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# Windows Server 2019 on Proxmox 

## **Initial Setup**

First go get the ISO [here](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2019) and then upload it to proxmox:

![](0.png) ![](1.png)

Here are my settings, make sure to tweak them to match what you need.

![](2.png) ![](3.png)

Use SPICE to view what's happening on the machine:

![](4.png) ![](5.png)

by default, virt-viewer captures your mouse and keyboard, if you want to escape it you need to type CTRL+ALT+R

After that, let WS2019 install itself, the VM may reboot a few times:

![](6.png)

Here to send a CTRL+ALT+DEL you can use virt-viewer's sendkey feature, then after that login with the admin account you just created:

![](7.png)

Before we start let's get confortable and set the screen resolution right:

![](8.png) ![](9.png)

By default on WS2019 there is only Internet Explorer, so let's get firefox on it, to do so we will simply download a firefox 64bit executable on our host machine, use python3's http module to make it available on our local network (here its 10.0.0.0/16) and retrieve it on windows server:

![](10.png)

We move the executable into the /tmp directory alternative called /dev/shm
    
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [~]
    → cd Downloads
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [~/Downloads]
    → ls -lash Firefox\ Setup\ 87.0.exe
    55M -rw-r--r-- 1 nothing nothing 55M Mar 27 15:26 'Firefox Setup 87.0.exe'
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [~/Downloads]
    → mv Firefox\ Setup\ 87.0.exe firefox.exe
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [~/Downloads]
    → mv firefox.exe /dev/shm/firefox.exe
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [~/Downloads]
    → cd /dev/shm
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [/dev/shm]
    → ls
    firefox.exe         
    
    [ 10.0.0.10/16 ] [ /dev/pts/35 ] [/dev/shm]
    → python3 -m http.server 8080
    Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8080 (http://0.0.0.0:8080/) ...
    	
    

Now we will retrieve it on our windows machine:

![](11.png)

We will use the Invoke-WebRequest powershell command that got aliased to 'curl' to get our firefox installer file at the **http://10.0.0.10:8080** URL: 

![](12.png)

Then just run the executable to install firefox, after that we are going to follow our previous windows server guides and first install DNS using the server manager:

![](14.png)

Now that firefox is our default browser, let's get rid of that annoying SPICE virt-viewer, we will simply enable windows remote desktop:

![](15.png) ![](16.png)

Now that's done, make sure your windows server has a static IP:

![](17.png)

With this we know that the RDP connection will be made to 10.0.0.204 at the 3386 port (windows' default RDP port) If you are on a windows machine host, you can use **WIN+R mstrc** and then just give it the ip of the machine, Or if you are in linux, you can install remmina to remote desktop into your windows server 2019 VM:

![](18.png) ![](19.png) ![](20.png)

And that's it! Now we are ready to work on WS2019 properly, let's get to the DNS installation:

## **DNS Setup**

![](21.png) ![](22.png) ![](23.png)

Then just click Next at everything and hit 'Install'

![](24.png) ![](25.png) ![](26.png)

So here we're going to choose the 'nowhere.local' primary zone:

![](27.png) ![](28.png) ![](29.png)

Now this part right here is going to be used by our Active Directory:

![](30.png)

## **Active Directory Setup**

This is what we need to be able to install our AD and promote our server to being a domain controller. So let's install it:

![](31.png) ![](32.png)

Now promote your WS2019 server to a domain controller:

![](32.png) ![](33.png) ![](35.png) ![](36.png) ![](37.png)

Then just hit next at everything until you get there:

![](38.png)

Hit 'Install' and be patient, because this may take a while, and may reboot aswell. Upon rebooting you can see the following:

![](39.png)

Now you know that we have been able to setup our Active Directory properly since we managed to log into it.

Now let's create a few users:

![](41.png) ![](42.png) ![](43.png) ![](44.png)

So right now we managed to create our user called 'nothing' and we will make use of it on a second Win10 VM on the same network:

![](45.png) ![](46.png) ![](47.png) ![](48.png) ![](49.png)

Now to do this you need to setup the DNS server to be our WS2019 because it needs to resolve where nowhere.local is:

![](50.png)

Then you can test if it gets resolved correctly using a simple ping command:

![](51.png) ![](52.png)

Then put in the credentials of the user you created earlier, and then you will get the following:

![](53.png)

Once that's done, let your win10 VM reboot and edit the RDP connection settings:

![](54.png)

And simply connect, and you can see that you have successfully logged onto your Active Directory as the user 'nothing'. 

![](55.png)

And that's it! We have been able to install Windows Server 2019 on Proxmox, and configure it with DNS and Active Directory.