Adding a machine to a domain over a Cisco VPN connection

Question

I have rebuilt my machine and in order to add it to the work domain, I guess I need to actually go to work and connect to the network physically to to it.

This is a real pain!

I have vpn access via a cisco client using a Cisco PIX at work. I can actually connect to our domain controller by IP - ftp works, http works, svn works and so does remote desktop.

I have tried to add my machine to the domain while the vpn connection is up but it does not work when I put the domain name in - it just can't find it.

Is it actually possible to tell my windows 7 machine (when the vpn connection is up) that the IP that our domain controller that lives at 192.168.0.1 is the domain controller and help it connect and authenticate?

(I have a username/password pair that will entitle me to add my machine to the domain but I just can't work out how to tell my pc to see the controller over VPN)

Solution

You need the DNS name of your domain controller to resolve correctly. You can either manually edit your hosts file (which on windows 7 should be in something like C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc)

or

If your domain controller is also a running DNS server, you could edit your Windows 7 network settings and add the domain controller to the list of DNS servers to search (adding it by IP address)

Also consider the possibility that you might need to flush your DNS cache since your machine might already have another record for your domain controller at an address it can't access when connected via VPN. Of course this won't matter if you add it to the hosts file since it should check there before it checks its DNS cache.

Comments

[Neil Trodden]

We don't have a single system administrator and this only applies to my own machine. I don't mind if it is moved if it gets me an answer ;-) but this isn't the place for a meta-discussion!

[Ciaran]

It might be time to get a sysadmin and ask him how to add a machine to a domain. Its not a superuser's place knowing how to add a machine to a domain. Sure, some might, but system admins are the ones who know. Point is, its a question that should be directed toward serverfault. Sorry to be awkward. I really just want to say you'll get a better answer quicker on serverfault