Lab 1 — Build the Virtual Lab

Goal: stand up the virtual environment every other lab depends on. Time: ~90 minutes.

Check your hardware first

systeminfo | Select-String -Pattern "Hyper-V Requirements" -Context 0,6
Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object HyperVisorPresent, CsTotalPhysicalMemory

✖Windows Home will not work

Hyper-V requires Pro, Enterprise or Education. If systeminfo lists a requirement as "No", you need the Pro upgrade or a different hypervisor — VirtualBox works on Home and is fine for this lab.

Step 1 — Enable Hyper-V

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
Restart-Computer

# Verify after reboot
Get-Service vmms
Get-VMHost | Select-Object VirtualMachineProcessorPerformanceCount,
  AvailableMemoryMB

Step 2 — Plan the addressing

Write this down before you build anything. When DHCP misbehaves later, this sheet is what you check the options against.

VM	Host	Purpose
DC01	192.168.10.10/24	Domain controller — AD DS, DNS, DHCP
SRV01	192.168.10.11/24	Member server — file shares, print
CLI01	DHCP → 192.168.10.50+	Windows client
FW01	192.168.10.1	pfSense firewall/router
LINUX01	DHCP	Ubuntu, joined to the domain

Common mask: 255.255.255.0 · Gateway: 192.168.10.1 · DNS: 192.168.10.10

Step 3 — Create a virtual switch

External networking so the VMs can reach the internet:

New-VMSwitch -Name "External" -NetAdapterName "Ethernet"
Get-VMSwitch

★Promiscuous mode

Enable it on the external switch only if you intend to sniff traffic between VMs. Otherwise traffic between VMs on the same host is handled by the internal switch without touching the physical NIC.

Step 4 — Create the VMs

# Domain controller — needs a good chunk of RAM for the AD database
New-VM -Name "DC01" -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\DC01.vhdx" -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB `
  -SwitchName "External"

# Member server
New-VM -Name "SRV01" -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 2GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\SRV01.vhdx" -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB `
  -SwitchName "External"

# Client
New-VM -Name "CLI01" -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\CLI01.vhdx" -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB `
  -SwitchName "External"

Then install Windows Server 2022 on DC01 and SRV01, and Windows 11 Pro on CLI01.

Step 5 — Configure them

On each server, set a static address:

Get-NetAdapter | Set-NetIPInterface -Dhcp Disabled
New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" `
  -IPAddress 192.168.10.10 -PrefixLength 24 `
  -DefaultGateway 192.168.10.1
Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" `
  -ServerAddresses 192.168.10.10

# Confirm — this is the exact command you will be asked about
ipconfig /all

Step 6 — Learn snapshots properly

New-VMSnapshot -VMName "DC01" -Name "Before AD promotion"
Get-VMSnapshot -VMName "DC01"
Restore-VMSnapshot -VMName "DC01" -Name "Before AD promotion" -Confirm:$false

✖Snapshots are not backups

A snapshot is a differential record kept on the same storage as the parent disk. If that storage fails, the snapshot dies with it. Left too long, a snapshot also causes a growing .avhdx and a read/write penalty on every disk operation — a VM with a months-old snapshot gets mysteriously slow.

Snapshots are for "roll back before I patch". They are not for recovery.

Step 7 — Document it

Create a repository with a README:

# Homelab
Windows Server lab for IT support interview preparation.

## Environment
- DC01  — 192.168.10.10/24 — AD DS, DNS, DHCP
- SRV01 — 192.168.10.11/24 — file and print services
- CLI01 — DHCP         — Windows client
- FW01  — 192.168.10.1  — pfSense firewall

## Screenshots
- ad-forest.png
- ou-structure.png
- gpresult.png

Verification

☑Lab 1 verification

0 / 6 complete

• Hyper-V enabled and vmms service running
• At least three VMs created and Windows installed
• Static IPs configured and verified with ipconfig /all
• Can create, list and restore a snapshot
• Can state why a snapshot is not a backup
• README written with screenshots committed to a repository

Hints

Details

VMs have no network

Check Get-VMSwitch — is there a switch, and does its NetAdapterName match your real NIC? Then confirm Get-VMNetworkAdapter -VMName DC01 is attached to it.

Details

Hyper-V will not install

Run systeminfo | Select-String "A hypervisor has been detected" — if VirtualBox or VMware is running with an older hypervisor, it blocks Hyper-V.

Solution

Show the full build sequence

# 1. Enable
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
Restart-Computer

# 2. Switch
New-VMSwitch -Name "External" -NetAdapterName "Ethernet"

# 3. VMs
New-VM -Name "DC01"  -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\DC01.vhdx"  -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB -SwitchName "External"
New-VM -Name "SRV01" -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 2GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\SRV01.vhdx" -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB -SwitchName "External"
New-VM -Name "CLI01" -Generation 2 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB `
  -NewVHDPath "C:\VMs\CLI01.vhdx" -NewVHDSizeBytes 40GB -SwitchName "External"

# 4. Static addressing on DC01
Get-NetAdapter | Set-NetIPInterface -Dhcp Disabled
New-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -IPAddress 192.168.10.10 -PrefixLength 24
Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -ServerAddresses 192.168.10.10

# 5. Snapshots
New-VMSnapshot -VMName "DC01" -Name "Clean build"
Get-VMSnapshot -VMName "DC01"

Next

Lab 2 — Active Directory, DNS & DHCP.