Manually join an Amazon EC2 Windows instance to your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory - AWS Directory Service

Manually join an Amazon EC2 Windows instance to your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory

To manually join an existing Amazon EC2 Windows instance to an AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory, the instance must be launched using the parameters as specified in Seamlessly join an Amazon EC2 Windows instance to your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory.

You will need the IP addresses of the AWS Managed Microsoft AD DNS servers. This information can be found under Directory Services > Directories > the Directory ID link for your directory > Directory details and Networking & Security sections.

On the AWS Directory Service console on the directory details page, the IP addresses of the AWS Directory Service provided DNS servers are highlighted.
To join a Windows instance to an AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory

  1. Connect to the instance using any Remote Desktop Protocol client.

  2. Open the TCP/IPv4 properties dialog box on the instance.

    1. Open Network Connections.

      Tip

      You can open Network Connections directly by running the following from a command prompt on the instance.

      %SystemRoot%\system32\control.exe ncpa.cpl

    2. Open the context menu (right-click) for any enabled network connection and then choose Properties.

    3. In the connection properties dialog box, open (double-click) Internet Protocol Version 4.

  3. Select Use the following DNS server addresses, change the Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS server addresses to the IP addresses of your AWS Managed Microsoft AD-provided DNS servers, and choose OK.

    The Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) Properties dialog box with the preferred DNS server and alternative DNS server fields highlighted.

  4. Open the System Properties dialog box for the instance, select the Computer Name tab, and choose Change.

    Tip

    You can open the System Properties dialog box directly by running the following from a command prompt on the instance.

    %SystemRoot%\system32\control.exe sysdm.cpl

  5. In the Member of field, select Domain, enter the fully qualified name of your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory, and choose OK.

  6. When prompted for the name and password for the domain administrator, enter the username and password of an account that has domain join privileges. For more information about delegating these privileges, see Delegate directory join privileges for AWS Managed Microsoft AD.

    Note

    You can enter either the fully qualified name of your domain or the NetBIOS name, followed by a backslash (\), and then the username. The username would be Admin. For example, corp.example.com\admin or corp\admin.

  7. After you receive the message welcoming you to the domain, restart the instance to have the changes take effect.

Now that your instance has been joined to the AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory domain, you can log into that instance remotely and install utilities to manage the directory, such as adding users and groups. The Active Directory Administration Tools can be used to create users and groups. For more information, see Install the Active Directory Administration Tools for AWS Managed Microsoft AD.

Note

You can also use Amazon Route 53 to process DNS queries instead of manually changing the DNS addresses on your Amazon EC2 instances. For more information, see Integrating your Directory Service's DNS resolution with Amazon Route 53 Resolver and Forwarding outbound DNS queries to your network.