Creating Testing domain inside the current working AD in VMs

[albertwt]

Hi All,

I'd like to know if there is any implication or caveats that i should consider in creating a test Active directory domain inside a group of VM ?

at the moment I have working active directory running as DOMAIN.COM with two DC/GC + DNS server, and if for example I'm creating a VM to create a separate testing domain named TEST.COM including it's own DC, DNS and Mail server would that be possible to run side by side without any effect to the current Active directory domain ?

Can i still use the current IP address subnet range as DOMAIN.COM ?

Any kind of suggestion and idea would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[computer_expert]

what i'd tend to do is to grab virtualbox and set up a internal network connection between the machines so that the test domain doesnt have access to the local network & internet.

if you need the internet on the test domain, just add another lan card to the test server and set up RRAS

edit - just seen vmware in the tags, just set the NICs to custom and make sure all ethernet cards are on the same VMnet (ie VMnet 4) then all test machines should be able to communicate with the test domain. again, if you need the net on the test domain, just add another NIC, set up RRAS and set the NIC (you just created) to NAT in the vmware ethernet config page

[Stuart_C]

As long as all the setting point to the correct server I wouldn't have thought there'd be a problem.
Might be prudent not to use DCHP on your test net if there's any connection to your main network.

[albertwt]

Thanks for the reply guys and that does make sense,

1. Make separate IP/subnet
2. in the VMWare ESXi server, create a separate vSwitch labeled "Test Domain" to segregate the traffic.
3. In the 1st DNS Server/DC configure RRAS ? as per this link

http://www.contentonline.com/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=12&Itemid=3

..cmiiw...

How about if for example my TEST.COM domain would like to connect to the internet,
shall i just forward the Test DNS server into my real primary DNS server ?