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Archive for the 'Management' Category

Windows Server 2008 Core Commands

Published by ryangl March 8th, 2008 in Management and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

So you installed Server 2008 Core And here’s what you’ve got:

core

Well now what?  To start, check out the commands below:

Show NICs
netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces

Show NIC Configuration
netsh interface ipv4 show config

Configure Static IP
netsh interface ipv4 set address name=”2” source=static address=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx mask=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Add Primary DNS
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”2” address=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx index=1

Add Secondary DNS
netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”2” address=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx index=2

Rename server
netdom renamecomputer oldname /NewName:newname

Add to Domain
netdom join servername /domain:domainname /userd:domain\username
/passwordd:*

Activate the Server
cscript slmgr.vbs –ato

Enable Remote Desktop for Administration
cscript scregedit.wsf /AR 0

Allow Remote Admin through Firewall
netsh advfirewall Firewall set rule group=”Remote Administration” new enable=yes

Restart server
shutdown /r t 0

Disable Interface
netsh interface set interface “Local Area Connection 2” disabled
Delete DNS entries
netsh interface delete dnsserver name=”2” address=all

Microsoft Virtualization Assessment and Planning Tool

Published by ryangl March 6th, 2008 in Management, Tools, Virtualization, Vista and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

 WS08HypeV_logo_250

As part of their Solution Accelerator for Virtualization, Microsoft has released an assessment tool that will allow you to assess your IT infrastructure and take that data to assist with modeling your migration to Windows 2008, Hyper-V, Application Virtualization, and Vista.  Of course, you could still use this info in planning consolidation to other VM platforms as well.

The Microsoft® Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (MAP) makes it easy for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs.

MAP is a powerful inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely run in small or large IT environments without requiring the installation of agent software on any computers or devices. The data and analysis provided by this Solution Accelerator can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to Windows Vista®, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server® 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), and Windows Server virtualization technologies including Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator expands upon the assessment features included in the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Solution Accelerator. These features include Windows Vista assessment, Microsoft Office 2007 assessment, and non-Windows device inventory, using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Reports for these assessment scenarios are localized in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Feature Overview

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs three key functions; hardware inventory, compatibility analysis, and readiness reporting.

Secure and Agentless Inventory

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, SNMP, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. Assessments can be completed on the following Windows platforms:

  • Windows Vista
  • Windows XP® Professional
  • Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2
  • Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server
  • Windows Server 2008
Comprehensive Data Analysis

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs a detailed analysis of hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and Windows Vista. The hardware assessment looks at the installed hardware and determines if migration is recommended. If it is not recommended then the reports tell you why it is not.

Device assessment looks at the devices installed on a computer and reports availability of drivers for those devices. Device assessment is provided for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista migration scenarios.

For customers interested in server consolidation and virtualization through technologies such as Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, this tool helps to gather performance metrics and generate server consolidation recommendations that identify the candidates for server virtualization and how the physical servers might be placed in a virtualized environment.

In-Depth Readiness Reporting

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator generates reports containing both summary and detailed assessment results for each migration scenario. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. Reports are generated for the following scenarios:

  • Identification of currently installed Windows Client operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Vista.
  • Identification of currently installed Windows Server operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Server 2008 (including a report detailing currently installed server roles).
  • Identification of currently installed Microsoft Office software and recommendations for migration to Microsoft Office 2007.
  • Detailed assessment and reporting of server utilization gathered using the Performance Metrics Wizard.
  • Recommendations for server consolidation and virtual machine placement using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2.
  • Assessment of client machines, servers, and the technology environment for the implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid).  
  • Reporting of SNMP-enabled devices found in the environment during inventory.

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator

p2vd.com » Microsoft Virtualization Assessment and Planning Tool

Allowing scripts to be run via PowerShell

Published by ryangl August 16th, 2007 in Active Directory, Downloads, Management, Powershell and Tools. 0 Comments

Running scripts via Powershell is disable by default.  There is a key to note that you can run commands or cmdlets from the PowerShell console, just not scripts.  To enable this feature you can do one of two things, however one trumps the other:

Via PowerShell

Modify your ExecutionPolicy via the Set-Execution cmdlet

First run Get-ExecutionPolicy to see what level you are at.  By default, this setting is set to Restricted. 

To see what settings are available for you to set, you can type

Get-Help Set-ExecutionPolicy

This output shows that we have four options:  Restricted, AllSigned, RemoteSigned, and Unrestricted.

To set your ExecutionPolicy to Unrestricted (not recommended for production) you would enter:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

To validate you settings after running the Set-ExecutionPolicy, run:

Get-ExecutionPolicy

From the command above, your ExecutionPolicy is now set to Unrestricted.  You can now run any scripts you like, signed or unsigned. (Bet your administrator is happy to hear that!)

Now for the other method for setting this policy

Via Group Policy

Seeing how the first method would be a nightmare to manage, Microsoft has released the ADM files for PowerShell that allow you to configure this setting via Group Policy.  Any settings made via Group Policy will overwrite those set manually via the PowerShell Console. 

powershellADM 

You can download the PowerShell ADM here

Active Directory Account Management using PowerShell

Published by ryangl August 14th, 2007 in Active Directory, Management, Powershell, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

 PowerShell and the Quest Active Directory cmdlets are a dream come true for any AD Administrator.  Methods that used to take more complicated means are now simple one-liners.  

One of the nice improvements of AD cmdlets 1.0.4 is the way you can get enable, disable, and unlock AD user accounts with simple one-liners.

Here are a few oneliners demonstrating the new functionality:

#Get all disabled accounts
Get-QADUser -Disabled $true

#Get all locked accounts in the accounting department
Get-QADUser -Locked $true -Department Accounting

#Enable all the disabled accounts
Get-QADUser -Disabled $true | Enable-QADUser

#Unlock a specific user account
Unlock-QADUser DSotnikov

Dmitry’s PowerBlog: PowerShell and beyond

Microsoft Windows 2008 - Death to linux-based server appliances?

Published by ryangl August 14th, 2007 in Linux, Management and Windows Server 2008. 0 Comments

With Windows 2008, more notably Windows 2008 Core, will this mean the end of Linux-based server appliances?  More than likely not, just due to pure licensing costs, but that doesn’t mean Redmond will not make it interesting in the coming years.  With the release of Windows 2008 Core, Microsoft has the ability to offer hardware appliances with Core stamped on them.  But then again, Microsoft isn’t in the hardware business, at least not yet.

Like many organizations, we have several “appliances” in our data center that perform specific tasks. All of our appliances are Linux-based, hardened devices that are efficient with a small attack surface. Linux is a better choice over the bloated, large attack surface presented by current Windows Server operating systems. But things may change with Longhorn.

Microsoft Longhorn: A shot across the Linux bow

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

Published by ryangl July 21st, 2007 in Active Directory, Management and Tools. 0 Comments

adexplorer

Microsoft has released AD Explorer, a complementary tool to everyone’s favorite ADSI Edit.  Think of AD Explorer as ADSI Edit with improved navigation and the ability snapshot your AD database.

You can download Active Directory Explorer here

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object’s schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer’s comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

AD Explorer works on Windows 2000 and higher.

Active Directory Explorer v1.0

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Server 2003 & Server 2008

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