ESXi 5 and Windows 2003 Active Directory Issues

[kcbt]

Hi all,

I am currently trying to install active directory on a virgin Windows 2003 32bit environment. An ip address has been assigned to one of the NIC's (the first one available), but when I install active directory the DNS server which is installed as part of the process is incomplete. The IP address of the server is marked as unknown, and consequently all other bits of the DNS configuration are not completed e.g. host entries, ldap, dc, pdc, kerboros etc.

When I have tried to set an ip address in the past the config say the ip address has already been set (but is not physically in the computer).

Any ideas what I can do to get around this?

Thanks,

Kevin

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

can you please clarify where you assigned the IP address? You certainly need an IP address for the ESXi host's Management network. However, this IP address has nothing to do with any virtual machines. A guest operating system has to be installed the same way as on physical hardware, i.e. with it's own network settings in the guest OS itself.

André

[kcbt]

Hi André,

Thank you. Thanks for the reply.

The servers were cloned from a physical system. When the servers were first started I needed to finish off the ip address configuration as I think the DNS servers were missing. The key thing here is that the new server does have an IP address asigned to it and I am able to ping it.

Why when a server is virtualised am I not able to able to use the old network connection (network connection 1) or even see it?

Thanks,

Kevin

[wgaybba]

Hi Kevin, that is a common problem that Windows has. Once you P2V any Windows server, it sees the VMware virtual network card as a new device. It then goes off and removes the previous one, installs the new network card as the network connection 2. It’s just a friendly name anyway, don’t worry about it. As long as you have installed VMtools, then rebooted, you should have no problem manually assigning a static IP to the newly installed network connection.

[kcbt]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Fair enough. I have managed to assign IP addresses so that is no problem. Would be nice if the warning message would not appear though as it is a little confusing.

Thanks,

Kevin

[a_p_]

When I have tried to set an ip address in the past the config say the ip  address has already been set (but is not physically in the computer).

This Windows related warning appears because Windows hides hardware which is no more present in a system and since the now "hidden" hardware NIC still has the IP settings assigned you need to answer this warning appropriately. You could also show the hidden devices and delete the old NIC. see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315539/en-us for details.

André

[kcbt]

Thanks Andre, that may fix it. I will keep you posted.