Hyper-V Server core

I found a Poweredge 1950 on eBay for $130.  Bells and whistles include:

• DRAC
• PERC/i5
• redundant PSUs
• Dual CPUs

It does not come with drives or caddies. Caddies I borrowed from work, drives I had.  I installed Hyper-V Server via USB drive by designating it a Virtual Floppy drive in the BIOS (also a good time to verify Intel VT is enabled). Initial config of HyperV server can be done from the console and is pretty straight forward. I verified some of my steps with a Dell Youtube video.

The first issue I had was connecting the Hyper-V Manager from the RSAT tools on my client to to the Hyper-V Server. I received the error: [Hyper-V Manager: Access denied. Unable to establish communication between ‘Hyper-V Server’ and ‘Hyper-V Manager]:

http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/06/hyper-v-error-access-denied-unable-to.html


Settings firewall rules:

C:\>netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Windows Management Instrumentatio
n (WMI)" new enable=yes

Open Component Services [dcomcnfg.exe] on client. This allows HyperV server in Workgroup mode to connect to my client and mount an ISO.  I think in a domain the trust is already there.

1. Choose Component Services
2. Computers
3. Right Click My Computer
1. Select COM Security tab
2. Under Access Permissions, click Edit Limits
1. Select ANONYMOUS LOGON
1. Allow Remote Access

Navigating drives in DOS
c:\fsutil fsinfo drives

Downloading Broadcom drivers and BACS

Installing BACS

During installation I was prompted to enable TCP Chimney Offload.  An unusual name for a useful technology. Offload some of the processing to the NICs from the CPU.

Dell has a nice procedure for Installing BACS from DOS (for me BACS installed to Program Files\Broadcom\BACS\BACS.exe)


Most of this is just for my own notes. At this point I've built my first 2008R2 VM and about to run dcpromo to build my first domain controller.
I'd rather be working on this than CCNA, maybe I'll feel diferently when I'm working on the next cert.

SOPA / PIPA

I called:

1. Rep. Richard Neal [D, MA-2] Phone: 202-225-5601 
• The person that answered the phone was kind and courteous and said he'd received my calls.
2. Sen. John Kerry [D, MA] Phone: 202-224-2742 
• I was put on hold and the person I spoke with was terse and quick, sounding overwhelmed. 
3. Sen. Scott Brown [R, MA] Phone: 202-224-4543 
• I left a voicemail.

There's a little more blood on my knuckles.

 I've been busy at work and home.

 Last Friday I completed a production Lion Server with Profile Manager as a Mobile Device Management server. It pulls users from Active Directory and allows enrolling iOS devices and downloading of configuration files.  I will be speaking at NERCOMP in the Spring about the experience and process. After that seminar I will try to publish my guide here for other folks trying to do the same thing.

These are the most boring teaser pictures, I think.  The least glamorous display of 10 iPads and the other picture is $20,000 of them.  Now when snarky students ask "Is this what my tuition is paying for?" I can say it's for iPads.

Today I passed the CCENT. This is the first step in realizing the CCNA, a certification I started but never finished 10 years ago in Blacksburg. The test was brutal and I'm not proud of my score, but if they want me to wear 25 pieces of flair then they should make the minimum 25 pieces of flair.

I could not have done it without my friend Greg who also earned his CCENT a week ago.  In a couple of weeks we'll start the INCD2 books and work toward the CCNA together.  This has been a really beautiful chapter of our friendship.

Happy couple

We found these two running through traffic outside of KTA. They'd been running around for over an hour and no one had done anything.  It took a while, but we eventually got them into the car and drove them to the Humane Society. The boy in the back with me and the girl up front.
Both were completely friendly, fed and well loved. Neither had collars or micro chips. They both shed and drooled everywhere.  Fortunately they were picked up the same day.

The boy would get very nervous being away from the girl and clearly let her call the shots. I am the same.

Moku Ola

Coconut island is where I sliced my toe. It was the day before I left. I took Ulu and Ian and they took me jumping. I felt a little old and fat trying to climb to the high platform, but I still did it.

da

Goodwill

My life long friend whom is completely dependent on me is now a slight inconvenience. Instead of making other arrangements I'd like to pay someone to murder her..

Emphasis on the wrong syllable

In New England people use contractions:
Can't, shouldn't, didn't.

This can make it difficult to interpret when any other obstacle is present like an accent, over a radio and muffling.  A lot of times my conversations will happen like this:

Me: Did you take care of that thing?
Them: I didn't.
Me: You said you did or did not?
Them: I didn't

They emphasize in the unhelpful part of the word. So I sometimes think they in fact did take care of that thing when they have not.



Also people refuse to learn a phonetic alphabet. Especially in the IT dept you should already know the similar sounding letters and understand the need to be clear.  It doesn't even need to be the NATO phonetic alphabet, just something that separates D from C, E, P and T. Once when reading out PPB, I said "Ponies, Ponies, Bravo!" Silly, but I was understood.

Windows Deployment Services

Here is my response to a colleague when he asked about our imaging procedure:

   We use Windows Deployment Services. It's a role in Windows Server. Using the Windows Automated Installation Kit, you create an answer file which allows an unattended install. Our procedure is based on this guide.  We also include scripts to install Sophos Antivirus and the Deepfreeze seed.  Neither can be included in the base image because each instance needs to be unique for communicating to their respective consoles. 

   A driver pool is necessary. This is a collection of all relevant drivers from each model of PC you are deploying to. 

Features I like:

It is hardware independent which allows us to only maintain a few images for many different hardware types.

Deploying the image automatically joins it to the domain

If you use a Virtual Machine to create the deployment image it's easy to update with any changes in the future.

Features I do not like:

Cannot automatically deploy to a computer lab.  There may be a way to do this, but we have not looked into it yet. We have to boot each PC from the network and choose the correct deployment image. 

Sometimes a new model of PC will have a new NIC or disk controller whose driver is not included in the boot image. Isolating the correct driver and inserting it into the boot image can be difficult and tedious. As long as you make a backup of the boot image before making any changes you leave yourself a safety net and it's not too bad.

Some hardware requires more than just a driver to work. Finger print readers on Thinkpads have given us this trouble. You either need to include the software suite in the deployment image which goes to all machines, install it manually on each Thinkpad or not install it at all.

I think WDS is an excellent solution for Faculty / Staff PCs and situation where you do not need to update large quantities of PCs at once. For a classroom or lab Ghost or other static image management might work better.