Step 2: Create your AWS Managed Microsoft AD Active Directory

You can use three different methods to create your directory. You can use the AWS Management Console procedure (recommended for this tutorial) or you can use either the AWS CLI or AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell procedures to create your directory.

Method 1: To create your AWS Managed Microsoft AD directory (AWS Management Console)

1. In the AWS Directory Service console navigation pane, choose Directories and then choose Set up directory.

2. On the Select directory type page, choose AWS Managed Microsoft AD, and then choose Next.

3. On the Enter directory information page, provide the following information, and then choose Next.

   • For Edition, select either Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition. For more information about editions, see AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory.

   • For Directory DNS name, type corp.example.com.

   • For Directory NetBIOS name, type corp.

   • For Directory description, type AWS DS Managed.

   • For Admin password, type the password you want to use for this account and type the password again in Confirm password. This Admin account is automatically created during the directory creation process. The password cannot include the word admin. The directory administrator password is case sensitive and must be between 8 and 64 characters in length, inclusive. It must also contain at least one character from three of the following four categories:

     • Lowercase letters (a-z)

     • Uppercase letters (A-Z)

     • Numbers (0-9)

     • Non-alphanumeric characters (~!@#$%^&*_-+=`|\(){}[]:;"'<>,.?/)

4. On the Choose VPC and subnets page, provide the following information, and then choose Next.

   • For VPC, choose the option that begins with AWS-DS-VPC01 and ends with (10.0.0.0/16).

   • For Subnets, choose the 10.0.0.0/24 and 10.0.1.0/24 public subnets.

5. On the Review & create page, review the directory information and make any necessary changes. When the information is correct, choose Create directory. Creating the directory takes 20 to 40 minutes. Once created, the Status value changes to Active.

Method 2: To create your AWS Managed Microsoft AD (Windows PowerShell) (Optional)

1. Open Windows PowerShell.

2. Type the following command. Make sure to use the values provided in Step 4 of the preceding AWS Management Console procedure.

   New-DSMicrosoftAD -Name corp.example.com –ShortName corp –Password P@ssw0rd –Description “AWS DS Managed” - VpcSettings_VpcId vpc-xxxxxxxx -VpcSettings_SubnetId subnet-xxxxxxxx, subnet-xxxxxxxx

Method 3: To create your AWS Managed Microsoft AD (AWS CLI) (Optional)

1. Open the AWS CLI.

2. Type the following command. Make sure to use the values provided in Step 4 of the preceding AWS Management Console procedure.

   aws ds create-microsoft-ad --name corp.example.com --short-name corp --password P@ssw0rd --description "AWS DS Managed" --vpc-settings VpcId= vpc-xxxxxxxx,SubnetIds= subnet-xxxxxxxx, subnet-xxxxxxxx