Installing Active Directory on Server Core

For a GUI interface for servers, check out Core Configurator,
http://coreconfig.codeplex.com.
This free open source product is great for quickly configuring Server Core and even supports promoting the server to a Domain Controller. Microsoft will not test you on this product so for the exam you should have an understanding of the command line tools demonstrated in this video. For the everyday administrator of Server Core, this product is a life saver.

The advantages of running Server Core are as follows:

Smaller attack surface due to less software running

Less CPU and memory used

Fewer updates required

The disadvantage of Server Core is it is harder to administer because it only comes with the command prompt. Server Core does support remote administrator tools. You can also use the core configurator listed above to give you access to some basic GUI admin tools to help initially configure Server Core.

Commands used in this video to configure the networking 02:04

echo %computername%

netdom renamecomputer localhost /NewName:dc2

netsh interface IPv4 show interfaces

netsh interface IPv4 set address name=21 source=static address=192.168.1.2 mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1

(The index of 21 listed above was obtained from the show interfaces command)

netsh interface IPv6 set address interface=21 address=fd00:0:0:1::2

netsh interface IPv4 add dnsserver name=21 address=192.168.1.1 index=1

netsh interface IPv4 add dnsserver name=21 address=127.0.0.1 index=2

oclist | more

start /w ocsetup DNS-Server-Core-Role

shutdown /r /t 0

ipconfig /all | more

Commands used to promote the server using an answer file 09:23

Net use * \\dc1\it

copy z:\dc1.txt c:\dc2.txt

notepad c:\dc2.txt

dcpromo /unattend:c:\dc2.txt

Command line only 12:45

dcpromo /replicaOrnewDomain:replica /replicaDomainDNSName:ITFreeTraining.local /ConfirmGC:yes

/userdomain:ITFreeTraining.local /UserName=administrator /Password=P@ssw0rd

/SafeModeAdminPassword:Pa$$word1

References

Credits