A full Active Directory environment built from scratch for a fictional company called Silverline Technologies. Three VMs, a domain controller, a file server, and two Windows clients, all wired together on a host-only network.
Understanding how enterprise Windows environments are structured is foundational for both IT and security work. AD is everywhere. Before you can harden it, detect attacks against it, or respond to incidents inside it, you need to know how it actually works at an admin level.
So I built one. Promoted a domain controller, configured DNS, stood up a file server with departmental shares, wrote GPOs, and automated the repetitive stuff with PowerShell. Then I documented common support scenarios the same way a helpdesk analyst would.
Four VMs running on VirtualBox with a host-only network at 10.0.25.0/24.
DC01 is the domain controller running AD DS and DNS for silverline.local. FS01 is the file server hosting shared and departmental folders. CLIENT1 and CLIENT2 are Windows 10/11 workstations joined to the domain with DNS pointing at DC01.
Phase 1 — Domain Setup Promoted DC01 as the domain controller, created the silverline.local domain and DNS zones, assigned static IPs, and verified name resolution and connectivity across all machines.
Phase 2 — File Server Configured departmental shares for HR, IT, and Finance alongside a general shared folder. Applied NTFS and share permissions separately and tested access denied scenarios to confirm enforcement.
Phase 3 — Users, Groups, and Policy Created OUs for each department and for computers. Added users manually and via a bulk creation script. Assigned users to security groups. Applied GPOs for password complexity, account lockout, login banners, and drive mappings and validated enforcement on both client machines.
Three PowerShell scripts in /scripts handle the repetitive admin work.
bulk_user_creation.ps1 creates users from a CSV and places them in the right OU. map_network_drives.ps1 maps department drives via GPO logon script. reset_password.ps1 resets a user password and forces change at next logon.
Three support tickets documented in /cases the way a helpdesk analyst would write them up.
password_reset.md access_denied.md apply_gpo.md
Windows Server 2022 · Windows 10/11 · Active Directory · DNS · Group Policy · PowerShell · VirtualBox