Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core

Starting with Microsoft Windows Server 2008, a new Server Core model, which is a minimal system installation option, includes only Server core subsystems such as security, TCP/IP, file systems, RPC, and so on. In Server Core we can install the required server roles and features, and only a very small number of GUI, such as our common ie, OE and other applications in the Server Core is not, in Server Core we can install the server role is only DNS, DHCP, File services, active directories, Adlds (Lightweight Directory services), print, media, web, and other roles that cannot be installed. The server core of Windows Server 2008 is not supported by the ASP.NET and. NET Framework, and the Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core has been improved to include a subset of the. NET Framework, Asp. NET and provides support for PowerShell, you can configure more server roles.

Server Core in Windows Server 2008 R2 Server Core R2 provides some optional features: support for the. NET Framework 2.0 subset provides support for the. NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 subsets. Development tools, including WCF, WF, LINQ, provide ASP for PowerShell support. NET support, which enriches the functionality of IIS and is complete except for the GUI management interface that does not support IIS. Provides the Active Directory Certificate Services server role, the Active Directory Authentication service, that can become the CA server administration user, the computer's public key. Windows Server 2008 R2 is fully architected in 64-bit, but its Server core can support 32-bit applications with Windows on Windows (WOW) feature, which is useful if users need to run 32-bit programs.

Server Core is Microsoft's command line mode to replace the graphical interface, and only a few applications can be installed. After the Server Core installation is complete, we can only see a command line window after the first login, not see the menus, taskbar and other GUI, server-driven installation, TCP/IP settings, Server role installation management operations need to be set through the command line.

The common deployment of Server Core is the infrastructure server, such as DNS, DHCP, IIS, or a read-only domain controller as a branch office, which can be used as a Windows virtualization hosting system to run Microsoft virtualization platform Hyper-V.

Using Server Core we can get the following benefits:

Simplified Maintenance Management: We install the required server roles and features in Server Core, and other roles are not installed by default, so that administrators can focus on an application, improve efficiency, and reduce the cost of IT management later, Overall lowers the TCO cost of the enterprise.

reduce attack Surface: Although the graphical interface of Windows simplifies operations greatly, multiple GUIs also increase the likelihood of vulnerabilities. Only a few of the common GUI, Shell, IE, OE, media, and so on in Server Core, such as system change time, are gui,windows in Server Core, which reduces the attack surface of the server and improves the security of the server.

High Availability: Because Server Core is a minimal system installation option, the installed roles and features are minimized, the GUI is omitted, and the installation role does not need to be restarted, which increases system availability and makes system work more stable.

reduce disk footprint: Server Core removes the Windows shell and does not install unnecessary functionality, so the space footprint is greatly reduced, the server Core installation is likely to occupy 1GB of disk space, as the application installation also requires about 2GB of space, which is more than the Windows Server 2008 of the disk usage is much less.

less patch installation: in Windows we need to always install a variety of patches, for different components need to install a different patch. With only a few components in the Server Core, we have been spared the hassle of installing a large number of patches.

The installation of Server Core is simple, and it is important to note that Server Core cannot be upgraded from the original system and can only be installed completely. After the installation is complete, we need to perform some initialization configuration on Server Core. The first thing we need to do is enter the operating system serial number and activate the system and verify the system activation status. You need to connect to the network, enter "SLMGR.VBS-IPK <CD-KEY>" in the Command Prompt window to enter the serial number, and then enter "Slmgr.vbs-ato" to activate the system. After activation, you can use "Slmgr.vbs-dli" to verify the system activation state.

After you activate the system, you need to make some initialization settings, such as setting up static IP, renaming the server, joining the domain, and configuring the firewall. Set static IP: If the server needs to set a static IP, it can be set with the Netsh command. First you need to use the Netsh interface IPv4 Show interfaces command to view the status of the network adapters on the server, and note the name of the network adapter that needs to be set up, such as local area connetion. Then use the command netsh interface IPv4 set address name= the network adapter name source=static address= The static IP address mask= subnet mask gateway= The default gateway to set the static IP addresses. To set up DNS, you can use the following command: Netsh interface IPv4 add dnsservername= "network adapter name" ADDRESS=DNS Server IP address index=1. If you set up multiple DNS, just repeat the command, and then increment the index value. Join domain: If the server needs to join the domain, you can take advantage of the following command: Netdom join computer name/domain: domain/userd: have permission to join the domain username/passwordd:*, enter the password after carriage. Configure the firewall: The firewall is also configured because the firewall is on by default, so we need to define some rules, such as opening 3389 ports required for remote access, otherwise the ports and protocols required for the application will be disabled by default. In the system debugging phase, we can temporarily shutdown the firewall to eliminate the impact, you can use the following command: "netsh firewall set opmode disable." Create a firewall rule to use the command "netsh firewall set portopening protocol=tcp| UDP port= Port number name= name ". Additionally, if you need to make some advanced settings, you can use the netsh advfirewall command. Install server role: Install server role We need to take advantage of the Oclist command, which lists the roles of all the servers that are installed. Installing various roles can take advantage of the following commands, note that capitalization is sensitive:
start/w Ocsetup Role Pack
DHCP Server = Dhcpservercore
dns Server = Dns-server-core-role
 File Replication Service = Frs-infrastructure
 Distributed File System services = Dfsn-server
 Distributed File System replication = Dfsr-infrastructure-serveredition
 Network File system = Serverfornfs-base
 Streaming Media Server = MediaServer
 Print Server = Printing-servercore-role
LPD = Printing-lpdprintservice

Common Command rollup: For users who have not previously been exposed to command-line operations, it is really difficult to master Server Core operations, Server Core provides a common command line rollup, can provide users with a lot of convenience: c:/windows/system32/ cscript scregedit.wsf/cli

Management features: There are four ways to manage server Core, local or remote use of a command prompt, remote use of Terminal Server, use of the Windows Remote Command Prompt (WINRS), and remote use of Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

The above management can also be referenced through a graphical tool: A graphical 2008r2 Server Core Configuration Management tool

Installing Network Load Balancing (NLB) on Windows Server 2008 r2:http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archive/2009/12/ 05/9932877.aspx