Creating a Windows 2008 R2 Server Core Hyper-V Server on VMWare Server and Remotely Managing it (Solved!)

Question/Problem:

Creating a Windows 2008 R2 Server Core Hyper-V Server on VMWare Server and Remotely Managing this Server

 

Remotely managing Hyper-V is quite easy if you have the correct tools, and are in the same domain as the Hyper-V Server. However, remote management becomes a ghastly chore when this is not the case, including cim editing, registry hacks, dcom changes, local user accounts and much more. This guide will completely guide you through setting up a Hyper-V Server on Windows 2008 R2 Server Core and opening the Hyper-V management on your workstation. Running a virtual machine it is not possible and/or supported. This guide is to familiarize you with using Hyper-V before moving to a production environment.

Step 1: Installing Windows 2008 R2 Server Core

Create a virtual machine as usual, give it a disk, network adapter and so on.

Insert your Windows 2008 R2 DVD or load an ISO file and boot your newly created hyper-v virtual machine from it.

 

Now open the console and install as usual. It does not really matter how the other settings are configured, just make sure you choose the correct version of Windows Server 2008 R2! Recommended options:

-Standard Server Core

-Enterprise Server Core

-Datacenter Server Core

 Set up a password once asked for it, and there you are, right on the commandline interface.

Step 2: Configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 IP-Settings, Name, Firewall and more

 

Configure the server with a static IP and name:

netsh interface ipv 4 show interfaces

This will return a list of interfaces, note the Idx number of the interface you wish to configure, you’ll need it in further configuration steps.

netsh interface ipv4 set address name=”Idx-number” source=static address=192.168.1.10 mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1

Add a DNS-server:

netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”Idx-number” address=192.168.1.1

Change the computer name:

use ipconfig /all to get the server name, you’ll need it to change the name

netdom renamecomputer OLDNAME /newname:NEWNAME

Reboot to enable settings:

shutdown /r /t 0

Change firewall settings for remote administration:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Administration" new enable=yes

netsh advfirewall set currentprofile settings remotemanagement enable

WinRM quickconfig

Set an administrative password:

net user administrator *

Step 3: Activating your Windows 2008 R2 Server

 

Enter your cd-key:

Slmgr.vbs –ipv xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Activate:

Slmgr.vbs –ato

Check license period:

Slmgr.vbs –xpr

Step 4: Starting Hyper-V

 

Since we are working with the R2 version of Server 2008, we do not need to download any components, Hyper-V is already included.

Activate Hyper-V:

Start /w ocsetup Microsoft-Hyper-V

Step 5: Get management tools

If you’re using Windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7D2F6AD7-656B-4313-A005-4E344E43997D&displaylang=en

Remember, there are additional REQUIRED steps on that page!

If you’re using Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952627

 

Step 6: Configuring remote administration

 

In many situations the server will not be in a domain, we’ll  be testing, so it’s standalone and does not share a common authentication source with your workstation. The only way to administer the server is to use a few simple tricks. John Howard has made this very easy with his HVRemote script.

Get the HVRemote script by John Howard and place it on your Hyper-V server:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HVRemote/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=3084

Now follow the 10-second guide:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/HVRemote

Make sure you choose the correct method from the 4 situations.

Additional steps and troubleshooting

 

After following John Howard’s guide, I could still not manage my server. I discovered that pinging both ways did not work as it should, because my client and server had switched to IPV6.

Disabling IPv6:

 Add the key “DisabledComponents” (DWORD) with value “FF” (255) to this registry folder:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters]

Disabling your server Firewall:

Netsh firewall set opmode mode=disable

Enable your server to answer to PING requests:

Netsh firewall set icmpsetting 8

If you’ve gotten your Hyper-V server to work, you can now create virtual machines. When starting those however, you’ll get a “Could not Initialise”, “Failed to create partition: Unspecified Error (0x80004005)” error. This is probably because the Hyper-V server cannot access the virtualization routines in the CPU directly.

The answer/solution:

added by Jos on: 27-02-2010

keywords: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Core, Hyper-V,