[deprecated] Quick Start Setup Guide

Please note that this documentation is old and generally no longer relevant to the TurnKey Docmain Controller v14.0 and newer (this page relates to TurnKey DC v13.x and before)...

The TKL PDC is ready to go straight out of the box. A vanilla XP install on the same subnet will join the domain with just a little network configuration...

Before you start...

TurnKey PDC is not an Active Directory replacement: The v13.x (and previous versions) of TKL PDC uses Samba 3. If you're looking for a Server 200x Active Directory full replacement, this isn't going to do the job. With this PDC acting as the DC on your network, you're going to have a NT domain. However if you follow these instructions then you can add it to your existing AD domain.
Windows Home versions can't join a domain: None of the Windows Home versions [Starter (XP, Vista, Win7), Home (XP), MCE (XP), Home Basic (Vista, Win7), Home Premium (Vista, Win7) or Windows 8 (Windows 8 without a suffix title is the successor to Win7 Home Premium)] are capable of joining a domain. You'll need to use a 'professional' version [Pro (XP, Win8) Business (Vista), Professional (Win7), Enterprise (Vista, Win7, Win8) or Ultimate (Vista, Win7, Win8)].

Setting Up

Build your TKL PDC or get the VM up and running (e.g., VirtualBox installation tutorial). You should set up the network address, PDC name, domain name and root password before you do anything else. DO NOT TRY TO CREATE ANY WINDOWS USERS AT THIS POINT.

You can set the PDC IP on the config console when the machine boots up. To set the PDC and Domain names, fire up a browser, point it a the PDC address and select the Samba icon. After you've logged in, you can change the domain and PDC settings via the 'Windows Networking' icon.

On the XP client networking settings, set the WINS address to the PDC IP. NT domains rely heavily on NETBIOS so you don't need to worry about DNS.

Make sure you can ping the PDC from the client and vice versa to prove the network configuration. Ping by IP and by name to ensure that everything appears as expected.

If you are using a VirtualBox XP build for testing and you can't join the domain, you probably have a network misconfiguration. The default network setting for VirtualBox machines is NAT, this won't work. You need to bridge the virtual network to your physical network. Take a look at the network settings on the TKL PDC virtual machine, it's set up with bridging by default.

Joining the Domain

Log on to the client with the local admin account and

Right click 'My Computer' and select 'Properties'
Select the 'Computer Name' tab on the system properties dialog.
Selecting the 'Change' button brings up the computer name changes dialog.
Select the 'Domain' option and type the name of your domain into the text box.

If all is well, you should be prompted for a username and password to join the domain. Enter the Samba username 'administrator' and the password ('turnkey' is the default).

If all is well, you should get a short wait followed by a 'Welcome to the domain' message. Once the client is rebooted, you can log on with the Samba administrator account (remember to select the domain at the logon prompt).

Adding Users

Now you can create domain/Samba users on the PDC, they will be automagically be available for logon on the client. There are a few gotchas with creating users, groups and policies, but that's beyond the scope of this guide.

If you are getting an error message such as "windows cannot locate server copy roaming profile" on login, then please ensure that your Linux user is in the Linux group "smbuser" and that Linux users and Samba users are synced.