this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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I'm curious as to why someone would need to do that short of having a bunch of users and a small office at home. Or maybe managing the family's computers is easier that way?

I was considering a domain controller (biased towards linux since most servers/VMs are linux) but right now, for the homelab, it just seems like a shiny new toy to play with rather than something that can make life easier/more secure. There's also the problem of HA and being locked out of your computer if the DC is down.

Tell me why you're running it and the setup you've got that makes having a DC worth it.

Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (19 children)

I do, for a multitude of reasons

  • Easier management of family computers
  • an authoritative source for Authentik SSO
  • Learning experience, I'm also heavy Linux, but I try to maintain an OS agnostic philosophy with my skill set so I can have options in my career
  • I was bored
  • Again, since I like to maintain an OS agnostic philosophy I have a healthy mix of Windows, Linux and MacOS devices, and you CAN in fact join Linux (w/ SSSD) and MacOS to a domain too

In addition to what others have said with roaming profiles and such:

DO NOT SET YOUR AD DOMAIN AS THE SAME DOMAIN OF A WEB ADDRESS YOU USE

I..er...someone... Found themselves in this situation and have been in a mess since lmao

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Can you explain your disclaimer? You suggest not setting your AD domain to a web address you use, like one for self hosted sites? So you buy 2 domains, one for AD and one for sites? Or you use an internal domain for AD?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

All the descriptions are right and techniques. Microsoft sometimes refers to this is split-brain and their documentation.

Organizations that choose not to do that use an active directory specific subdomain like some of the other comments mentioned. Example: adds. Company.tld.

Computer1.adds.company.tld. Dc1.adds.cimoany.tld.

Others doing split domain are

Adds.company.internal

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

In shorter terms to what the other comment said, your website won't work in networks that use DNS served by your DC. The website is fine on the Internet, but less so at home or at an office/on a VPN if you're an enterprise.
"I can't go to example.com on the VPN!" was a semi common ticket at my last company 🙃

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

AD is heavily reliant on the DNS protocol, so heavily in fact that a large component of an AD deployment is a DNS server.

So basically, when the AD DNS server takes over on your network It'll do DNS things as you'd expect, when it gets a DNS call with the AD domain it will answer with the AD server every time

If your AD domain and your web address domain are domain.com then whenever the AD DNS server gets theh call it won't answer with the IP address of the web server, it'll answer with the AD server, even when you are trying to access a web service like domain.com/Plex or something.

You can change the DNS server used on the host, but then you'll be borkin domain functionality in weird ways

Yea, you'd want an entirely different domain or an internal like domain.lan or in my case what I should have done is made it a subdomain like ad.domain.com

And also it's a bitch to change the AD domain once you get it all setup hence I've been procrastinating with hosts file workarounds lmfao

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

made it a subdomain

That is the correct answer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If I remember correctly that is best practise, no? It was something.local or *.intern for years, until TLDs could be whatever you wanted them to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

.local is reserved for mDNS responses, don't use that.

It's more than best practice. Your active directory controllers want to be the resolvers for their members, separate from other zones such as external MX records or the like. Your AD domain should always be a separate zone, aka a subdomain. "ad.example.com".

If your DCs are controlling members at the top level, you'll eventually run into problems with Internet facing services and public NS records.

Also per below. You can't get commercially signed certificates for fake domains. Self hosting certificate authorities is a massive pain in the ass. Don't try unless you have a real need, like work-related learning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Do not use made up domains for anything these days. It will make it a pain if you ever need a certificate for that domain that isn't self-signed.

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