In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process.
In the second part, I described the hypervisor selection and installation.
In the third part, I described VM guest considerations and preparations.
In the fourth part, I described Configuring Server 2012 VM as DC with DNS and DHCP using PowerShell
In the fifth part, I described easily creating (many) proper AD users with PowerShell
In the sixth part, I described creating a local PowerShell v3 Help Repository with PowerShell
In this post I will describe how you can make your lab available over the internet.
When you’ve created your home LAB, you want to be able to use it anywhere. Depending on your situation, one of these options probably best meets your needs.
Examples include the use of:
- Remote desktop connection to your server
+ Easy to configure (enable on server and configure NAT forwarding if appropriate)
– On many enterprise or public networks TCP3389 is blocked by the firewall.
– Connects only to specific server. Even though you access the rest of the network from there.
- VPN connection to your network
- Using your hardware router
+ Connection to network, not just a server.
– No dependency on Windows Server
- Using Windows Server 2008 / 2012
+ SSTP VPN (TCP443), is generally not blocked on enterprise/public networks.
+ Connection to network, not just a server.
– Dependency on Windows server.
– Requires more configuration.
– The root CA certificate for the certification authority (CA) that issued the server authentication certificate needs to be into the store Local Computer\Trusted Root Certification Authorities. For a self-signed certificate, this means that you need to have local admin permissions to add it.Note: DirectAccess is a great feature, but it requires the client to be a member of the domain. And in my case this would limit where I can connect from, therefore I don’t plan to use it. For other situations it might be a better solution though.
- Using 3rd party tools like logmein, teamviewer or VNC
+ Connects only to specific computer.
Since I want to be able to connect from within enterprise environments as well, I chose to use SSTP VPN in Windows Server 2012. The basic steps you have to perform, include:
- On the server, you have to install and configure the VPN service.
- On the server or your own PKI, you would want create and install a machine certificate. You can create a Certificate Signing Request and request a 3rd party public certificate. Alternatively you can create a certificate using your own Certificate Authority, or you could create a self-signed certificate, For creating the self-signed certificate you can use the great PluralSight SelCert tool.
- On the client, you have to make sure the created certificate will be trusted. This means you have to add the certificate to local system\trusted root certificate authority if you’re using a self-signed certificate, which requires local administrator permissions on the client.
- On the client, you have to set-up the VPN connection to the server. Preferably you want to connect by DNS name. For your home lab you can also utilize dynamic DNS services like by example no-ip.com or alternative solutions.
For some more information, you can also take a look at this:
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Tags: CA, certifcate, certificate, certificate authority, direct access, ICT, lab, no-ip, PKI, PluralSight, public certificate, remote access, routing and remote access, Routing and Remote Access Services, RRAS, self-signed certificate, SelfCert, sstp, sstp vpn, VPN
In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process.
In the second part, I described the hypervisor selection and installation.
In the third part, I described VM guest considerations and preparations.
In the fourth part, I described Configuring Server 2012 VM as DC with DNS and DHCP using PowerShell
In the fifth part, I described easily creating (many) proper AD users with PowerShell
In this post I will describe creating a local PowerShell v3 Help Repository.
First of all, let me explain what a local PowerShell v3 Help Repository is and why you might want it. With PowerShell v3 not all help files are included. You can however always selectively download the latest versions of the help files (for specific commands). This saves space and also makes for a more flexible system where help files can be updated more easily.
Downloading the updates to the help files requires an internet connection however, and this might not be possible or desirable in many situations. Also if every server would download these files from the internet, this would waste internet bandwidth. Microsoft realizes this and provides you with the option to create a local PowerShell v3 Help Repository.
My script to create this local PowerShell v3 Help Repository can be found here. The basic steps include:
- Create a folder where the Help files will be stored.
- Share the folder.
- Create a scheduled task to daily update the help files in .the share
- Create a file in the share that contains the command that needs to be run from another server to update its help files using the local repository (so you don’t have to remember the command).
As stated in step 4, you can manually update the help files. Personally I prefer creating a GPO that creates a scheduled task on every other system to update the help files on a regular basis using the local repository share you just made. This way when you need the help files, you don’t have to wait until the update has been completed and you also don’t have to rely on internet access.
Personally I would have preferred it if Microsoft also offered an option to deploy the help file updates using WSUS. But for now, this will have to do.
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Tags: account, automate, help, help files, Help Repository, ICT, lab, Powershell, Powershell 3.0, Powershell v3, scheduled task, Script, share, update, update help files, Update-help
In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process.
In the second part, I described the hypervisor selection and installation.
In the third part, I described VM guest considerations and preparations.
In the fourth part, I described Configuring Server 2012 VM as DC with DNS and DHCP using PowerShell
In this post I want to share with you this great blog post “How to use PowerShell to populate Active Directory with plenty enough users for SharePoint” by Wictor Wilén – SharePoint MCA, MCM and MVP.
What you basically do is:
- Use http://www.fakenamegenerator.com to create x number of users from countries you specify and containing fields/data that you specify. This will be sent by mail for free as a .csv
- Use PowerShell to import the CSV and create the user accounts in AD.
What I like about the method is that besides creating many users, it also uses user data that you could encounter in real-life. Also you can modify the user data to more closely match your desired environment. By example by specifying that you want to have Dutch and US names only. For testing purposes, it can be good to include names with strange characters as well, because when these work well …. chances are that everything works well.
[UPDATE 25-01-2014]
Since there were some issues with the original source, I decided to store a cached version as PDF as well (just in case) : How to use PowerShell to populate Active Directory with plenty enough users for SharePoint
It is best to visit the original site though, if it’s available.
[UPDATE 25-01-2014]
[UPDATE 24-03-2016]
An alternative method is displayed here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Create-Real-Fake-Names-e1635ef4
[UPDATE 24-03-2016]
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Tags: account, Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD DS, automate, DC, Domain Controller, fake name generator, ICT, lab, name generator, Powershell, Script, user, user data
In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process.
In the second part, I described the hypervisor selection and installation.
In the third part, I described VM guest considerations and preparations.
In this post I cover quickly configuring a Server 2012 VM as DC with DNS and DHCP by using PowerShell.
The steps I do take less than 10 minutes in my test lab now. Here’s a short description:
- Create a VM that uses your previously made parent disk.
- Configure the server name and IP addressing and reboot the computer.
- Install AD DS (domain controller) including DNS forward lookup zone and reboot the computer.
- Configure AD and DNS : Enable AD Recycle Bin, Add DNS forwarder, add DNS reverse lookup zone, create DNS PTR record for DC.
- Install + configure DHCP : Install DHCP, Add scope, configure scope, authorize DHCP server in AD.
The scripts I’ve created for steps 2 to 5 can be found here and are based on the great work Stefan Stranger already did in his blog post Installing a new OpsMgr 2012 (SP1) environment the fast way. I added some stuff of my own so it would meet my needs and I tried to keep it as generic as possible so other people can re-use my code as well.
PS: In step 2, IP addressing is not in place yet. To get scripts tot the system, consider:
- Putting the scripts in an ISO file that you can mount.
- Opening Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection to VM and using “Clipboard”, “Type Clipboard Text”.
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Tags: Active Directory, Active Directory Domain Services, AD DS, automate, configuration, DC, DHCP, DNS, Domain Controller, Domain Naming System, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, forward lookup zone, forwarder, Hyper-V, hypervisor, ICT, installation, lab, Powershell, reverse lookup zone, Script, Virtual Machine, virtualization, VM
In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process.
In the second part I described the hypervisor selection and installation.
In this post I will describe the VM guest considerations and preparations.
VM guest considerations
Considerations for your VM guests:
- Use legacy network adapter ? Could be necessary for by example PXE boot.
- In most cases the regular network adapters will be the best choice.
- How much memory to assign ? Should I use dynamic memory in Hyper-V ? Should I overcommit using VMware ?
- In most cases for your home lab it is probably best to use dynamic memory / overcommit. Some applications however might not work correctly, or you might not have the desired outcome.
- How many virtual CPUs should I assign ?
- Should I store my VMs on a single physical disk or on multiple physical disks ?
- Should I use virtual disks or pass-through disks ?
- For VMs that I use for testing, I use virtual disks because they provide more flexibility.
- For my file server I choose to use pass-through disks so I can simply remove the disk from my server and place them in another system. I’m also afraid that should you encounter an issue when using a virtual disk, that the chance is greater that you lose everything because the virtual disk will break.
- When I use virtual disks, should I use thin provisioned disks or thick provisioned disks ?
- Thick provisioned disks are supposed to deliver better performance, but at the cost of more disk space. Also for a home LAB I doubt the performance loss is minimal and acceptable, so I would go with thin provisioned disks. Also when using SSD disks, space is costly and limited. Be sure to monitor disk space usage though.
- Should I use differencing disks in Hyper-V / linked clones in VMWare ?
- When you plan to use multiple VMs running the same operating system, you can save space by using differencing disks / linked clones. This also impacts the disk I/O however, so monitor it to see if it fits your needs. Since I use SSD disks and run multiple VMs with the same OS, I use differencing disks.
VM guest preparations
An home LAB is not complete without VM guests ofcourse. The basic methods for provisioning are:
- Using pre-prepped VMs that are provided by third parties like by example Microsoft and VMWare. For VMWare there is even a virtual appliance Marketplace.
- Installing VMs manually every time.
- Using 3rd party deployment tools to provision operating systems to VMs. By example System Center Configuration Manager.
- Deploying VMs from templates you create manually.
Often you’ll use a combination of the methods. In my case I’ll deploy many instances of the same guest OS versions for my test lab. I’ll often deploy various versions of Windows multiple times. Therefore I create my own templates for my test lab.
Basic actions for template creation are:
- Installation of the operating system
- Installing the Hyper-V Integration Component (or VMWare tools).
- Adding roles and features I expect to be using in (the majority of) my VMs.
- Downloading and installing the latest updates.
- Performing sysprep to generalize the installation and choosing to turn off the system afterwards.
DO NOT TURN ON THE SYSTEM, otherwise you need to run sysprep again.
- Saving the virtual disk files for future use.
- If you’re going to be using differencing disks, you will use this disk as the parent disk. Make sure you set it to read-only.
Using this approach I’ve created my own templates consuming 180GB and covering most of the operating systems I (can) encounter and want to test with:
Windows2003-Enterprise-R2-SP2-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows2003-Enterprise-R2-SP2-x86-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows2008-SP2-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx.vhdx
Windows2008-SP2-x86-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx.vhdx
Windows2008R2-SP1-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows2012-Datacenter-Core-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows2012-Datacenter-GUI-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows7-Enterprise-SP1-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows7-Enterprise-SP1-x86-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows8-Enterprise-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Windows8-Enterprise-x86-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
WindowsVista-Enterprise-SP2-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
WindowsVista-Enterprise-SP2-x86-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
WindowsXP-Pro-SP3-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
WindowsXP-Pro-x64-ParentDisk-Readonly.vhdx
Storing backups and ISO files
When you have files that have lots of similar data, they are very suitable for deduplication. Also read this great blog post if you want to know how it works.. With for example ISO files and powered-off VMs you can save a lot of space. You should however not configure this for files that change on a regular basis like by example actively running VMs. With Server 2012, you can easily enable deduplication for volumes. Also keep in mind that these files do not require high IOPS, so you can store them on slower disks.
If you want to check how much space you can save without installing Server 2012 and its deduplication feature, you can also run the deduplication evalutation tool (ddpeval.exe) on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. You can even “hack” Windows 8 Pro to allow deduplication.
I was able to reduce the used disk space with 75% from 215 GB to 50 GB. This was with ISO files and the backups of the parent disks I created earlier (not the ones in use).
In the next post I will describe configuring Server 2012 VM as DC with DNS and DHCP using PowerShell.
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Tags: hypervisor, ICT, lab, virtualization
In the first part of this LAB setup guide, I described the hardware selection process. In this second part I will be describing the hypervisor selection and installation.
Hypervisor selection
First of all, you have to decide on which bare metal hypervisor(s) you wish to use. Personally I prefer Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare ESXi. Alternatives include but are not limited to Citrix XenServer, Xen, KVM, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. I don’t have much experience with these hypervisors though.
Characteristics that could influence your choice of hypervisor:
- Supported hardware.
- Performance of the hypervisor.
- Features of the hypervisor. By example when using Transparent Memory Page Sharing, it requires less memory when you run many highly identical systems on a host.
- Footprint / attack surface.
- Supported methods for running the OS. By example run from USB stick.
- Price (many hypervisors have free versions available, compare features).
- Support (for a home lab probably not that important).
- Available documentation / study resources.
- How active the community behind it is.
- Supported VM / guest operating systems.
- Ease-of-use.
- Availabilty of downloadable virtual appliances (VMWare) or pre-prepped environments (Microsoft) without having to (try and) convert them.
Everyone needs to determine which hypervisor best meets their needs. Personally I mainly work with Microsoft software and decided to use Hyper-V 3.0 in Windows Server 2012. It’s convenient for me to be able to easily load pre-prepped environments that are provided by Microsoft (in Hyper-V format). I also run Client Hyper-V on my Windows 8 laptop, which makes it easier for me to take my VM’s with me. I do plan to keep up with VMWare developments as well though, so I will create a bootable USB flash drive to boot in VMWare from time to time.
Hypervisor installation
- Before installing the hypervisor, make sure that virtualization related settings are enabled. The names of these settings may differ. Examples are Intel VT (Virtualization Technology), AMD-V and Hardware DEP (Data Execution Prevention), EM64T, Execute Disable Bit. During installation you will get prompted normally though if you have forgotten to enable these.
- There are often many options with regards to the installation. By example do a GUI install or a scripted/CLI install. Or install/run from normal harddisk or flash drive. With Server 2012 Hyper-V you can choose to run it in Windows Server 2012 core or in the GUI version. I chose to use the Server 2012 GUI Hyper-V installation because I’m not sure if my raid management software will work from within the core version.
- Installation of the hypervisor is normally pretty straight forward. But before you install, read the documentation.
- After you’re done installing, you still need to configure the settings to meet your requirements. Preferrably you’ve already created and documented your own design.
- Don’t forget to configure hardware monitoring if possible. In my case I’ve configured my raid controller management software to send e-mails when storage related issues are detected.
- Think about and implement a strategy for backing up and recovering your hypervisor. There are numerous programs for backing up and most are free for personal use. I have no personal experience with specific products, but VeeAm has a good reputation and I’ll be trying if for my lab. Also if you’re a Microsoft Certified Professional, you can get a free NFR license for Veeam Backup & Replication v6.5 for Hyper-V. The same is true if you’re a VMWare Certified Professional (VCP).
In the next post I will describe the VM guest preparations, installations and storage strategy.
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Tags: Citrix, Citrix XenServer, ESXi, ESXi 5.1, guest, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, hypervisor, ICT, KVM, lab, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, RHEV, virtualization, VM, VMware ESXi, Windows Server 2012, Xen, XenServer
As you will probably know by now, I’m really into ICT. I mainly focus on virtualization and Microsoft technoIogies. As such, I try to:
- Keep up with new ICT developments
- Improve my knowledge and skills for both old and new ICT technologies
- Get certified in many different areas of ICT.
A proper lab environment is a prerequisite to do so. Because of virtualization however, this has become so much easier (and cheaper) than before.
In the next couple of blog posts I will try to document the steps I’m taking to build my lab. Today I’m staring the series with the hardware selection. The important part of the hardware I use for my environment is as follows:
- Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H
- CPU: Intel Core i5 3570 quadcore
- Memory: 32GB
- SATA controller : IBM M1015 (flashed to LSI9211-8i)
- VM storage: 2 * 512GB SSD Samsung 830 series
- Non VM storage: 2 * 2TB SATA
To me it was important that my machine would be able to run both Microsoft Hyper-V 3.0 as well as VMware ESXi 5.1 properly. Both have hardware requirements, but VMware ESXi 5.1 is generally more restrictive with regards to supported hardware. Very simply put, it means that the mainboard, CPU, network and storage controller need to be compatible with the features you require.
Normally you would check supported hardware on the official hardware compatibility list (HCL) of the vendor, but these are generally aimed at real server hardware and do not support/contain consumer hardware. So before buying hardware, check on forums to see what combinations of hardware are working for other people and choose the one that matches your desires best. You can also google for ESXi whitebox.
Furthermore, I plan to run many systems at the same time, hence the 32GB of memory and the 2 fast 512GB SSD disks. Besides the fast, but small SSD you generally also need more storage to store other files like by example operating system images and tools.
The next post is about the Hypervisor selection and installation.
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Tags: hardware, hardware compatibilty, hardware compatibilty list, hardware selection, HCL, ICT, lab, support, virtualization
Since I’m currently working with System Center Operations Manager 2012 (also often referred to as SCOM 2012 or OpsMgr 2012), I needed a testing environment.
Because time is precious, I want to minimize the time and effort needed to set it up. This is what I did:
- Install and configure Hyper-V on my Windows 8 laptop.
- Deploy a VM with Server 2012 Datacenter edition.
Configure a static IP address.
Configure AD DS / domain controller role.
Configure DHCP server role.
Configure DNS server role (if desirable, include DNS forwarder for internet DNS queries).
- Download and extract the pre-configured SCOM 2012 SP1 beta VHD (running Server 2012 Datacenter edition). System Center 2012 SP1 adds Windows Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 Support.
- Create a new VM for SCOM and configure it to use the downloaded pre-configured VHD.
Configure it with sufficient virtual CPUs and memory for the DB and the SCOM components.
- Start the SCOM VM, and follow the onscreen instructions. NOTE: First time configuration took about 1-2 hours, but this might be related to my hardware. Still it might be smart to plan the installation.
- Convert the Server 2012 Datacenter edition from ServerDatacenterEval to ServerDatacenter by running an elevated CMD as administrator and issuing the following command:
DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter> ProductKey:<productkey> /AcceptEula
Reboot.
- Replace the SCOM 2012 evaluation license with your own license using Operations Manager Shell:
Set-SCOMLicense -ProductId “yourlicensekey“
Reboot
Check the license using the Operations Manager Shell:
Get-SCOMManagementGroup | ft skuforlicense, version, timeofexpiration –a
- Shut down your SCOM 2012 VM.
- Shut down your AD DS / domain controller VM.
- Create a snapshot and/or export of both VM’s so you can more easily revert to a good starting point.
Also be sure to read Stefan Stranger’s blog post that goes into more detail with regards to the domain controller and automating the task for setting it up. It also includes screenshots to give you a better idea of the process.
PS: I love how Microsoft provides these pre-configured VHD’s. This has been great in the past, but now with client Hyper-V 3.0 in Windows 8 it saves me even more time because I don’t have to boot to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 for Hyper-V.
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Tags: Beta, blog, Hyper-V, Hyper-V 3.0, ICT, lab, Microsoft, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012, operations management, operations manager, Operations Manager 2012, OpsMgr, OpsMgr 2012, OpsMgr2012, SCOM, SCOM 2012, SCOM 2012 SP1, SCOM 2012 SP1 Beta, SCOM2012, Server 2012, service pack 1, SP1, System Center, System Center Operations Manager, System Center Operations Manager 2012, test, testing environment, virtual lab
Today I attended the free “IT Camps Windows Server 2012” event in Eindhoven at Master-it in Eindhoven and I really liked it. It was a real hands-on IT Camp in which they tell you some interesting things about Server 2012, while you are also able to immediately use the technologies you learn about. Ofcourse it’s also a great work to get to know new interesting people.
They also used feedback from previous IT Camps very well. This was very noticeable because now everyone was able to join the hands-on labs. Because of better preparations there was also still plenty of time to explore all assignments and go into more details.
Many thanks to Tony Krijnen and Daniel van Soest from Microsoft for this great event.
There are still IT Camp events planned, but I don’t know if you can still register for them. Check the link below for more information about the event contents, dates and locations:
http://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/evenementen/event.aspx?eventid=675&date=20121016&eventtype=TechNet#locations
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Tags: Active Directory, AD, Cluster, Clustering, DAC, Dynamic Access Control, Eindhoven, Event, Events, Free, hans-on, Hyper-V, Info Support, IT Camp, IT Camp Windows Server 2012, lab, labs, Master IT, Master IT Training, Powershell, Server Manager, Storage Spaces, The Netherlands, Training, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows Server 2012
Since Microsoft has recently released their latest server OS calles Windows Server 2012, they’re hosting free one day “IT Camps Windows Server 2012” events.
Check the link below for more information about the event contents, dates and locations:
http://www.microsoft.com/netherlands/evenementen/event.aspx?eventid=675&date=20121016&eventtype=TechNet#locations
I’ve attended an IT camp for Hyper-V in Server 2008 R2 in the past and I liked the concept. Back then however there were some points of improvements with regards to preparation and the number of attendees that could actively participate in the hands-on labs. I have learned from this experience and will not miss out on this again.
I’m going to attend the Eindhoven event on the 16th of October, so please let me know if you’re attending this event as well so we can meet up.
PS: For participating in the hands-on labs you need to bring your own laptop that meets the requirements stated in the event description.
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Tags: Active Directory, AD, Cluster, Clustering, DAC, Dynamic Access Control, Eindhoven, Event, Events, Free, hans-on, Hyper-V, Info Support, IT Camp, IT Camp Windows Server 2012, lab, labs, Master IT, Master IT Training, Microsoft, Powershell, Server Manager, Storage Spaces, The Netherlands, Training, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows Server 2012
blog.bjornhouben.com 