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I am playing around with Windows Server 2016 AD DS and Nano server installation and have come across something which I thought someone could hopefully clarify for me. I installed Windows Server 2016 Datacentre edition as a guest OS on VMWare Workstation, upon which I set it up as a domain controller using the domain name “test.com”.

I then compiled the Nano server vhdx file using New-NanoServerImage and created a new VM within Hyper-V.

Now this is what I am a little confused about…I performed an offline domain join using the following command:

djoin.exe /provision /domain test.com /machine “Nano” /savefile C:\odjnano

And then copied the file to the Nano server and ran the following:

djoin.exe /requestodj /loadfile C:\odjnano /windowspath C:\Windows /localos

But for some reason this did not seem to have joined the domain (or at least I was not able to connect to the Nano server using the FQDN of the server). After some looking around at some other examples of how others have used the djoin command I then done the following:

djoin.exe /provision /domain test /machine “Nano” /savefile C:\odjnano

I remove the “.com” part from the domain switch and it worked, I was able to use the computer name to access the server.

I have tried to look around the web to try and find why this is, looking at how AD DS and DNS inter-operate but I haven’t to come across anything that has helped me.

I was hoping someone here would be able to shed some light on why the second command was successful whereas the first one wasn’t.

Thank you.

user526280
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What DNS servers was the Nano server using?

My guess is that it was resolving test.com externally and, since test.com is a real domain name, this caused the domain join to fail because the Nano server could not find the DNS records for a DC that it needed to join the domain.

When you joined the domain using the NetBIOS name a local broadcast was performed by the Nano server to find the DC for the domain, which naturally worked.

Never use a domain name that you don't own, even for testing. Use the RFC designated names for testing, documentation, etc.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606

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joeqwerty
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    Thank you, I’m such an idiot, I was attempting to join to the domain prior to me setting the DNS servers on the Nano server, simply me setting the DNS servers first I was able to connect to the Nano server using the FQDN of the server. With regards to the RFC, that has been noted and I will make sure I use the designated names for testing in the future. – user526280 Jun 03 '19 at 22:23
  • Glad to help... – joeqwerty Jun 03 '19 at 22:26