How can I setup a practice active directory lab on my current LAN?

Without knowing your LAN I'd say as long as your AD/DNS server in the lab can get out then you can access the internet (the DC will be your DNS server in the lab and can use root hints)

VMware workstation is nice but like you said it is not free.

Since you are going with 2008 then you already get Hyper-V with that (Microsoft's virtualization product)

There is also virtualbox from Oracle but in your case I'd go with Hyper-V

Thanks

Mike

LAN is pretty simple.  A single subnet going to a our firewall.

I would just create a new IP subnet for the lab. Say if your IP scope in the office is 192.168.1.0/24 then maybe just create the new domain with 172.16.1.0/24 and give them the existing gateway so that they have internet access. The other thing that you could do is configure an entire new network with a seperate router that uses your existing gateway for internet access. VMWare has a 30 day trial of their software that is fully functional that you can play around with and create virtual machines etc.

Kenny

On the networking side, you can set up a separate VLAN on a switch that can communicate with the Internet. You'll have to get it trunked through to the router, but once that's done you should be able to have Internet Access. Of course, if your company doesn't have any managed switches, things get a *lot* tougher. I have my practice network at home and am able to use the company's management software to remote in to my server with a network Agent. And that's really handy, but I imagine your company doesn't want to just hand over the outdated servers. You *might* be able to segregate your network with a separate Subnet and Mask than the one used by your company if you don't have managed switches.

As for Virtualization, All versions of Windows 2008 come with Hyper V (unless you bought the version that *doesn't*) that is great for running a little test virtual network. I have about 10 VMs of varying OSes that I use on my network on a single server. Works great.

Also, if you haven't done so yet, I very very highly recommend getting a Technet Subscription. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx has info on that. Depending on what level of subscription you get, you will have access to ISOs and Demonstration licenses of just about everything Microsoft makes. Those licenses cannot be used in a production environment, but they allow unlimited usage in a test/training environment.

This was part of my question as well:  If I have two completely separate domains on the same subnet and lan, it wont' cause any problems?  I figure as long as my lab is pointing to the right dns server there shouldn't be a problem right?

Thanks!

You could potentially run into issues with DHCP (broadcast based).  Are these domains in different forests?
 

Yes different forests

Don't run two DHCP servers, but you can run two different forests on the same LAN segment. It's easier to run different DNS, but you can use the same DNS servers is you statically created the entries for your test domain on your existing DNS server. It would be like running an AD environment and you were using BIND for DNS.
 

Hi

Download VMWare server for free.
http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_server/2_0
Install it on one of your machines and create your virtual  test environment as Virtual machines. Configure your VMWare network to bridge or nat your host to access internet.

you could also use AD Lightweight if you want only to play with LDAP queries
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897400.aspx


Thanks
Jose

I forgot, vmware player is free.
microsoft virtual pc is also free.
If you are testing, use them. If you need them for more, I would suggest vmware full blown server software.  
 
Good luck.