Yesterday Microsoft released the beta for Windows 8, including Windows 8 server. I’ve been curious too see what improvements Microsoft has done to the server platform. And Since I’ve mostly certified in Microsoft Server products, I have another round to go with certifications when they are released.
I am particular interested in what improvements Microsoft has done with the management of the servers. In case of Citrix they have 1 console to manage all servers in the Xenapp infrastructure.
Many changes has happend in each of the server roles. I will try to write a bit about the improvements that has happend as I go around the innstallation of the different roles.
First of I’ve taken a quick installation of ADDS.
My setup lab just consist of the newest Virtualbox from Oracle. And I’ve created 2 virtual machines. Each with 2 virtual CPU and 4GB of ram.
I just started the install (With the GUI since this is the first server)
After I’ve finished installing and entered a Administrator username and password.
I come to this startup screen.
I login and as in previous versions, server manager starts up automaticly the first time. And as you can see there are no start button. The only shortcuts present are
* Server Manager
* Powershell
* Windows Explorer
The first page of the server manager has been replaced with a “Dashboard”
Which gives you an info page and a “todo” list. From here I can add other servers. So I can centrally manage them from the Dashboard.
This is something new in Windows Server 8, the ability to centrally manage all your servers from one console. Right now I only have this one server so not much to manage :/
If you press the “Local Server” on the left side, you come to the overview tab for the Local Server.
Much like the first page you see on Windows Server 2008.
Gives you an overview over server. With shortcuts to things you can edit. So you can quickly change the IP-adress, hostname, windows update and such.
Of course you can script this for the most part with Powershell. Ill give a quick turtorial on this later.
Lower down on the page you can an overview over Events that has happend.
Now I want to install Active Directory Domain Services, so I go back to the Dashboard, and choose “Add roles and features” -> Choose “Role-based of feature based installation” -> And Choose Active Directory Domain Services, and mark that I want the management tools as well.
The setup looks like the earlier versions. I choose to create a new forst with a root domain, since this is the first Domain Controller. I enter test.local as my domain name and choose enter.
Windows 8 comes with a new functional level for the forst and the domain.
And comes with the option to create a RODC as well. But since this is my first DC I need to choose DNS and GC server.
And I enter a DSRM password.
I choose next -> next -> and finish. On the Installtion page I get an option go show the script that is going to be run to do the innstalltion. This is much like Cisco does in the ASDM application. The possibility to show powershell commands that are run when I do stuff in the GUI.
If you want to script the innstalltion of a Windows 8 server with ADDS services this is an example of what you can do.
This script has to be done in 2 parts, since after a renaming I have to restart the computer for it to go in effect. ( Shutdown /r is replaced with stop-computer in powershell )
Rename-computer DC
netsh interface ipv4 add address “Wired Ethernet Connection” 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0 gateway =192.168.0.1
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver “Wired Ethernet Connection” 192.168.0.1
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver “Wired Ethernet Connection” 192.168.0.3 index=2
shutdown /r
Add-Windowsfeature AD-Domain-Services.
Import-Module ADDSDeployment
-Install -ADDSForest ‘
-CreateDNSDelegation:$false ‘
-DatabasePath “C:windowsNTDS” ‘
-DomainMode “Win8” ‘
-DomainName “test.local” ‘
-DomainNetBIOSName “TEST” ‘
-ForestMode “Win8” ‘
-IntallDNS:$true ‘
-Logpath “C:windowsNTDS” ‘
-RebootonCompletion:$true ‘
-SYSVOLPath “C:WindowsSYSVOL” ‘
-Force:$true
And after a few reboots the installation is finished. Next post will be regarding terminal server installation.