Joining PSC to an Active Directory Domain

I have deployed some Platform Services Controller (PSC) appliances to my environment but in order to be able to use Active Directory as an identity source you will need to join the PSC to the Active Directory domain. In this post I will show you two possible ways of doing it

My environment is based on using vSphere 6.0 Update 1

Command line method:

1.  Ensure you have enabled SSH so that you can use something like Putty. If it has not be enabled then you will need to log on to the appliance and change the settings there to allow SSH
2. Type in the user name "root" and password to SSH to your PSC appliance

3. Type in "shell.set --enabled True"

4. Type in "shell"

5. You will see some warning message and then be presented with the command prompt screen with the name of your PSC

 6. Type "cd /opt/likewise/bin"

 7. Type "./domainjoin-cli query" to see if the PSC is already part of the domain

 8. Using the format domainjoin-cli <Domain Name> <User> <Password> to join the PSC to a domain. Ensure the account you use has permissions to add a computer account to the domain. So example would be "domainjoin-cli ppe yungk Random"

 9. You should see the following information that is has joined the domain with the word "SUCCESS"

 10. Type "./domainjoin-cli query" and we should see the details of the PSC and the location of the object within Active Directory. You can also use Active Directory Users and Computers to check that there is a computer object there too

11. Type "reboot" to reboot the PSC 

GUI version method:

Using this method would need you to have already stool up a vCenter instance which is connected to the PSC controller

1. Log on to your vCenter instance

2. At the Navigator panel select "Administration"

 3. Select "Configuration"

 4. Select "Nodes"

5. Under "Nodes" select the PSC that you wish to join domain and on the right hand side panel, select "Manage" and then "Active Directory". The domain field should be empty

6. Click the "Join" button 
7. Check the title screen is the name of your PSC that you wish to join. Type in the domain you wish to join. Enter in the account details which has permssions to join a computer to the domain. Press "OK". Leave Orgaizational unit blank as I can't seem to find the right sytnax around this.

8.You will see a quick flash of the screen doing the task in the background. This is one of the fallbacks of using GUI to join the domain where it doesn't give you any indications if it has been successful or failed
8. Ensure you are still within the context of the PSC and click on "Actions" followed by "Reboot"

 9. An final prompt window will appear. Ensure the title is your Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of your PSC. Enter the reason for reboot and click "OK"

10. After a reboot follow steps 1 - 5 again. At step 5 you should see the domain filed with the domain the PSC has joined

Now that you have joined your PSC to your domain you can use Active Directory as an identity source. Remember to join all your PSC to the domain if you wish to use Active Directory as an identity source across your environment