To configure a new Azure Active Directory instance, you must first navigate to the Classic Azure Management Portal, and log in with your Azure administrative credentials. Once logged in, scroll down the left-side menu until you find Active Directory. Click New.
The gray lower menu will expand. Ensure Active Directory (1) is still selected, select Directory (2), then Custom Create (3).
Here we will create the directory (1). Provide a name (2) and a domain name(3), then enter the country or region your AD will serve (4). The Domain Name will be your NetBIOS name, and form part of your FQDN. Click the checkmark (5) to save your selection.
Your Azure Active Directory will be created, but still needs to be configured. Many optional settings can be applied at this point, including a custom domain name for your organization (for example we might use softnas.com). However, this article is focused on what you will need to connect your SoftNAS on Azure instances. Other than creating a user, which will be covered shortly, these additional settings are out of scope for this article. For now, select Configure from the top menu bar.
In Configure, we will need to set up Domain Services. Scroll down (typically with your wheel-mouse) to find Domain Services, and click Yes to enable them.
The DNS Domain name will populate automatically based on the selections made at creation. This will also be the FQDN for your Active Directory configuration. Here you will also select a virtual network.
When selecting (or creating) a virtual network, it is important to consider the network you will be using for your SoftNAS VMs. As SoftNAS only supports the use of Resource Manager rather than Classic configurations, a peering will need to be made with networks created on the Classic portal. Because a peering connection will need to be made, you must take note of the region and subscription used for the classic virtual network selected. You will need to use a virtual network under the same subscription, and the same region (or create one).
However, before creating the network peering, we need a user to authenticate the connection to Azure AD.