30 March 2008
How to add the Hyper-V role to a Windows Server 2008 Server Core machine
Soon, I promise, I will be publishing part 3 which is the workgroup server-core version of “Hyper-V Remote Management: You do not have the requested permission to complete this task. Contact the administrator of the authorization policy for the computer ‘COMPUTERNAME’.”. However, to get there, we need to get Hyper-V up and running on server core first.
(For a refresh, here's the links to part one and part two.)
In the meantime, today's post backs up a bit, starting the story where the Windows Server 2008 installation of server core has just completed. Before reading further, it may help to take a look here for the server core “idiots guide” crib-sheet.
Step 1 - Logon
The first thing you notice after pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del is a prompt for “Other User”
Here, you should enter “administrator” with a blank password. (Note that administrator is localized as I found out a few weeks ago installing Spanish Windows Server 2008 where it is 'administrador'. Never knew that!)
Step 2 – Set the administrator password and get to the desktop
You then need to set an appropriate password which meets the password complexity policy.
After changing the password, this is what you see: A command prompt. (I love the irony in that it sits “Preparing your desktop…” for quite some time – I’m sure it takes longer than on a full installation!)
Step 3 – Initial configuration
The first few things I like to do are:
a) Set an appropriate computer name (note I’m not joining this machine to a domain)
- hostname (to get the current computer name)
- netdom renamecomputer currentname /NewName:newname
b) Enable remote management
- netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Administration" new enable=yes
c) Enable remote desktop
- cscript \windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /ar 0
- cscript \windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /cs 0
d) Reboot for the computer name change to take effect
Step 4 – Apply the Hyper-V update
Now you need to enable to Hyper-V role. First, you should apply the latest update to Hyper-V to the machine (now at RTM as at 6/26). This is no different from applying the update to a full installation of Windows Server 2008. You just have to launch it from a command prompt. Note that I had already “net use”’d to a share on another computer that had the update available locally and copied it across to the server core machine. Confirm the installation and reboot as requested. (Obviously if you are reading this when builds after RC0 are available, replace the MSU KB number with the appropriate number.)
Step 5 – Enable the Hyper-V role
To enable the Hyper-V role, use “ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V” and reboot when prompted
So at this point, we have a machine running a server core installation option of Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role up and running. Soon then will be post showing you how to manage this machine remotely using the Vista management tools for Hyper-V when in a workgroup environment.
Cheers,
John.
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