System Center 2012, SCCM part 1

Phuh! This easter has been alot to do, reading for my MCP exam and setting up my new home lab enviroment. So far I have setup most of the servers, they consist of:
1: AD + DNS
2:  SQL w/Reporting Services
3: SCCM w/DP, MP, Application web site point, PXE role, Reporting point (all in one)
4: SCVMM Management + Self Service Portal
5: SCOM w/Management Server
6: SCSM

So im going to start with the innstallation of SCCM 2012. I presume that you have a basic understanding of what SCCM is, if not I suggest heading over to Microsoft -> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/configuration-manager-2012.aspx In short it is a system management framework, used to manage computers (Software deployment, patching, OSD, AV, Baselines and compliance, reporting ++++ )
Before we start with the installation be sure to check that you have either of these versions of SQL server installed.

  • SQL Server 2008 SP2 with Cumulative Update 9
  • SQL Server 2008 SP3 with Cumulative Update 4
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Cumulative Update 4
  • The instance of SQL Server in use at each site must use the following collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

To check what version of SQL server you have installed start SMSS, and then click About on the Help menu.
sccm1-sql
You can download the SCCM 2012 RC from here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/configuration-manager-2012-trial.aspx

And then the Server that  is going to have SCCM installed needs
.Net 4.0 (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851)
.Net 3.5 SP1 (servermanagercmd -install Net-Framework)
Remote Differencial Compression (Servermanagercmd -Install Rdc)
WSUS 3.0 SP2 If you are going to use it for Patch Management (Which im going to do )You also need to do some changes in Active Directory (You need a user with domain admin access to change this )  This is because SCCM will publish information in AD that the clients will access later (more info on that later). (You don’t have to to this if you want to but it makes it easier for the clients to find what server the agent should communicate to)

Perform this on a  Active Directory Domain Controller as a Domain Administrator

Open ADSI Edit, click on Action, Connect To and click Ok, Double Click on Default Naming Context and the DC= that appears below it. Click on the + and scroll down to CN=System.

Right Click on CN=System and choose New, Object
sccm-ad1

Choose Container from the options,
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click Next and enter System Management as the value.
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Click Next and Finish .Open Active Directory Users and Computers. Click on view, select Advanced Features.Select the System Management Container, and right click it, choose All Tasks and Delegate Control
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When the Welcome to Delegation of Control Wizard appears click next, then click Add. click on Object Types, select Computers. Type in your SCCM server name and click on Check Names (It my case my server name is SCCM (I changed it later to configmgr) so therefore enter the name of your server here)
sccm-ad5

Click Ok, then Next. Choose Create a Custom Task to Delegate, click next, make sure This folder, existing objects in this folder and creation of new objects in this folder is selected.
click next, select the 3 permissions General, Property-Specific and Creation-deletion of specific child objectsare selected then place a check mark in FULL CONTROL, and click next then Finish.
If you don’t do this, you will recive some errors from the SCCM server and the agents  (Since by default SCCM tries to publish its information to AD)
Next we need to extended the AD schema, do this on your Active Directory server as well, browse the network to your sccm server \sccmisodrive$ and locate the folder where you uncompressed SCCM 2012 and find SMSSetupBinx64Extadsch.exe, right click and choose Run As Administrator,
sccm-ad6
sccm-ad7
 
after you have done this there will be generated a log file on your c: ExtADSch.log so please check this for error before continuing, if it is successful it should look like this.
sccm-ad8

Now when you start the wizard, you have the option to download the prerequisites,  I suggest you start by download those to a local folder on the server since we need them later in the setup. 
sccm2

After they are downloaded continue with the install.

Since this is a new install, We choose the Install a Configuration Manager primary site (The other option, install Configuration Manager Central administration site also known as a CAS is used to centrally manage multiple CM sites. more on that later)
sccm-setup2
Since I don’t have a product key I choose evaluation
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Accept the license terms
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Accept more license terms
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Browse the path to the previous downloaded prerequisites
sccm-setup6

I choose english here

sccm-setup7-language

Same here

sccm-setup8-language

Here we enter a site code, which consists of 3 letters, this site code is used as a boundary so the clients know that when it belongs to that particular site it should contact these servers. Much like when you live in Oslo, you know that you need to contact the local police station in case something happens 🙂
In the site name just type something relevant, this information will also appear in the application web portal we are going to install later.

sccm-setup9

Next I choose, install the primary site as a standalone site ( Since this is a singel domain )

sccm-setup10

Now enter the name of the SQL server (Need to make sure that port 1433, and 4022 is open in order for it to work ) (Also you need to give the computer account administrative access on the SQL server and on the server you are installing SCCM on. )

sccm-setup11-dba

 

review the SMS provider settings,

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Client computer communication settings, select Configure the Communication method on each site system, since I don’t have a Root CA I need to choose http,

sccm-setup14

Next I choose to install a Management Point & Distribution Point on this site, that will communicate via http

sccm-setup15

Now you get the summary screen just doublecheck that this is correct and continue,

Next, now its going to check the prerequisites.  This consists of checking if the server has rights to publish information to AD, if the AD schema is populated with the new SCCM schema, if the SQL server is responding, if WSUS and/or AIK (You don’t need to have these installed since you might be using some other solution for patch management, so these will just give you a warning if you don’t have it installed) + some more. You can check the setup log file on C: drive and you can see what checks the setup does.

In my case I forgot to install WSUS, and I forgot to give the server administrative rights on the server, so I need to fix that before we continue (As you can see, we can’t continue until we fixed the problems that are listed as critical, you can have multiple warnings but still continue with the install )

sccm-setup16
sccm-setup17

Now that I’ve the previous steps, we only got some warning messages, So I continue with the installation (Since my SQL server is running on a low specced Virtual machine I get those error messages)

Voila, installation if complete, if I check in Active Directory now you can see that it has automaticly published information about that site.
sccm-setup19
sccm-setup20

PS: IF something went wrong during the installation doublecheck the log C:ConfigMgrSetup.log it might contain information what went wrong.
In case you might want to install cmtrace which is a log viewing tool which resides on the installation media of configmgr under Tools.

Now I can open the console so we can continue with the configuration, so stay tuned for part 2 of this SCCM blogathon.

0 thoughts on “System Center 2012, SCCM part 1”

  1. Hiya very cool site!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your website and take the feeds also?I’m happy to seek out so many helpful info right here within the publish, we’d like develop more strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

  2. Pawel Czopowik

    I believe you have a mistake:
    SQL Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and Cumulative Update 4
    should be:
    SQL Server 2008 R2 with SP1 and with a minimum of Cumulative Update 6

    1. Hi Pawel, when I was writing the article CU4 was the requirement, think it was Beta 2 release to SCCM, but ill update the article now, thanks!

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