NorthStar Consulting Project – Part 5: Home Run
Published: September 5, 2025
Deploying Group Policies
With all users and OUs in place, I created several Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to enforce security and manage resources:
- Password policy: minimum length, complexity, and expiration.
- Mapped drives for each department.
- Desktop restrictions: disable USB write access, hide Control Panel for non-admins.
Configuring DHCP and IP Addressing
The DHCP role on DC1 was configured to assign IP addresses within the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet:
- Configured DNS to point clients to DC1 for name resolution.
DNS Verification
After joining all VMs to the domain, I verified internal name resolution:
- Pinged domain controllers and file server by hostname and FQDN.
- Ensured no external DNS resolution issues within the lab environment.
Testing Access Controls
Each user account was tested to ensure proper permissions:
- John Smith (Consultants) can access Consultants folder, but not HR or Accounts.
- Maria Green (HR) has access to HR folder only.
- Linda Grey (Accounts) can access Accounts and any resources Directors have rights to.
- Mapped drives appear correctly after login and
gpupdate /force.
With the domain fully functional, users can now log in with domain credentials, access shared folders, and receive GPO configurations automatically. The lab successfully simulates a small business AD DS environment.