DSC Demo

Introduction

This template will create an Active Directory forest with 1 Domain, with 2 Domain Controlers. Two other VMs are created, which can then be joined to that domain semi-manually. Both push and pull configuration are used to showcase the differences.

In total, the template creates the following Azure Resources:

• A resource group
• A VNET
• 2 Subnets (Azure Bastion and 1 for all other VMs)
• An availability set
• 4 Virtual machines
  • Two domain controllers, configured with DSC Push
  • Two VMs, configured with DSC Pull
• An automation account
  • Two variables (dscDNSServer and dscDomainName)
  • A shared credentail (dscDomainAdmin)
  • 1 DSC Configuration (timezone, non compiled)
  • 1 Node configuration (timezone.local, compiled file)
• 1 Public IP for the Bastion
• The Bastion itself

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Installing Terraform

On Windows, Chocolatey is preferred to install Terraform and Git.

1. Azure CLI

2. Visual Studio Code

3. Terraform

4. GIT

5. Visual Studio Code extensions

   

Running

1. Open your terminal and run az login. If your account is related to multiple tenants, run az login -t <tenantname>
2. Set your account context to the correct subscription az account set -s <subscriptionid>
3. Run terraform init
4. Run terraform plan to view the changes
5. Run terraform apply if everything looks correct, then type yes to confirm

Manual Steps

1. Upload the JoinDomain.ps1 script to the DSC Configurations

2. Compile the config In powershell execute the following

   $ConfigData = @{
       AllNodes = @(
           @{
               NodeName                    = 'localhost'
               PSDscAllowPlainTextPassword = $True
               PSDscAllowDomainUser = $True
           }
       )
   }
   
   Start-AzAutomationDscCompilationJob -ResourceGroupName 'dc-demo' -AutomationAccountName 'aa-demo' -ConfigurationName 'ComputerJoinDomain' -ConfigurationData $ConfigData

3. Assign Nodes to the compiled configuration

Possible Quirks

Import module

Terraform might complain that the module already exists, run the below command to import the existing module. (replace the 3 variables)

terraform import 'azurerm_automation_module.dsc_modules[\"ComputerManagementDsc\"]' /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/<rg-name>/providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/<aa-name>/modules/ComputerManagementDsc