A blog by Jose Barreto, a member of the File Server team at Microsoft.
All messages posted to this blog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights.
Information on unreleased products are subject to change without notice.
Dates related to unreleased products are estimates and are subject to change without notice.
The content of this site are personal opinions and might not represent the Microsoft Corporation view.
The information contained in this blog represents my view on the issues discussed as of the date of publication.
You should not consider older, out-of-date posts to reflect my current thoughts and opinions.
© Copyright 2004-2012 by Jose Barreto. All rights reserved.
Follow @josebarreto on Twitter for updates on new blog posts.
Windows Server 2012 includes a built-in mechanism called Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) to check your configuration and make sure everything is set to the proper values. These set of rules, which come in specific sets for each role you install, can be run through Server Manager or also via PowerShell.
For the Windows Server 2012 File Services role, the BPA includes a number of rules, including 99 rules for SMB. Here are some of the rules included in the SMB portion of the File Services BPA:
You should definitely run the BPA when you have a chance. Here is a series of PowerShell examples on how to do it:
1) Find which BPA Models are available:
PS C:\> Get-BpaModel | Select Id Id -- Microsoft/Windows/ADRMS Microsoft/Windows/CertificateServices Microsoft/Windows/ClusterAwareUpdating Microsoft/Windows/DHCPServer Microsoft/Windows/DirectoryServices Microsoft/Windows/DNSServer Microsoft/Windows/FileServices Microsoft/Windows/Hyper-V Microsoft/Windows/LightweightDirectoryServices Microsoft/Windows/NPAS Microsoft/Windows/RemoteAccessServer Microsoft/Windows/TerminalServices Microsoft/Windows/UpdateServices Microsoft/Windows/VolumeActivation Microsoft/Windows/WebServer
PS C:\> Get-BpaModel | Select Id
Id -- Microsoft/Windows/ADRMS Microsoft/Windows/CertificateServices Microsoft/Windows/ClusterAwareUpdating Microsoft/Windows/DHCPServer Microsoft/Windows/DirectoryServices Microsoft/Windows/DNSServer Microsoft/Windows/FileServices Microsoft/Windows/Hyper-V Microsoft/Windows/LightweightDirectoryServices Microsoft/Windows/NPAS Microsoft/Windows/RemoteAccessServer Microsoft/Windows/TerminalServices Microsoft/Windows/UpdateServices Microsoft/Windows/VolumeActivation Microsoft/Windows/WebServer
2) Run the File Services BPA:
PS C:\> Invoke-BpaModel Microsoft/Windows/FileServices ModelId : Microsoft/Windows/FileServices SubModelId : Success : True ScanTime : 11/15/2012 10:48:02 PM ScanTimeUtcOffset : -08:00:00 Detail : {FST2-FS1, FST2-FS1}
3) View a summary of the BPA results by Severity
PS C:\> Get-BpaResult Microsoft/Windows/FileServices | Group Severity
Count Name Group ----- ---- ----- 96 Information {Microsoft.BestPractices.CoreInterface.Result, Microsoft.BestPractices.CoreInterface... 3 Warning {Microsoft.BestPractices.CoreInterface.Result, Microsoft.BestPractices.CoreInterface...
4) View the details for all results with “Warning” severity level :
PS C:\> Get-BpaResult Microsoft/Windows/FileServices | ? Severity -eq "Warning" ResultNumber : 3 ResultId : 1041159855 ModelId : Microsoft/Windows/FileServices SubModelId : SMB RuleId : 3 ComputerName : fst2-fs1 Context : FileServices Source : fst2-fs1 Severity : Warning Category : Configuration Title : Short file name creation should be disabled Problem : In addition to the normal file names, the server is creating short, eight-character file names with a three-character file extension (8.3 file names) for all files. Impact : Creating short file names in addition to the normal, long file names can significantly decrease file server performance. Resolution : Disable short file name creation unless short file names are required by legacy applications. Compliance : Help : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=165013 Excluded : False ResultNumber : 86 ResultId : 2816034575 ModelId : Microsoft/Windows/FileServices SubModelId : SMB RuleId : 86 ComputerName : fst2-fs1 Context : FileServices Source : fst2-fs1 Severity : Warning Category : Configuration Title : Scaleout shares should have CachingMode = None Problem : At least one scale out share doesn't have CachingMode = None. Impact : Scale out shares having a CachingMode value other than 'None' isn't supported. Resolution : Set scale out shares' CachingMode to None. Compliance : Help : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=248013 Excluded : False ResultNumber : 92 ResultId : 4167795643 ModelId : Microsoft/Windows/FileServices SubModelId : SMB RuleId : 92 ComputerName : fst2-fs1 Context : FileServices Source : fst2-fs1 Severity : Warning Category : Configuration Title : Enable Checksum Offload on a network adapter Problem : Some network adapters are capable of Checksum Offload, but the capability is disabled. Impact : Windows system performance may be degraded since TCP/IP checksum calculations are not being offloaded from the CPU to the network adapter. Resolution : Enable Checksum Offload with PowerShell cmdlet: Enable-NetAdapterChecksumOffload, or in the network adapter Advanced Properties. Compliance : Help : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=243160 Excluded : False
Note: At this point, some of the extended help on the web for the new Windows Server 2012 BPA rules is still being published. For some of them, at this point, you might be redirected to a page saying “Windows Server Future Resources”.