Windows 2008 Server Core

Windows 2008 Server Core

• What is Windows 2008 Core
o It is stripped out version of Windows Server
o It only requires about 1 GB of Hard disk drive for initial installation
o It has local command line interface only
o It can be managed remotely using MMC
o It only supports 9 Server Roles

• Roles that can be installed on Core are
o Active Directory Directory Service AD DS
o Active Directory Lightweight Directory Service (AD LDS)
o Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server service
o Domain Naming Server (DNS) service
o File Server
o Print Server
o Web Server (IIS)
o Streaming Media Services
o Hyper V

• Server core can be used as Web Server but not as an Application Server so it cannot have .Net Framework installed

• Command list for joining the server to the domain
o To get the name of the server, type ‘hostname’
o To get more information of the server type ‘systeminfo’
o To rename a computer, type ‘netdom renamecomputer /newdomain:’
o To join a Domain, type ‘netdom join %computername% /domain: /userD: /password:*’
Where computername is the name of the computer joining the domain.

• Commands for configuring DHCP Service on Server Core
o To install DHCP Server, type ‘start /w OCSetup DHCP Server Core’
o To configure DHCP to start automatically ‘SC config DHCPServer Start=Auto”
o To start DHCP Service, type ‘net start DHCPServer’

• To remotely administer Server core we need to setup Firewall on the local Server as well as we need to install RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools) on the Remote Server.

To configure local firewall type the below command.
‘netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”Remote Administration Group” new enable=yes’. The command will result with updating 3 rules in the local firewall policy

RSAT can be installed on the remote Server by adding ‘Remote Server Administration Tools’ features.

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