Sorry for this long hereafter message, I'll try to explain some basic concepts so that you improve your understanding. I hope it will not make things even more confused.
Despite his name
network domain doesn't mean that devices within this domain are
connected.
Of course they will have at some time but what I mean to say is that domain concept does not depend on connection status: very very high level view, domain covers devices under same "zone", thus defined within same domain or sub-domain attached to TLD.
So for Zentyal, while reinstalling, ensure this domain is set.
For what concerns devices, either you are using DHCP or you manually manage each device:
- if using DHCP, you will define in DHCP
=> the search domain option (this assumes you have configured DNS service, do not mix this up with DNS settings in network section)
=> the domain device belongs to (in the dynamic DNS options)
- if not using DHCP, you will have to define these parameters at each device level
having a local domain do i need to connect the pc's to the domain or can they still operate as "workgroup" computers?
Network domain and
workgroup or even to some extend
Microsoft domain are different concepts. Long time ago, TCP/IP was not perceived as the default protocol for networking. Like Novell with Netware, Microsoft relied on its own implementation: NetBios and WINS instead of DNS. WINS is not hierarchical (reason why you reach devices using "short" name (BTW limited to 15 characters in fact 16 minus 1).
Samba still brings this WINS emulation and Netbios over TCP/IP has been invented to make things easier but also more confusing
Things have evolved as Microsoft is able now to fully rely on DNS for Windows domain (workgroup will not evolve
) although is requires some rather specific DNS settings. and Netbios is no more a must
Answering to your side question: so far there is not terminal emulation via web server with Zentyal. You do have to SSH