Offline domain join

The Offline domain join step is used to join a computer to an Active Directory (AD) domain. The needed AD computer account will be created by the DeployR service, so the DeployR service account (typically the computer account) needs to be delegated the rights to perform this action. The resulting "offline domian join" blob is sent back to the device and injected to complete the join process.

Specify the naming pattern to use for the computer, the domain name (DNS), and optionally the OU path (e.g. "OU=My Computers"). Note that Windows does not support specifying containers (e.g. "CN=Computers", which is the default if no OU is specified).

For the computer naming pattern, any valid task sequence variable can be specified in the name, using the "%VARIABLENAME%" mechanism. You can also specify substrings from that value. Some examples:

• %SERIALNUMBER:10% will select the first 10 characters of the SERIALNUMBER task sequence variable.

• %MAKE:-5% will seelct the last 5 characters of the MAKE task sequence variable.

• %RAND:8% will generate a random number eight digits long.

Note that the resulting computer name should be a valid Windows computer name (no spaces, limited special characters). If more complex names are required, these can be generated via a script that sets the COMPUTERNAME task sequence variable. When that value is set, it will override whatever is configured in this step.

If no computer name value is specified, "PC-%RAND:8%" will be used as a default.

Note: If the computer name specified already exists in Active Directory, the offline domain join will fail. This is a security precaution today, to ensure that the wrong computer is not disabled.