How to Test Communication Between a DC and Client Step by Step

#activedirectory #networking

I recently set up an Active Directory Domain Controller (AD DC) and added a client computer to the domain. Everything looked fine on the surface, but since I'm still learning networking, I wasn't 100% sure if the server and client were communicating properly.

So I walked through a few basic steps to troubleshoot and confirm that things were working as expected. I'm sharing them here in case they help someone else who's also getting started with AD and networking.

1️⃣ Check Network Settings (Simple but Important)

The DC and the client should be on the same subnet, like 10.1.1.x
The DC should have a static IP address, don't rely on DHCP for this
On the client, set the DNS server to the IP address of the DC. This is super important because AD relies heavily on DNS

2️⃣ Test Basic Connectivity

Make sure the two machine can reach each other over the network

From the client, ping the DC's IP address
From the DC, ping the client's IP address
From the client, ping the DC's hostname
From the DC, ping the client's hostname

3️⃣ Check DNS Resolution

DNS is a core part of AD, so it's worth double-checking that name resolution is working correctly.

On the client, run ipconfig /registerdns, this forces the client to register its name with DNS
On the DC, run ipconfig /flushdns , this clears the DNS cache in case old records are stuck
Then on the DC, run

  nslookup [client-hostname]
  nslookup [client-IP]

The first command checks forward DNS resolution (name to IP), and the second checks reverse DNS (IP to name). Both should return the correct values.

4️⃣ Domain Login Check

Try logging in to the client using a domain account, not a local user account
After logging in, open Command Prompt and type whoami, it should return something like yourdomain\username

This confirms that the machine is communicating with the DC and that authentication is working.

5️⃣ Check Firewall and Network Profile

Windows often blocks ping requests when the network type is set to Public by default. This can cause the DC's ping to the client to fail, even though everything else is configured correctly.

Allow ICMP (ping) rule in the firewall settings. This helps with basic connectivity testing.

If the DC can't ping the client's IP but can ping the gateway, it's usually because the client's firewall or routing settings are blocking inbound ping requests.

If you're setting up a test AD environment in a lab, and even if you're new to networking or AD, these basic steps can help you quickly identify where something might be going wrong, whether it's DNS, IP configuration, firewall settings, or domain login issues.

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