How do I open Server Manager in Windows Server?

Installing the DNS Server Role

To install the DNS Server role, follow these steps:

Open Server Manager by clicking Start | Server Manager.

In the right pane, scroll down to Roles Summary and click Add Roles.

In the Add Roles Wizard dialog, read the Before You Begin page and click Next.

On the Select Server Roles wizard page, select DNS Server and click Next. See Figure 5.1.

Review the information provided on the DNS Server wizard page and click Next.

Review the information provided on the Confirm Installation Selections wizard page and click Install.

Review the information provided on the Installation Results wizard page and click Close.

Installing and configuring Remote Desktop Licensing

The Remote Desktop Licensing services role is used to manage and renew Remote Desktop Services CALs. A server with the Remote Desktop Licensing services role is required so that Remote Desktop Session Host servers can properly license themselves and manage how many people are connected. A single Remote Desktop Licensing services host can provide licensing for multiple Remote Desktop Sessions Host servers.

To install Remote Desktop Licensing services, perform the following:

Open Server Manager and select the Roles node. Then click the Add Role Services link. This will launch the Add Role Services wizard.

Select the Remote Desktop Licensing role service. Then click Next.

If you are already running previous versions of Terminal Services, you can turn on the discovery scope so that previous servers can locate the licensing server. If you are using only Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Servers, then do not configure this option. Click Next to continue.

Verify your settings and click Install.

When the installation is complete, click Close.

After completing the installation of the Remote Desktop Licensing services, you can manage licenses using the Remote Desktop Licensing Manager which can be accessed by clicking the link under advanced tools in Server Manager (see Figure 8.15).

Using Licensing Manager (see Figure 8.16), administrators can easily add and activate Remote Desktop licenses. After purchasing licenses, you will need to use the Licensing Manager to add them to the license server.

Task Scheduler

Windows Server 2008 R2 comes with a built-in task scheduler allowing administrators to create automated jobs or tasks. These jobs can be set up to run based on various criteria, such as scheduled times or when a specific event occurs. These jobs run without requiring administrative input. Jobs can be set up to perform serveral actions including running scripts, displaying message dialogs, or sending email messages. An example of a scheduled task would be a weekly disk defragmentation job that needs to run off hours when an administrator is not available to manually start the job. Scheduled tasks can also be used to perform tasks, such as backups or running command line utilities.

The Task Scheduler management console is located in Server Manager under the Configuration node as seen in Figure 2.37. You will notice that there will already be a list of predefined tasks configured.

To create a new scheduled task, perform the following:

Open Server Manager.

Expand the Configuration node and right click on Task Scheduler. Then choose the option Create Task.

The main task window will be displayed as seen in Figure 2.38. Enter a descriptive name for the task and configure security options for the task. Security options define how the task runs and how it can run when no user is logged on. If the task will need access to resources on other systems, you may need to run it under the context of another user account. If this is required, you can enter the account information by clicking on the Change User or Group button. After configuring information on the General tab, select the Triggers tab.

The Triggers section is used to define what events, including scheduled times, trigger the scheduled task to run. As you can see in Figure 2.39, several different triggers can be used to start a scheduled task. You can also select multiple triggers that can be used to kick off a scheduled task. After you define the triggers used to start the task, select the Actions tab.

You can now use the Actions tab to define what actions are to be performed in the event that the scheduled task is triggered to run. Like triggers, you can define multiple actions to occur. For example, you could have the task run a batch file to copy files from one server to another and also send an email notifying an administrator that the task ran. After selecting the actions to perform, select the Conditions tab.

Scheduled tasks can use conditions to ensure that tasks run only under certain circumstances. For example, you may only want a task that makes use of lot of processing power to only start if the computer is idle for 30 minutes. After defining any optional conditions, you may want to tie to the scheduled task, select the Settings tab.

Using the settings section, you can define additional settings that should be applied to the scheduled task. For example, you may want the task to stop if it has been running for more than 6 h or you may want the task to rerun if it fails the first time. As you can see from Figure 2.40, there are various additional settings you can tie to a scheduled task. After you have configured any additional settings for the scheduled task, click on OK to create the new task.

After the task is completed, it will be displayed in the Task Scheduler console in Server Manager. If you want to test the task, you can simply right click on the task and choose the Run option.

Installing and configuring Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services

In this section, we will walk through installing AD LDS and configuring the ADAMSync to synchronize the AD LDS instance with an AD domain.

To install the AD LDS role, perform the following tasks:

Open Server Manager.

Select the Roles node, then click the Add Roles link in the middle pane. This will launch the Add Roles Wizard.

Click Next to begin.

Select the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services role as seen in Figure 4.88. If prompted, click the button to Add Required Components. Click Next to continue.

Click Next on the Introduction page.

Click Install.

After the installation completes, click Close.

After installing the role for AD LDS, you will need to set up the service. This can be done via the AD LDS management console in Server Manager. To open the AD LDS console, expand the roles node within Server Manager and select the AD LDS console. To set up the AD LDS service, perform the following tasks:

Click the Setup AD LDS link inside of the AD LDS management console (see Figure 4.89). This will launch the AD LDS Setup Wizard. Click Next to continue.

Since this is the first AD LDS instance in your organization, select the option A unique instance and then click Next. This will create a brand new instance of the AD LDS service.

Enter a name and description for the new AD LDS instance, then click Next.

Enter the port numbers to use for LDAP and Secure LDAP connections. In our example, we will be using 50000 and 50001, respectively (see Figure 4.90).

Optionally, you can now create an Application partition. We will go ahead and create an application partition. Select the option Yes, create an application directory partition. Then enter the distinguished name of the partition (CN=Application, DC=Contoso, DC=com). Then click Next. The application partition is a special directory partition for storing application-specific settings that may use the directory service.

Specify the location to store the AD LDS data files and then click Next.

Now specify the account that you want to use to run the AD LDS service. If the service will need to access other resources on the network, you will need to run it under an account with appropriate permissions to those resources.

Select the account that you want to give initial administrative access to the AD LDS instance and then click Next.

Select any optional schema extensions that you want applied to the AD LDS instance. Your selection here will vary depending on how the instance will be used. For example, if you plan on syncing with an AD domain, you will need to install the MS-AdamSyncMetadata.LDF. After selecting the optional LDF files to import, click Next.

Verify your settings and click Next to continue. After the setup completes, click Finish.

The AD LDS service is now installed. The next step we want to do is extend the AD LDS schema and set up syncing with the AD domain. To complete these tasks, perform the following procedures:

Open a command prompt and change to the directory C:\Windows\Adam

To import the Windows Server 2008 schema, run the command ldifde -i -u -f ms-adamschemaw2k8.ldf—s server:port—b username domain password -j. -c “cn=Configuration,dc=X” #configurationNamingContext (see Figure 4.91).

Next, we need to modify the XML configuration file that will be used to set up the sync. Browse to the directory C:\Windows\Adam and locate the file MS-AdamSyncConf.xml and make a copy of the file naming the new file AdamSync.xml.

Open the new file AdamSync.xml in Notepad.

Update all of the fields that point to the Fabrikam domain with the contextual information pointing to yours. Change the field to CN=Application, DC=contoso, DC=com. This will tell everything to sync to the new partition we set up while adding the role. Your AdamSync.xml file should look similar to Figure 4.92. After updating the file, save and close it.

At the command prompt, enter the command adamsync/i servername:portname configxmlfile. For example, enter adamsync/I labfs1:50000 adamsync.xml. This will install the configuration in the XML file.

You are now ready to sync the AD LDS instance with the AD domain. To do this, enter the command adamsync/sync server:port dn of partition. For exadamsync/sync labfs1:50000 “CN=Application, DC=Contoso, DC=Com”

This completes the process to set up the sync between AD and AD LDS. If you wanted the sync to occur on a regular basis, you could save the command in a batch file and set up a scheduled task to run the sync on a regular basis.

Using Server Manager to Install and Manage the Network Policy Server

To install the NPS role service in Windows Server 2012 via the graphical interface, first open Server Manager from the desktop taskbar or the Server Manager tile on the Start Screen, and perform the following steps:

In Server Manager, click Manage and click Add Roles and Features.

On the Before you begin page, click Next.

On the Select Installation Type page, click Role/Feature Based Install and then click Next.

On the Select destination server page, click Select a server from the server pool, click the names of the servers where you want to install NPS, and then click Next.

On the Select Server Roles page, click Network Policy and Access Services and then click Next three times.

On the Select role services page, click Network Policy Server, and in the Add Roles and Features Wizard dialog box, verify that Include management tools (if applicable) is selected.

Click Add Features and then click Next.

On the Confirm installation selections page, click Install.

On the Installation Results page, verify that the installation was successful and then click Close.

Configuring FCI

To utilize FCI, the server must hold the File Services role. To install FCI open Server Manager, right-click the File Services role and select Add Role Services, as displayed in Figure 10.22. This will launch the Add Role Services wizard and allow you to select File Server Resource Manager from the list.

Once you have completed the installation wizard, you will then have the File Server Resource Manager console available to you on the Administrative Tools menu (see Figure 10.23). We will be reviewing Automatic Classification, and the configuration for each of the different components takes place from within this console.

The console contains a section called Classification Management. Within Classification Management, you have two subnodes: Classification Properties and Classification Rules. The Classification Properties section is where you will build out your classifications plan into Classification Property Definitions (see Figure 10.24). The Create Classification Property Definition screen will require you to name your property definition and then identify the property type. You have quite a variety of choices to select from and will want to stick to your originally laid-out plan. Also, keep in mind that simplification of the classification structure you build will help to ease administrative burden down the road.

Once you have completed building your classification structure, the next step is to create rules. Classification Rules Definitions, displayed in Figure 10.25, are what will be used by the system to judge when to assign which property definitions to the various files you scan.

Each rule must contain the directories which are to be classified, and the classification mechanism. The choices for classification mechanism are Folder Classification and Content Classifier. The Folder Classification allows you to specify folder information to be used as the match criteria to tag a file with a particular property. The Content Classifier allows for a more detailed match and can search file content in order to match. Regardless of the selected classification mechanism, you utilize the Advanced option on the Classifications tab to specify the parameters or values used to match (see Figure 10.26).

Creating Web sites

To create a new Web site within IIS, perform the following tasks:

Open Server Manager and select the node Roles | Web Server (IIS) | Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

In the middle pane, expand the Web server name and right-click the Sites node and choose the option Add Website as seen in Figure 6.9.

Enter the required site information (see Figure 6.10) including:

Site name—This is the name of the site. This should be a name that easily describes the site, for example, “BillingApplication”.

Application pool—Choose the application pool for this site to run under. By default, a new application pool will be created for the new site.

Physical path—Enter the path on the server where the Web site files are located.

Binding information—Choose the binding settings such as IP address and protocols used. You can also enter a host header in this section. IIS Web sites can use host headers allowing you to bind more than one Web site to a single IP address. Without the use of host headers, each Web site would require a dedicated IP address.

After entering the Web site configuration information, click OK.

You should now see the new site listed under the sites node in IIS Manager.

Any settings for the Web site can now be managed using the IIS Manager in Server Manager. Some of the more common settings that may need to be configured are:

Authentication—You may need to set the authentication method used by the Web site. IIS can use Anonymous Authentication, Basic Authentication, Digest Authentication, Forms Authentication, and Windows Authentication. IIS can use any one or all of these authentication methods. The IIS Authentication methods are defined in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1. IIS Authentication Methods

Authentication MethodDescriptionAnonymous authenticationAnonymous authentication allows anyone to access the Web site without entering a username or password. This authentication method is commonly used for public Web sites where everyone should have access.Basic authenticationBasic authentication presents the user with a logon dialog box asking for a username and password. If the user enters a valid username and password combination, he is given access to the Web site. It is highly recommended that SSL be used with Basic Authentication as Basic Authentication sends the username and password across the network in clear text.Digest authenticationDigest authentication provides a much greater level of security than Basic Authentication. Digest authentication can also be used to authenticate users when accessing an application through firewalls.Forms authenticationForms authentication provides a very user-friendly authentication method providing the end user with a Web page-based form to enter his credentials. Applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 provide forms-based authentication to the Outlook Web Access feature.Windows authenticationWindows authentication is used on internal Windows domain environments. Windows authentication uses the Windows domain to authenticate users. This authentication type is heavily used on only intranet Web sites.

Default document—Web sites have a default document or page that is accessed when accessing the site. To prevent users from having to know the name of this page, the Web site will automatically direct users to the defined default document when they access the Web site URL.

HTTP redirect—The HTTP Redirect option can be used to direct users hitting the Web site to another URL. This is helpful when a Web site has been moved and you want to redirect the users to the new location.

File Share Publishing

To configure a server for file sharing, you must add the File Services role in Server Manager. To open Server Manager, navigate to Start Menu | Server Manager. Server Manager is a preconfigured console designed to handle the most common administrative tasks. Server Manager allows you to:

Add, remove, configure, and manage roles

Manage users and groups

Add/remove features

View the event logs

Monitor server performance

And much more

Windows Server 2008 supports two file-sharing models: Standard (in-place) File Sharing and Public Folder Sharing. Table 7.1explains the differences between these two models.

Table 7.1. Comparison of Sharing Models

Sharing ModelExplanationStandard (in-place) File SharingAllows you to share a folder and all of its contents (files and subfolders) with users on the network. Standard File Sharing does not require you to move the files and folders to share them.Public Folder SharingAllows you to use a common folder (%SystemDrive%\Users\Public) to share files and folders with other local users on the server and optionally network users as well. Requires you to place any files and folders you want to share out in the Public folder.

Sharing folders on your server is like opening a door (share) directly to a room (folder) to allow others to enter (network users to access the folder). In this analogy, a room may contain other rooms that are accessible once you have walked through the door just as a folder that is shared on the network can contain multiple subfolders that are accessible once you have connected to the file share. In the following Sidebar, we will add the File Services role to a Windows 2008 Server.

Configuring & Implementing…

Adding the File Services role in Server Manager

To enable file sharing and install the management tools in Windows Server 2008 follow these steps:

Launch the Server Manager console by navigating to Start Menu | Server Manager.

In the Roles Summary section of Server Manager, you will be presented with a list of the roles that are currently installed on your server, as seen in Figure 7.1. Click on the Add Roles hyperlink.

The Add Roles Wizard will open. Click the Next button if you are presented with a Before You Begin page.

On the Select Server Roles page shown in Figure 7.2, put a checkmark in the box next to File Services.

You will be presented with an Introduction to File Services; click the Next button.

On the Select Role Services page, verify that File Server is checked and click the Next button. You can add more Role Services at any time, so it is not necessary to select them at this time.

A summary of the options selected for installation will appear. Click on the Install button to start the installation process.

Additional Role Services

When you install the File Services role, Windows Server 2008 allows you to install a subset of roles called Role Services. Table 7.2explains the Role Services available for the File Services role.

Table 7.2. Explanation of Role Services for the File Services Role

Role ServiceExplanationFile ServerEnables the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and the ability to share folders with other users on the networkDistributed File SystemEnables the Distributed File System (DFS) and installs DFS management toolsDFS NamespaceAllows an administrator to share folders from multiple servers into one central share name (namespace)DFS ReplicationAllows an administrator to replicate files and folders among multiple serversFile Server Resource ManagerInstalls the File Server Resource Manager, a useful tool for configuring and managing file screening and quotas, and for generating storage reportsServices for Network File SystemInstalls Services for the Network File System (NFS). The NFS protocol allows an administrator to share out folders to UNIX clients.Windows Search ServiceThe new indexing service from Microsoft that allows clients to rapidly search for files on the target server. Windows Search Service works by creating an index of the most common files and other data types (such as e-mail, contacts, calendar appointments, documents, pictures, and multimedia) on the target server.
The client-side search for Windows Search Service is built into Windows Vista. You can add it onto Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP by downloading and installing Windows Desktop Search from www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/getitnow.mspx.Windows Server 2003 File ServicesInstalls optional services for backward compatibility with Windows 2003 servers in a mixed environmentFile Replication ServiceInstalls the File Replication Service (FRS). FRS is the older, less efficient service for replicating files and folders among multiple servers. This service is included for backward compatibility with Server 2003 R1. DFS replication is far more efficient (it's faster and uses less bandwidth) than FRS. However, DFS replication is available only on Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, and later.Indexing ServiceInstalls the legacy (older) Microsoft Indexing Service on the target server. This service has been replaced by the Windows Search Service and it is recommended that you install the Windows Search Service instead, unless you have a customized or non-Microsoft application that requires the legacy Indexing Service.
The Indexing Service is slower and does not have as many features as the new Windows Search Service.
You cannot install both the Indexing Service and Windows Search Service on the same server.

To add role services, navigate to Start Menu | Server Manager | Roles | File Services and click on the Add Role Services hyperlink, as shown in Figure 7.3.

Figure 7.3. Role Services Configuration for the File Services Role

File Screening

New to Windows Server 2008 is the ability to prevent users from copying and saving specified file types to the server. For example, you may notice that your server's backups are starting to run out of space. Upon further inspection, you notice that one of your users is storing 20 GB of funny videos and TV shows in a shared folder on the server. As this is not important company data, it should not be taking up precious space on the server and consuming backup drive space. With Windows Server 2008 File Screening, you can actually configure each shared folder to block specified file types such as Music and Videos.

Figure 7.4shows the error message a user will get if he or she attempts to copy a restricted file (in this case the file is called Music.mp3) to a share that has File Screening enabled and is blocking music files.

Figure 7.4. Error When Attempting to Copy a Restricted File

We will be given the option to configure File Screening in the following Sidebar.

Sharing a Folder

Windows sharing uses the SMB protocol, which is also known as Common Internet File System (CIFS); Microsoft's open standard based on SMB. The preferred method for sharing files and folders is to use the Standard (in-place) File Sharing model. As a means to simply sharing for novice administrators or to be run in conjunction with Standard (in-place) File Sharing, Windows Server 2008 also supports Public Folder Sharing.

To enable Public Folder sharing (optional), navigate to Start Menu | Control Panel | Network and Sharing Center and turn on Public folder sharing. Select the first option (see Figure 7.5) if you would like to share the public folder to network users using read-only access. Or you can select the second option to allow network users to modify and write to the public folder as well. Be sure to click the Apply button to enable your changes.

Figure 7.5. Public Folder Sharing Options in the Network and Sharing Center

Once Public Folder Sharing is turned on, you can easily share files and folders by opening Windows Explorer and moving files and folders via drag and drop to the Public folder shown in the left pane folder list. In Figure 7.6, the first Public folder in the left pane folder list is the local Public folder. Figure 7.6 also shows that same Public folder and its contents as viewed through the network.

Figure 7.6. Accessing the Public Folder Share Using Windows Explorer

We will walk through the steps to configure shared folders and permissions using the Standard (in-place) File Sharing method in the following Sidebar in this chapter, but first we will briefly discuss the concepts of Share Permissions, NTFS permissions, and Offline Files.

Performance Monitor

Now that we've explored Data Collector Sets, let's take a look at Performance Monitor in a little more depth. You can use Performance Monitor to review system performance data collected by Data Collector Sets as well as in real time. Performance Monitor also allows you to view the data in different formats. It is important to understand some of the key performance counters in Performance Monitor. Table 8.2 lists a few counters you should become familiar with. The table includes the counter name, a brief description, and the threshold value.

Table 8.2. Performance Counters

CounterDescriptionThreshold ValueMemory\Pages/secPages/sec is the number of memory pages written to disk every second. High pages/sec can indicate memory problems with your server.20Processor\% Processor TimeThis is the percentage of the processor time spent executing tasks.85%System\Processor Queue LengthThis counter tracks the number of threads queued and waiting to be processed.2Physical Disk\Current Disk Queue LengthThis counter collects the current number of waiting requests for the physical disk.Number of Disk Spindles + 2

In the following Sidebar, we'll take a closer look at Performance Monitor.

Configuring & Implementing…

Exploring Performance Monitor

1

Open Server Manager by selecting Start | Administrative Tools | Server Manager.

2

Expand the Diagnostics | Reliability and Performance | Monitoring Tools nodes.

3

Click on the Performance Monitor node to display Performance Monitor in the center pane of the console.

4

Performance Monitor uses what is known as counters. Counters are the different types of data collection you can add to Performance Monitor. Go ahead and click the Add button, as shown in Figure 8.43. The Add Counters window will open.

Figure 8.43. The Add Button in Performance Monitor

5

Expand the Processor heading and then click the % Processor Time counter. Choose the _Total instance and click the Add button (see Figure 8.44). You can also check the Show description checkbox to display a description of any of the counters. Go ahead and also add the %Idle Time counter too. Then click the OK button.

Figure 8.44. Selecting Data to Display

6

The Performance Monitor window will immediately begin to display data from the selected counters. Notice that this data is being displayed in real time. Performance Monitor lets us view this data in a few different formats. If you want to view the raw numbers being collected, you can change the view to Report (see Figure 8.45).

Figure 8.45. The Report View

7

You can quickly change your data view from real time to data from a Data Collector Set. Click the Data Collector icon in the toolbar of the Performance Monitor window. Choose the Log files option and add the data directory for any existing Data Collector Sets (see Figure 8.46). Then click the OK button. You will now see performance data from an existing Data Collector Set.

Figure 8.46. Viewing Data from a Data Collector Set

In this section, we discovered how to use Performance Monitor to review system performance data in real time, or that collected by Data Collector Sets. Performance Monitor is a great way to troubleshoot performance issues and find bottlenecks with server hardware and software. Some common performance counters to watch are % Processor Time, Avg Disk Queue Length, and Memory Pages/Sec. Now let's take a look at Reliability Monitor.

What is the command to open server Manager?

What is server Manager Windows Server?