP addresses from a pre-defined scope to any systems requesting an address on the segment it is attached to. DHCP also provides preferred DNS, NTP, WINS, Gateway, and more to each of those clients, depending on how it has been configured. For those with licenses for Windows Servers, you can use a GUI to configure your scopes and options for DHCP. For Linux based environments, this commonly means a lot of Google-fu and console work, but that’s not really as much of a requirement with a system like Zentyal.

An Active Directory server can be a great addition to your lab environment. It can provide centralized user, group, DNS, Certificate Authority, and DHCP services. While many may not “need” this in a “LAB” environment, it is always good experience to use corporate/enterprise types of tooling when setting up a Lab environment. Unfortunately not everyone has the funds available to get Microsoft Windows Server Licenses, so this video highlights Zentyal Development Edition by walking you through a basic installation and configuration. By the end of this 20~ish minute video, we will have an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server configured to provide the following functionality: