Install and Configure Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server

Introduction

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a core infrastructure service on any network that provides IP addressing and DNS server information to PC clients and any other device. DHCP is used so that you do not have to statically assign IP addresses to every device on your network and manage the issues that static IP addressing can create. More and more, DHCP is being expanded to fit into new network services like the Windows Health Service and Network Access Protection (NAP). However, before you can use it for more advanced services, you need to first install it and configure the basics. Let’s learn how to do that.

Installing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server

Installing Windows Server 2008 DCHP Server is easy. DHCP Server is now a “role” of Windows Server 2008 – not a windows component as it was in the past.

To do this, you will need a Windows Server 2008 system already installed and configured with a static IP address. You will need to know your network’s IP address range, the range of IP addresses you will want to hand out to your PC clients, your DNS server IP addresses, and your default gateway. Additionally, you will want to have a plan for all subnets involved, what scopes you will want to define, and what exclusions you will want to create.

To start the DHCP installation process, you can click Add Roles from the Initial Configuration Tasks window or from Server Manager à Roles à Add Roles.

Figure 1: Adding a new Role in Windows Server 2008

When the Add Roles Wizard comes up, you can click Next on that screen.

Next, select that you want to add the DHCP Server Role, and click Next.

Figure 2: Selecting the DHCP Server Role

If you do not have a static IP address assigned on your server, you will get a warning that you should not install DHCP with a dynamic IP address.

At this point, you will begin being prompted for IP network information, scope information, and DNS information. If you only want to install DHCP server with no configured scopes or settings, you can just click Next through these questions and proceed with the installation.

On the other hand, you can optionally configure your DHCP Server during this part of the installation.

In my case, I chose to take this opportunity to configure some basic IP settings and configure my first DHCP Scope.

I was shown my network connection binding and asked to verify it, like this:

Figure 3: Network connection binding

What the wizard is asking is, “what interface do you want to provide DHCP services on?” I took the default and clickedNext.

Next, I entered my Parent Domain, Primary DNS Server, and Alternate DNS Server (as you see below) and clicked Next.

Figure 4: Entering domain and DNS information

I opted NOT to use WINS on my network and I clicked Next.

Then, I was promoted to configure a DHCP scope for the new DHCP Server. I have opted to configure an IP address range of 192.168.1.50-100 to cover the 25+ PC Clients on my local network. To do this, I clicked Add to add a new scope. As you see below, I named the Scope WBC-Local, configured the starting and ending IP addresses of 192.168.1.50-192.168.1.100, subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, default gateway of 192.168.1.1, type of subnet(wired), and activated the scope.

Figure 5: Adding a new DHCP Scope

Back in the Add Scope screen, I clicked Next to add the new scope (once the DHCP Server is installed).

I chose to Disable DHCPv6 stateless mode for this server and clicked Next.

Then, I confirmed my DHCP Installation Selections (on the screen below) and clicked Install.

Figure 6: Confirm Installation Selections

After only a few seconds, the DHCP Server was installed and I saw the window, below:

Figure 7: Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Installation succeeded

I clicked Close to close the installer window, then moved on to how to manage my new DHCP Server.

How to Manage your new Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server

Like the installation, managing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server is also easy. Back in my Windows Server 2008Server Manager, under Roles, I clicked on the new DHCP Server entry.

Figure 8: DHCP Server management in Server Manager

While I cannot manage the DHCP Server scopes and clients from here, what I can do is to manage what events, services, and resources are related to the DHCP Server installation. Thus, this is a good place to go to check the status of the DHCP Server and what events have happened around it.

However, to really configure the DHCP Server and see what clients have obtained IP addresses, I need to go to the DHCP Server MMC. To do this, I went to Start à Administrative Tools à DHCP Server, like this:

Figure 9: Starting the DHCP Server MMC

When expanded out, the MMC offers a lot of features. Here is what it looks like:

Figure 10: The Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server MMC

The DHCP Server MMC offers IPv4 & IPv6 DHCP Server info including all scopes, pools, leases, reservations, scope options, and server options.

If I go into the address pool and the scope options, I can see that the configuration we made when we installed the DHCP Server did, indeed, work. The scope IP address range is there, and so are the DNS Server & default gateway.

Figure 11: DHCP Server Address Pool

Figure 12: DHCP Server Scope Options

So how do we know that this really works if we do not test it? The answer is that we do not. Now, let’s test to make sure it works.

How do we test our Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server?

To test this, I have a Windows Vista PC Client on the same network segment as the Windows Server 2008 DHCP server. To be safe, I have no other devices on this network segment.

I did an IPCONFIG /RELEASE then an IPCONFIG /RENEW and verified that I received an IP address from the new DHCP server, as you can see below:

Figure 13: Vista client received IP address from new DHCP Server

Also, I went to my Windows 2008 Server and verified that the new Vista client was listed as a client on the DHCP server. This did indeed check out, as you can see below:

Figure 14: Win 2008 DHCP Server has the Vista client listed under Address Leases

With that, I knew that I had a working configuration and we are done!

In Summary

In this article, you learned how to install and configure DHCP Server in Windows Server 2008. During that process, you learned what DHCP Server is, how it can help you, how to install it, how to manage the server, and how to configure DHCP server specific settings like DHCP Server scopes. In the end, we tested our configuration and it all worked! Good luck configuring your Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server!

How to configure Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) to use BranchCache

What is branchCache? BranchCache™ is a new feature in Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2 that can reduce wide area network (WAN) or bandwidth utilization and enhance network application responsiveness when users access content in a central office from branch office locations. When you enable BranchCache, a copy of the content that is retrieved from the Web server or file server is cached within the branch office. If another client in the branch requests the same content, the client can download it directly from the local branch network without needing to retrieve the content by using the Wide Area Network (WAN).

How Branchcache works? When a Windows 7 Client from a branch office request data such as WSUS content to a head office Server then server check authentication and authorise data to pass on to the client. This is an ordinary communication happens without branchcache also.

But with branchcache, The client uses the hashes in the metadata to search for the file in the Hosted Cache server. Because this is the first time any client has retrieved the file, it is not already cached on the local network. Therefore, the client retrieves the file directly from the content server. The Hosted Cache server connects to the client and retrieves the set of blocks that it does not have cached.

When a second Windows 7 client from the same branch requests the same WSUS content from the content server or WSUS server. The content server authorizes the user/client and returns content identifiers. The second client uses these identifiers to request the data from the Hosted Cache server residing in branch. This time, it does not retrieve data from the DFS share residing in head office.

To configure a Web server or an application server that uses the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) protocol, you must install the BranchCache feature using server manager. To configure a file server to use BranchCache, you must install the BranchCache for Network Files feature and configure the server using Group Policy. This article discuss and show how to configure WSUS to use  branchcache. The followings are the steps involve in head office and Branch Offices.

Head Office:

1. Install and configure back end SQL Server
2. Create DFS share
3. Install and configure front end WSUS Server
4. Configure GPO for WSUS client

Branch Office:

1. Install and configure Branchcache File Server
2. Configure GPO for Branchcache
3. Install and configure front end WSUS server
4. Configure GPO for WSUS client

Installing BranchCache File Server

1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Server Manager.

2. Right-click Roles and then click Add Roles.

3. In the Add Features Wizard, select File Server and BranchCache for network files and then click Next.

4. In the Confirm Installation Selections dialog box, click Install.

5. In the Installation Results dialog box, confirm that BranchCache installed successfully, and then click Close.

Using Group Policy to configure BranchCache

1. Open the Group Policy Management Console. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Group Policy Management Console.

2. Select the domain in which you will apply the Group Policy object, or select Local Computer Policy.

3. Select New from the Action menu to create a new Group Policy object (GPO).

4. Choose a name for the new GPO and click OK.

5. Right-click the GPO just created and choose Edit.

6. Click Computer Configuration, point to Policies, Administrative Templates, Network, and then click Lanman Server.

7. Double-click Hash Publication for BranchCache.

8. Click Enabled.

9. Under Options, choose one of the following Hash publication actions:

a. Allow hash publication for all file shares.

b. Allow hash publication for file shares tagged with “BranchCache support.”

c. Disallow hash publication on all file shares.

10. Click OK.

Using the Registry Editor to configure disk use for stored identifiers

1. Open an elevated command prompt (click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator).

2. At the command prompt, type Regedit.exe, and then press Enter.

3. Navigate to HKLMCurrentControlSetServiceLanmanServerParameters.

4. Right-click the HashStorageLimitPercent value, and then click Modify.

5. In the Value box, type the percentage of disk space that you would like BranchCache to use. Click OK.

6. Close the Registry Editor.

Setting the BranchCache support tag on a file share

1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Share and Storage Management.

2. Right-click a share and then click Properties.

3. Click Advanced.

4. On the Caching tab, select Only the files and programs that users specify are available offline.

5. Select Enable BranchCache, and then click OK.

6. Click OK, and then close the Share and Storage Management Console.

To replicate cryptographic data

1. Open an elevated command prompt (click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator).2. At the command prompt, type netsh branchcache set key passphrase=“MY_PASSPHRASE”, and then press Enter. Choose a phrase known only to you. Repeat this process using the same phrase on all computers that are participating in the cluster.

Client configuration using Group Policy

1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and click Group Policy Management Console.

2. In the console tree, select the domain in which you will apply the GPO.

3. Create a new GPO by selecting New from the Action menu.

4. Choose a name for the new GPO, and then click OK.

5. Right click the GPO you created and choose Edit.

6. Click Computer Configuration, point to Policies, Administrative Templates: Policy definitions (ADMX files) retrieved from the local machine, Network, and then click BranchCache.

7. Double-click Turn on BranchCache.

8. Click Enabled, and then click OK.

9. To use Distributed Cache mode, double-click Turn on BranchCache – Distributed Caching mode, click Enabled, and then click OK.  or

To use Hosted Cache mode, double-click Turn on BranchCache – Hosted cache mode, click Enabled, and then click OK.

10. To enable BranchCache for SMB traffic, double-click BranchCache for network files, click Enabled, select a latency value under Options, and then click OK.

Configuring a Branch WSUS server to use BranchCache

In addition to enabling BranchCache in your environment, the WSUS server must be configured to store update files locally (both the update metadata and the update files are downloaded and stored locally on the WSUS server). This ensures that the clients get the update files from the WSUS server rather than directly from Microsoft Update.

Install SQL Server 2005/2008 with Management Studio Express on the back-end computer

1. Click Start, point at All Programs, point at SQL Server 2005
   >, point at Configuration Tools, and select SQL Server Surface Area Configuration.
2. Choose Surface Configuration for Services and Connections.
3. In the left window, click the Remote Connections node.
4. Select Local and remote connections and then select Using TCP/IP only.
5. Click OK to save the settings.

To ensure administrative permissions on SQL Server

1. Start SQL Server Management Studio (click Start, click Run, and then type sqlwb).
2. Connect to the SQL Engine on the server where SQL Server 2005 was installed in Step 1.
3. Select the Security node and then select Logins.
4. The right pane will show a list of the accounts that have database access. Check that the person who is going to install WSUS 3.0 on the front-end computer has an account in this list.
5. If the account does not exist, then right-click the Logins node, select New Login, and add the account.
6. Set up this account for the roles needed to set up the WSUS 3.0 database. The roles are either dbcreator plus diskadmin, or sysadmin. Accounts belonging to the local Administrators group have the sysadmin role by default.

Install Branch WSUS Server

To install WSUS on the front-end computer At the command prompt, navigate to the folder containing the WSUS Setup program, and type:

WSUSSetup.exe /q FRONTEND_SETUP=1 SQLINSTANCE_NAME=serverinstance CREATE_DATABASE=0

Here, Serverinstance is the name of the remote SQL server that is holding the instance of WSUS database. If you do not want silent installation then don’t use /q switch and follow WSUS installation link

Important! Microsoft recommend 1GB free space for Systems Partition and 30GB for WSUS contents. But this minimum recommended space will create havoc when WSUS log, database log and content grow over the years. So, I used 50GB as systems partition and 100GB as WSUS contents in DFS share.

To configure the proxy server on WSUS front-end servers

1. In the WSUS administration console, select Options, then Update Source and Proxy Server.
2. Select the Proxy Server tab, then enter the proxy server name, port, user name, domain, and password, then click OK.
3. Repeat this procedure on all the front-end WSUS servers.

To specify where updates are stored

1. In the left pane of the WSUS Administration console, click Options.
2. In Update Files and Languages, click the Update Files tab.
3. If you want to store updates in WSUS, select the Store update files locally on this server check box.

To specify whether updates are downloaded during synchronization or when the update is approved

1. In the left pane of the WSUS Administration console, click Options.
2. In Update Files and Languages, click the Update Files tab.
3. If you want to download only metadata about the updates during synchronization, select the Download updates to this server only when updates are approved check box.

To specify language options

1. In the left pane of the WSUS Administration console, click Options.
2. In Update Files and Languages, click the Update Languages tab.
3. In the Advanced Synchronization Options dialog box, under Languages, select one of the following language options, and then click OK.
4. Select Download updates only in these languages: This means that only updates targeted to the languages you select will be downloaded during synchronization.

How to configure automatic updates by using Group Policy

Log on to Domain Controller using Administrative Privilege. Open GPO management Console>Select Organisational unit>Right client>create and link a new GPO> Name it as WSUS policy>right click>Edit. Go to Computer ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesWindows ComponentsWindows Updates

Now Specify Client target group, Intranet update server location i.e. http://servername:8530 , update schedule, installation schedule.

To set up a DFS share

Note:This DFS share will be used by all front end WSUS servers.

1. Go to Start, point at All Programs, point at Administrative Tools, and click Distributed File System.
2. You will see the Distributed File System management console. Right-click the Distributed File System node in the left pane and click New Root in the shortcut menu.
3. You will see the New Root Wizard. Click Next.
4. In the Root Type screen, select Stand-alone root as the type of root, and click Next.
5. In the Host Server screen, type the name of the host server for the DFS root or search for it with Browse, and then click Next.
6. In the Root Name screen, type the name of the DFS root, and then click Next.
7. In the Root Share screen, select the folder that will serve as the share, or create a new one. Click Next.
8. In the last screen of the wizard, review your selections before clicking Finish.
9. You will see an error message if the Distributed File System service has not yet been started on the server. You can start it at this time.
10. Make sure that the domain account of each of the front-end WSUS servers has change permissions on the root folder of this share.

Important! If you are using a DFS share, be careful when uninstalling WSUS from one but not all of the front-end servers. If you allow the WSUS content directory to be deleted, this will affect all the WSUS front-end servers.

To configure IIS for remote access on the front-end WSUS servers

1. On each of the servers,
   go to Start, point at All Programs, point at Administrative Tools, and click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. You will see the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager management console.
3. Click the server node, then the Web Sites node, then the node for the WSUS Web site (either Default Web Site or WSUS Administration).
4. Right-click the Content node and select Properties.
5. In the Content Properties dialog box, click the Virtual Directory tab. In the top frame you will see The content for this resource should come from:
6. Select A share located on another computer and fill in the UNC name of the share.
7. Click Connect As, and enter the user name and password that can be used to access that share.
8. Be sure to follow these steps for each of the front-end WSUS servers that are not on the same machine as the DFS share.

To move the content directories on the front-end WSUS servers

1. Open a command window.
2. Go to the WSUS tools directory on the WSUS server:cd Program FilesUpdate ServicesTools
3. Type the following command:wsusutil movecontent DFSsharename logfilenamewhere DFSsharename is the name of the DFS share to which the content should be moved, and logfilename is the name of the log file.

To configure Network Load Balancing

1. Enable Network load balancing

• a) Click Start, then Control Panel, Network Connections, Local Area Connection, and click Properties.
• b) Under This connection uses the following items, you may see an entry for Network Load Balancing. If you do not, click Install, then (on the Select Network Component Type screen) select Service, then click Add, then (on the Select Network Service screen) select Network Load Balancing, then OK.
• c) On the Local Area Connection Properties screen, select Network Load Balancing, and then click OK.

2. On the Local Area Connection Properties screen, select Network Load Balancing, and then click Properties.

3. On the Cluster Parameters tab, fill in the relevant information (the virtual IP address to be shared among the front end computers, and the subnet mask). Under Cluster operation mode, select Unicast.

4. On the Host Parameters tab, make sure that the unique host identifier is different for each member of the cluster.

5. On the Port Rules tab, make sure that there is a port rule specifying single affinity (the default). (Affinity is the term used to define how client requests are to be directed. Single affinity means that requests from the same client will always be directed to the same cluster host.)

6. Click OK, and return to the Local Area Connection Properties screen.

7. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click Properties, and then click Advanced.

8. On the IP Settings tab, under IP addresses, add the virtual IP of the cluster (so that there will be two IP addresses). This should be done on each cluster member.

9. On the DNS tab, clear the Register this connection’s addresses in DNS checkbox. Make sure that there is no DNS entry for the IP address.

10 Core Concepts that Every Windows Network Admin Must Know

Introduction

I thought that this article might be helpful for Windows Network Admins out there who need some “brush-up tips” as well as those who are interviewing for network admins jobs to come up with a list of 10 networking concepts that every network admin should know.

So, here is my list of 10 core networking concepts that every Windows Network Admin (or those interviewing for a job as one) must know:

1.     DNS Lookup

The domain naming system (DNS) is a cornerstone of every network infrastructure. DNS maps IP addresses to names and names to IP addresses (forward and reverse respectively). Thus, when you go to a web-page like http://www.windowsnetworking.com, without DNS, that name would not be resolved to an IP address and you would not see the web page. Thus, if DNS is not working “nothing is working” for the end users.

DNS server IP addresses are either manually configured or received via DHCP. If you do an IPCONFIG /ALL in windows, you will see your PC’s DNS server IP addresses.

Figure 1: DNS Servers shown in IPCONFIG output

So, you should know what DNS is, how important it is, and how DNS servers must be configured and/or DNS servers must be working for “almost  anything” to work.

When you perform a ping, you can easily see that the domain name is resolved to an IP (shown in Figure 2).

Figure 2: DNS name resolved to an IP address

For more information on DNS servers, see Brian Posey’s article on DNS Servers.

2.     Ethernet & ARP

Ethernet is the protocol for your local area network (LAN). You have Ethernet network interface cards (NIC) connected to Ethernet cables, running to Ethernet switches which connect everything together. Without a “link light” on the NIC and the switch, nothing is going to work.

MAC addresses (or Physical addresses) are unique strings that identify Ethernet devices. ARP (address resolution protocol) is the protocol that maps Ethernet MAC addresses to IP addresses. When you go to open a web page and get a successful DNS lookup, you know the IP address. Your computer will then perform an ARP request on the network to find out what computer (identified by their Ethernet MAC address, shown in Figure 1 as the Physical address) has that IP address.

3.     IP Addressing and Subnetting

Every computer on a network must have a unique Layer 3 address called an IP address. IP addresses are 4 numbers separated by 3 periods like 1.1.1.1.

Most computers receive their IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and DNS servers from a DHCP server. Of course, to receive that information, your computer must first have network connectivity (a link light on the NIC and switch) and must be configured for DHCP.

You can see my computer’s IP address in Figure 1 where it says IPv4 Address 10.0.1.107. You can also see that I received it via DHCP where it says DHCP Enabled YES.

Larger blocks of IP addresses are broken down into smaller blocks of IP addresses and this is called IP subnetting. I am not going to go into how to do it and you do not need to know how to do it from memory either (unless you are sitting for a certification exam) because you can use an IP subnet calculator, downloaded from the Internet, for free.

4.     Default Gateway

The default gateway, shown in Figure 3 as 10.0.1.1, is where your computer goes to talk to another computer that is not on your local LAN network. That default gateway is your local router. A default gateway address is not required but if it is not present you would not be able to talk to computers outside your network (unless you are using a proxy server).

Figure 3: Network Connection Details

5.     NAT and Private IP Addressing

Today, almost every local LAN network is using Private IP addressing (based on RFC1918) and then translating those private IPs to public IPs with NAT (network address translation). The private IP addresses always start with 192.168.x.x or 172.16-31.x.x or 10.x.x.x (those are the blocks of private IPs defined in RFC1918).

In Figure 2, you can see that we are using private IP addresses because the IP starts with “10”. It is my integrated router/wireless/firewall/switch device that is performing NAT and translating my private IP to my public Internet IP that my router was assigned from my ISP.

6.     Firewalls

Protecting your network from malicious attackers are firewalls. You have software firewalls on your Windows PC or server and you have hardware firewalls inside your router or dedicated appliances. You can think of firewalls as traffic cops that only allow certain types of traffic in that should be in.

For more information on Firewalls, checkout our Firewall articles.

7.     LAN vs WAN

Your local area network (LAN) is usually contained within your building. It may or may not be just one IP subnet. Your LAN is connected by Ethernet switches and you do not need a router for the LAN to function. So, remember, your LAN is “local”.

Your wide area network (WAN) is a “big network” that your LAN is attached to. The Internet is a humongous global WAN. However, most large companies have their own private WAN. WANs span multiple cities, states, countries, and continents. WANs are connected by routers.

8.     Routers

Routers route traffic between different IP subnets. Router work at Layer 3 of the OSI model. Typically, routers route traffic from the LAN to the WAN but, in larger enterprises or campus environments, routers route traffic between multiple IP subnets on the same large LAN.

On small home networks, you can have an integrated router that also offers firewall, multi-port switch, and wireless access point.

For more information on Routers, see Brian Posey’s Network Basics article on Routers.

9.     Switches

Switches work at layer 2 of the OSI model and connect all the devices on the LAN. Switches switch frames based on the destination MAC address for that frame. Switches come in all sizes from small home integrated router/switch/firewall/wireless devices, all the way to very large Cisco Catalyst 6500 series switches.

10. OSI Model encapsulation

One of the core networking concepts is the OSI Model. This is a theoretical model that defines how the various networking protocols, which work at different layers of the model, work together to accomplish communication across a network (like the Internet).

Unlike most of the other concepts above, the OSI model isn’t something that network admins use every day. The OSI model is for those seeking certifications like the Cisco CCNA or when taking some of the Microsoft networking certification tests. OR, if you have an over-zealous interviewer who really wants to quiz you.

To fulfill those wanting to quiz you, here is the OSI model:

• Application – layer 7 – any application using the network, examples include FTP and your web browser
• Presentation – layer 6 – how the data sent is presented, examples include JPG graphics, ASCII, and XML
• Session – layer 5 – for applications that keep track of sessions, examples are applications that use Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) like SQL and Exchange
• Transport – layer 4 -provides reliable communication over the network to make sure that your data actually “gets there” with TCP being the most common transport layer protocol
• Network – layer 3 -takes care of addressing on the network that helps to route the packets with IP being the most common network layer protocol. Routers function at Layer 3.
• Data Link – layer 2 -transfers frames over the network using protocols like Ethernet and PPP. Switches function at layer 2.
• Physical – layer 1 -controls the actual electrical signals sent over the network and includes cables, hubs, and actual network links.

At this point, let me stop degrading the value of the OSI model because, even though it is theoretical, it is critical that network admins understand and be able to visualize how every piece of data on the network travels down, then back up this model. And how, at every layer of the OSI model, all the data from the layer above is encapsulated by the layer below with the additional data from that layer. And, in reverse, as the data travels back up the layer, the data is de-encapsulated.

By understanding this model and how the hardware and software fit together to make a network (like the Internet or your local LAN) work, you can much more efficiently troubleshoot any network. For more information on using the OSI model to troubleshoot a network, see my articles Choose a network troubleshooting methodology and How to use the OSI Model to Troubleshoot Networks.

Summary

I can’t stress enough that if you are interviewing for any job in IT, you should be prepared to answer networking questions. Even if you are not interviewing to be a network admin, you never know when they will send a senior network admin to ask you a few quiz questions to test your knowledge. I can tell you first hand, the questions above are going to be the go-to topics for most network admins to ask you about during a job interview. And, if you are already a windows network admin, hopefully this article serves as an excellent overview of the core networking concepts that you should know. While you may not use these every day, knowledge of these concepts is are going to help you troubleshoot networking problems faster.

How to setup a new Windows 2008 R2 Network Load Balancing

How to setup a new Windows 2008 R2 Network Load Balancing.

1- Install and configure Network Load Balancing (NLB). To perform the following procedures you must use an account that belongs to the local Administrators security group on each host. Perform the following procedures in both hosts.

Click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Server Manager.

In the Features Summary area of the Server Manager main window, click Add Features.

In the Add Features Wizard, select the Network Load Balancing check box.

Click Install.

Alternatively, you can install NLB by typing the following command (You must run the cmd with elevated rights – Right click and choose the option run as Administrator): “servermanagercmd.exe -install nlb“.

After installing NLB, check the properties of your network adapter for the NLB option.

2- Create the new NLB cluster (Perform the following steps in one of the nodes).

To open Network Load Balancing Manager, Right-click Network Load Balancing Clusters, and then click New Cluster.

To connect to the host that is to be a part of the new cluster, in the Host text box, type the name of the host, and then click Connect.

Select the interface that you want to use with the cluster, and then click Next. (The interface hosts the virtual IP address and receives the client traffic to load balance.)

In Host Parameters, select a value in Priority (Unique host identifier). This parameter specifies a unique ID for each host. The host with the lowest numerical priority among the current members of the cluster handles all of the cluster’s network traffic that is not covered by a port rule.
You can override these priorities or provide load balancing for specific ranges of ports by specifying rules on the Port rules tab of the Network Load Balancing Properties dialog box.
In Host Parameters, you can also add dedicated IP addresses, if necessary.

Click Next to continue.

In Cluster IP Addresses, click Add and type the cluster IP address that is shared by every host in the cluster. NLB adds this IP address to the TCP/IP stack on the selected interface of all hosts that are chosen to be part of the cluster. (NLB does not support Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). NLB disables DHCP on each interface that it configures, so the IP addresses must be static.)

Click Next to continue.

In Cluster Parameters, select values in IP Address and Subnet mask (for IPv6 addresses, a subnet mask value is not needed). Type the full Internet name that users will use to access this NLB cluster.

In Cluster operation mode, click Unicast to specify that a unicast media access control (MAC) address should be used for cluster operations. In unicast mode, the MAC address of the cluster is assigned to the network adapter of the computer, and the built-in MAC address of the network adapter is not used. We recommend that you accept the unicast default settings.

Click Next to continue.

In Port Rules, click Edit to modify the default port rules, if needed.

To add more hosts to the cluster, right-click the new cluster, and then click Add Host to Cluster. Configure the host parameters (including host priority, dedicated IP addresses, and load weight) for the additional hosts by following the same instructions that you used to configure the initial host. Because you are adding hosts to an already configured cluster, all the cluster-wide parameters remain the same.

DONE!!!

Refrences:
Technet Network Load Balancing

Active Directory Sites and Services

Active Directory Sites and Services (ADSS) is a key element of any Active Directory Domain. It allows you to structure your Active Directory such that you can tightly control the replication and bandwidth used by multiple, segmented areas of your network.  I recently set up my own domain with separate sites to control the interaction between two different branch offices on the network – this is where it really shines.

Parts of the network are segmented by subnets.  For detailed information on a click here: subnet.  The short version is that a subnet is a high bandwidth, low latency, interconnected network of computers.  You might recognize the common home LAN subnet of 255.255.255.0.  This describes 254 address in an IP address range.  It is possible to have more say 192.168.1.1 – 192.168.3.1 would be 255.255.253.0.  Using subnets your domain can be segmented into different sites, allowing you to control your network over both high speed LAN connections and over slower speed $define(WAN) links that interconnect branch offices or other areas important to your domain.

Wow that sounds confusing, okay simple version as an example.  You have a main office building for a company called WinTastic.  This office is located in Paducah, KY.  WinTastic has expanded and now has opened a branch office in Marsville, TN – a prime business location for their product.  Your tasked with the job of adding this new branch office to their existing domain.  How do you do this? Why ADSS of course (Didn’t see that coming did you?).  Your office in Paducah is a lan that consists of IP addresses 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254.  Knowing in advance you will be setting up a new Active Directory site you configure your shiny new DC in Marsville for DHCP and the IP address range 192.168.2.1-192.168.2.254.  Now with the setup portion done and some fancy spancy VPN linkage between your two networks, its now time to get knee deep in AD and setup your sites.

A bit more background first, the reason sites are important is to control your domain’s replication between different domain controllers.  Each site needs to have a DC on its subnet, with ADSS and the proper subnets, every time a client logs on the DNS servers will provide them with their closest DC (presumably the fastest available to them).  Without this key improvement one of our poor office bees in Paducah could login using the server in Marsville over our cruddy DSL connection.  Now this won’t solve every problem with multiple branches but it goes a long way toward making your domain very quick, clean, and accessible.

Okay onto how to setup a site.  First and foremost you much setup subnets.  Heres an image of my ADSS:

You can see I have two sites (and subsequently two subnets though you can assign more than one subnet to a site).  First we’ll look at how to create sites and set up a new site.  So lets start by right-clicking on our root sites folder and clicking add site.  The wizard that pops up is fairly straight forward except for the site link:

The name is just a descriptive name so that you can remember where this site is (though in its properties you also can set a more descriptive location).  The only interesting thing here is our site link.  You can create a site link or use the default one but this just defines a connection between two or more sites and its cost to use.  This way the AD can determine the lowest cost link to follow to arrive at a AD site (Exchange uses this heavily to deliver mail amongst hub servers).  The wizard for site links is fairly easy to understand just a name and the sites to include.  If you want to set more detailed information on it, create it then right click and open its properties where you can adjust its cost and other settings.  We aren’t going to talk about bridges in depth but on a quick note a bridge head is a hub between two links.  I. E. Marsville,TN <–> Paducah, KY <–> Hopkinton, MA.  Paducah acts as a bridge between Marsville and Hopkinton (though it won’t unless its defined as one otherwise theres no connection between Marsville and Hopkinton – this isn’t a big problem though depending on where your network services are located not always advisable.

Second we’ll look at the subnets you can see I have 192.168.1.0/24 and 192.168.2.0/24.  The first part is the starting IP for the range you are interested in defining aka 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.2.0.  The second part is a subnet bit.  You can calculate your subnet bit at http://www.subnet-calculator.com/.  A subnet bit of 24 stands for the subnet mask 255.255.255.0 which given my combinations above provides two IP ranges (192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254 and 192.168.2.1-192.168.2.254).  NOTE: if you don’t care about what a subnet bit is don’t read the following paragraph just skip it, its really useless because the calculator determines it for you.

For those that didn’t skip, I see you enjoy knowing everything.  A subnet bit describes how many bits of the given IP address (in our case 192.168.1.0) do not change on our network or make it a part of our subnet.  The part that does change is known as the host id and is the part of the IP address that is changed when it is assigned to the computer (aka the .0 part will change when DHCP assigns a new IP).  In our case the 192.168.1 is the subnet id and will stay the same.  So where does 24 come from?  Well and IP address is a 32 bit binary number.  Each octet of the IP is eight binary bits (hence its an octet).  In ours, three octets (24 bits) do not change and this defines are subnet.  It doesn’t have to be 8, 16, or 24.  It can be many options in-between though not every range can be represented due to how the conversion between binary and octets end up.  AKA 255.255.255.0 works 255.255.253.0 doesn’t.  :x However 255.255.254.0 does. Also the last octet can exist too 255.255.255.128 is valid though 255.255.255.5 isn’t.  Short version, use the calculator.

Okay enough of that.  For those of you who could care less of the gory details, way to go.  Now onward.  Using this fun subnet bit we defined our subnets by right clicking on the subnet folder and clicking add a subnet.  This brings up the following wizard:

The prefix is a base IP address and subnet bit i.e. 192.168.1.0/24.  The next thing to select is a site to assign this subnet too.  We just click the site we care about and hit okay.

Now we’ve done the hard part.  Now its just drag and drop to move our DCs between sites so that they are placed in there respective areas.  Once moved your done, its a piece of cake.  If you want to force replication you can drill down to a server’s NTDS settings (click a server on the left and NTDS settings appears at the right) then right click the NTDS settings and click replicate from or to.  Normally the servers replicate every 180 minutes or a custom interval specified in your site link properties.

If there are questions leave them in the comments but hopefully this will help explain a very important part of the Active Directory.

How to Install Windows Server 2008 R2

A thorough walkthrough of how to do a clean installation of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. In this walkthrough, we use Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition. This installation guide is part 1 of a larger feature currently in production, but will guide you completely through the initial installation of the Windows Server 2008 operating system. The secret is out. In this video, I show you how to properly install the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. No magic or genius here, just following instructions and understanding how basic network architecture and server roles work. This guide won’t require a $10,000 USD server installation premium either! Here is the information you need to get started with Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition as a Global Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or (GPDC). A Primary Domain Controller can host client systems in the Active Directory environment, which allows for a centralized database of file sharing, account access, and more using powerful Microsoft server technology.

Hello, this is Mike from Windows 7 Forums. In this video, I am going to show you how to install Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition.

As you can see, we’re at the boot menu now. We select our CD/DVD-ROM to boot from and Windows is loading files. We begin the installation process by waiting for Windows to start booting. At this time, again, we’ll be installing Windows Server 2008 R2. I’ll go through some basic steps with you and we’ll accelerate the process for you so that it is easier for you to understand.

As you can see, the installer is now loading. We choose our language, our time, and our keyboard, and we click on next. We click on install now. If we have pre-existing data on our hard drive here, what we do want to do is remove that data. Here we choose what edition of server we have. We’re choosing Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Full Installation, not the Server Core Installation. We hit next, and accept the license terms. We’re not doing an upgrade.

We already have data on this drive. What we’re going to do is clear it out. What we do is going to Drive Options and delete every single partition on the drive. Now we have a free drive with unallocated free, and click next.

In a normal environment, you would have 1 terrabyte free, and you certainly wouldn’t have 100 gigabytes on a server install. It is possible, but you really wouldn’t do it. And in this case, Windows is expanding files now, and we’re going to accelerate the process quite a bit. This is a very clean install, and a very fast install. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for this to take place, and the expanding of the files takes the longest. So you will see the acceleration now, as we move on right here. We’re accelerating now. Normally, it would take much longer to do this. We’re accelerating the process using some video trickery here.

It will go through the Feature Installation, Update Installation, and Restarting. Now, we’re coming back and completing the installation. We’ll come back one more time while preparing the computer for first time use.

Well everyone, we are back, and we’ve entered our initial password to configure Windows 2008 Standard Edition R2. What we really want to do now is start setting up the server. This can be a complex task, and can take a quite long time. It involves a great deal of knowledge about networking, especially if you want to turn this into a domain controller: this is where you may have a video.

First of all, you want to set activation, but we will not because this is evaluation/educational purposes. Secondly, we set the time zone. We do see that we have a certain amount of freedom in what we want to do here, but what we want to do is set the time zone first. We’ll change the time zone over to [our local time zone].

What we want to also do is configure networking, but before we even go there, we want to provide a computer name. If this is the only server that we have, we just want to change the name of the computer, instead of the random name that it is given. We change it over to SERVER. Obviously we have to immediately restart. What we want to immediately do is log back in, and here we are now. And now you see we have changed the computer name over to SERVER. What we want to do next, is configure networking.

We want to make sure that the server itself is using an IP address that does not change (static IP). Because, if we have DHCP, this will become a major problem. We already have some information, and eventually, we’ll be able to set our DNS server to our server itself. If we’re using this server for an office environment, and we’re not hosting anything from it, we will usually have one network adapter. In other cases, we will have two. In this case we have one, and we’re using this server in a strictly office environment with no outbound activity. We are not using this as a web server. So what we want to do is use the following IP address:

192.168.1.15

We’ll set the subnet mask automatically.

We know that the default gateway in this instance is 192.168.1.1. This will vary from router to router. We set the DNS servers, in this instance, to 8.8.8.8 and 4.4.4.2. These are universal DNS servers.

(Eventually these will change once the server is properly set up as the primary domain controller: PDC)

We confirm Internet access, and we have made this change now with a static IP address of 192.168.1.15.

Now, update this server. Enable Windows Automatic Updating and Feedback. This is something that we may want to change later if we don’t like it.

For downloading and installing updates, usually when we look at the settings, we see “Install Updates Automatically” (recommended) and “Install new updates every day 3 AM”. “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” What we want to do, in this instance, is actually “Download updates, but let me choose when to install them”. We do this, because we don’t want the server restarting all the time. We also set “Recommended Updates” because we want those as well. And we want all users on the server to be able to install updates on the server. In this case, we only have one user at this time, which is the Administrator.

And we already 45 important updates available. Quite a few here, major. We want to install these as soon possible, before adding any roles, any features, configuring remote desktop, or even configuring the firewall. So what we want to do is go ahead and install those updates right now.

Now that we have successfully installed Windows Updates on the server, you may be wondering well what use is the server if there are no server roles installed or no advanced features here. We have installed all updates, and it is a necessity because in order for us to connect any client computers to this server, we need to add the domain controller server role to this server. This is something we will demonstrate in the server role configuration stage of this video. This will finally be one of the final aspects of this video, in order to show you how to properly host other computers on the server.

Once you join client computers onto the server, which would be Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows XP computers, you will actually be able to, not only share files between all of these computers, but also manage these computers through what is called Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP and GPOs). That is by joining these computers to the domain controller.

In order to do that first, we have to create the domain controller. I will go through that process now, very quickly. Here we are again at our Initial Configuration Tasks menu. What we want to do is go to Add Roles. And to add roles, we simply click Add Roles. Here we get a warning:

• The administrator account has to have a strong password.
• Network settings, such as a static IP address, must be configured.
• The latest security updates from Windows Update must be installed.

We’ve already met all of those requirements, so we hit next. Now we see a list of server roles that we can use on the server. We have:

• Active Directory Certificate Services
• Active Directory Domain Services
• Active Directory Federation Services
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
• Active Directory Rights Management Services
• Application Server
• DHCP Server
• DNS Server
• Fax Server
• File Services
• Hyper-V
• Network Policy and Access Services
• Print and Document Services (PDS)
• Remote Desktop S ervices (RDS)
• Web Server (IIS)
• Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)

One of the most interesting ones is WSUS, where you can actually distribute Windows Updates across an entire network, simply by downloading them using one server. But here, we’re not concerned about that. What we want to do most of all: Active Directory Domain Services.

We can worry about things like DNS later.

Here, we see .NET Framework 3.5.1 is required to install ADS. So we’ll add the required features by clicking “Add Required Features” next.

Here are some things to note: We may need at least 2 domain controllers for a domain, in the event of an outage. That is a suggestion from Microsoft, but not a requirement.

You will be prompted to install DNS to use Active Directory Domain Services.

After you install the domain server role, use the Active Directory Services Installation Wizard (dcpromo.exe) to make the server a fully functional domain controller. Installing the AD DS will also install the DFS Namespace, DFS Replication, and File Replication services which are required by Directory Service.

As you can see, .NET Framework is installing. And we have quite a few features to install, so we’ll be right back when the next prompt appears.

Please see Part 2 (when available) for more information on Windows Server 2008 R2 configuration.

• Setting up the Domain Controller
• Configuring DNS
• Joining Windows Clients to the Domain Controller

Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster – Part3

To continue this series on Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster, we will look at installing SQL Server 2008 in a failover cluster. In Part 1, we have completed the installation of the Application Server role in both of the servers that we will be using as part of our cluster. Part 2 walked you through the installation of the Failover Cluster Feature, validating the servers that will be a part of the cluster, and creating the cluster. In this tip, we will proceed to install SQL Server 2008 in a clustered Windows Server 2008 environment.

Installing and Configuring MSDTC

The Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) is a transaction manager that permits client applications to include several different data sources in one transaction and which then coordinates committing the distributed transaction across all the servers that are enlisted in the transaction. A lot of people ask why we need to install MSDTC prior to installing SQL Server. If you are using distributed transactions or running SQL Server on a cluster, this is definitely a must. SQL Server uses the MSDTC service for distributed queries and two-phase commit transactions, as well as for some replication functionality.

Configuring MS DTC in Windows Server 2003 clusters as defined in this Microsoft KB article is not pretty straight-forward. Windows Server 2008 made it simpler by providing a more straightforward process with fewer steps and less configuration.

To install and configure MSDTC:

1. Open the Failover Cluster Management console on any of the cluster node.
2. Under the cluster name, right-click on Server and Applications and select Configure a Service or Application. This will run the High Availability Wizard
3. In the Service or Application dialog box, select Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) and click Next.
4. In the Client Access Point dialog box, enter the name and IP address of the clustered MSDTC. This should be a different IP addresses and host name from the one that the Windows Server 2008 cluster is already using. Click Next.
5. In the Select Storage dialog box, select the disk subsystem that will be used by MSDTC. These disk subsystems have to be defined as available storage in your cluster. In the example below, I have used the disk volume F: and left the disk volume E: for SQL Server later in the installation process. Click Next
6. In the Confirmation dialog box, validate the configuration you have selected for MSDTC and click Next
7. In the Summary dialog box, click Close. This completes the installation of MSDTC on the cluster.

You can validate your installation of MSDTC by expanding the Services and Applications node and check the cluster name of MSDTC.  Make sure that all of the dependency resources are online

Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 cluster

You’ve gone this far, don’t stop now. Only after we have managed to prepare everything can we proceed to install SQL Server 2008 on this cluster. Since we’ve already installed .NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 and Windows Installer 4.5 from Part 1, we no longer have to worry about them as they both are prerequisites whether you are doing a single server or a cluster installation. There are two options to install SQL Server 2008 on a cluster. The first one is by using the Integrated failover cluster install with Add Node option and the second one is the Advanced/Enterprise installation option. The process outlined below will take into account the first option.

To install SQL Server 2008:

1. Run setup.exe from the installation media to launch SQL Server Installation Center. Click on the Installation link on the left-hand side
2. Click the New SQL Server failover cluster installation link. This will run the SQL Server 2008 Setup wizard
3. In the Setup Support Rules dialog box, validate that the checks return successful results and click Next.
4. In the Product Key dialog box, enter the product key that came with your installation media and click Next.
5. In the License Terms dialog box, click the I accept the license terms check box and click Next. You probably haven’t read one of these, but if you feel inclined go for it.
6. In the Setup Support Rules dialog box, click Install. Validate that the checks return successful results. If the checks returned a few warnings, make sure you fix them before proceeding with the installation. An example of this is the Network binding order. The public network cards should be first on both nodes. Also, you can disable NETBIOS and DNS registration on the network cards to avoid network overhead. Be sure to check your binding order as well.  For more details on the network binding order warning, see Microsoft KB 955963.For the Windows Firewall, make sure that you open the appropriate port number on which SQL Server will communicate. You can do this after the installation. Alternatively, you can disable Windows Firewall during the installation and enable it later with the proper configuration. Click Next to proceed.

   

7. In the Feature Selection dialog box, select only the components that you want installed. For the Shared feature directory, you can keep the default path if you have sufficient disk space on your C: drive or anywhere that is a local disk as this will be used by the SQL Server installation process later on. The directory for the clustered database engine will be different. Click Next.
8. In the Instance Configuration dialog box, enter the SQL Server Network Name. This is the name that will be available on the network for the clients. This will vary depending on your selection of whether it is a default or named instance. In this example, default instance is selected.A couple of things need highlighting in this section. By default, the instance name is used as the Instance ID. This is used to identify installation directories and registry keys for your instance of SQL Server and is helpful when you want to run multiple instances in a cluster. This is the case for default instances and named instances. For a default instance, the instance name and instance ID would be MSSQLSERVER. To use a non-default instance ID, you should select the Instance ID box and specify a value.

   The section on Detected SQL Server instances and features on this computer would make sense if there are other SQL Server instances running on your server.

   

9. In the Disk Space Requirements dialog box, check that you have enough space on your local disks to install the SQL Server 2008 binaries and click Next.
10. In the Cluster Resource Group dialog box, check the resources available on your Windows Server 2008 cluster. This will tell you that a new Resource Group will be created on your cluster for SQL Server. To specify the SQL Server cluster resource group name, you can either use the drop-down box to specify an existing group to use or type the name of a new group to create it. Click Next.
11. In the Cluster Disk Selection dialog box, select the available disk groups that are on the cluster for SQL Server 2008 to use. In this example, two clustered disk groups – APPS and APPS2 – have been selected to be used by SQL Server 2008. I will be using one disk resource for the system databases while the other one for the user databases. Click Next.
12. In the Cluster Network Configuration dialog box, enter the IP address and subnet mask that your SQL Server 2008 cluster will use. Deselect the checkbox under the DHCP column as you will be using static IP addresses. If you have not disabled your IPv6 adapters and protocols, it would be better to uncheck the row for IPv6
    
13. In the Cluster Security Policy dialog box, accept the default value of Use service SIDs (recommended). In Windows Server 2003, we specify domain groups for all SQL Server services but in Windows Server 2008, this is the recommended option. For more information on using service SIDs for SQL Server 2008, check out this MSDN article
14. In the Server Configuration dialog box, enter the credentials that you will use for your SQL Server service accounts in the Service Accounts tab. In the Collation tab, select the appropriate collation to be used by SQL Server. Note that the startup type is set to manual for all cluster-aware services and cannot be changed during the installation process. Click Next.
15. In the Database Engine Configuration dialog box, select the appropriate Authentication Mode. If you want to add the currently logged on user to be a part of the SQL Server administrators group, click the Add Current User button.

    On the Data Directories tab, enter the path where your system and user database files will be created. This will default to the first shared disk in the cluster so in case you want to change it to the other shared disks to be used by SQL Server 2008, modify accordingly. If you intend to use the new FILESTREAM feature, click the FILESTREAM tab and set the appropriate configurations. Click Next

    

16. In the Error and Usage Reporting dialog box, click Next.
17. In the Cluster Installation Rules dialog box, verify that all checks are successful and click Next.
18. In the Ready to Install dialog box, verify that all configurations are correct. Click Next.
19. In the Complete dialog box, click Close. This concludes the installation of a SQL Server 2008 Failover Cluster

At the completion of a successful installation and configuration of the node, you now have a fully functional failover cluster instance. To validate, open the Failover Cluster Management console, and click on SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) under Services and Applications. Make sure that all dependencies are online

Although we do have a fully functioning SQL Server 2008 failover cluster, it does not have high-availability at this point in time because there is only one node in the failover cluster. We still have to add the second node to the SQL Server 2008 cluster. In the last part of this series, we will add the second node in the failover cluster and install the latest cumulative update