EVEN MORE Fun with Server Core 2012 R2

And finally, to finish off my Windows Server Core 2012 R2, I install Cygwin!  Advice from the web says preemptively open port 22 for OpenSSHd.

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="SSHd" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=22

Now, download the Cygwin installer:

$client = new-object System.Net.WebClient

$client.DownloadFile( "http://www.cygwin.com/setup-x86_64.exe","c:\windows\temp\setup-x86_64.exe" )

Now, run the installer:

c:\windows\temp\setup-x86_64.exe

Don't forget to configure OpenSShd (in Cygwin Bash):

$ ssh-host-config -y
$ cygrunsrv -S sshd
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Assuming you added lots of nice Cygwin utilities, you now have a very useful server.  ;-)

More Fun with Windows Server Core 2012 R2

SCONFIG Follow-Up

In my earlier post on using SCONFIG, I mentioned needing to be able to do a few other things from the command line before I could stay immersed in Windows Server Core 2012 R2.  Namely, adding disks and formatting them.  I recently covered that here and here.  There's a couple of other things: Firewall Rules (viewing and setting), mapping network drives (turns out the old "net use" is by far the easiest way for that) and turning off IPv6.

Firewall rules definitely rates its own post.  Mapping drives is trivial as long as they allow you to use the old "net use"command.  Slightly less trivial with Powershell.  Honestly, I would only use the PS way if i was programming something (or it MS took away "net use"command in a future release).  So that leaves IPv6 for this post.  Here's how to disable that: First you have to find the name (alias) of your Ethernet card.  After that, you can display it's settings.

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-NetAdapter

Name                      InterfaceDescription                    ifIndex Status       MacAddress             LinkSpeed
----                      --------------------                    ------- ------       ----------             ---------
Ethernet 5                Citrix PV Network Adapter #2                 20 Up           BE-EF-B0-1D-FA-CE         1 Gbps
Ethernet 8                Citrix PV Network Adapter #0                 23 Up           FE-ED-BA-5E-BA-11         1 Gbps


PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-NetAdapterBinding -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 8" | Select-Object Name,DisplayName,ComponentID

Name                                    DisplayName                             ComponentID
----                                    -----------                             -----------
Ethernet 8                              Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder ms_rspndr
Ethernet 8                              Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper... ms_lltdio
Ethernet 8                              Microsoft Network Adapter Multiplexo... ms_implat
Ethernet 8                              Client for Microsoft Networks           ms_msclient
Ethernet 8                              QoS Packet Scheduler                    ms_pacer
Ethernet 8                              File and Printer Sharing for Microso... ms_server
Ethernet 8                              Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)  ms_tcpip6
Ethernet 8                              Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)  ms_tcpip 

Now, just disable IPv6...

PS C:\Windows\system32> Disable-NetAdapterBinding -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet 8" -ComponentID ms_tcpip6

And -  TA-DAHH!  That's it.

iSCSI with Powershell and Hyper-V on Windows Core 2012 R2

I found a great link for working with iSCSI drives from Powershell.  The first thing you have to do is turn on iSCSI:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Set-Service -Name MSiSCSI -StartupType Automatic
PS C:\Windows\system32> Start-Service MsiSCSI

Next, tell Windows Server Core where your SAN resides:

PS C:\Windows\system32> New-IscsiTargetPortal -TargetPortalAddress 192.168.12.34
0
 
 
InitiatorInstanceName  :
InitiatorPortalAddress :
IsDataDigest           : False
IsHeaderDigest         : False
TargetPortalAddress    : 192.168.12.34
TargetPortalPortNumber : 3260
PSComputerName         :

I would have thought at this point it would know the iSCSI share but it did not.  Had to run this command:

PS C:\Windows\system32> $target = Get-IscsiTarget
PS C:\Windows\system32> print $target.NodeAddress
Can't find file iqn.2003-06.com.equallogic:0-bf1bf6-56acce3eb-fd0030124795492f-testvol1
PS C:\Windows\system32> Connect-IscsiTarget -NodeAddress $target.NodeAddress

You just need the above TWO commands in black.  I ran the line in red to see what it was looking at (making certain of the IQN before proceeding).  The Connect-IscsiTarget command responds with this:

AuthenticationType      : NONE
InitiatorInstanceName   : ROOT\ISCSIPRT\0000_0
InitiatorNodeAddress    : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:testsrv.example.com
InitiatorPortalAddress  : 0.0.0.0
InitiatorSideIdentifier : 412341375678
IsConnected             : True
IsDataDigest            : False
IsDiscovered            : True
IsHeaderDigest          : False
IsPersistent            : False
NumberOfConnections     : 1
SessionIdentifier       : ffffe000cd87c020-4012313700056702
TargetNodeAddress       : iqn.2003-06.com.equallogic:0-bf1bf6-56acce3eb-fd00301...-testvol1                      TargetSideIdentifier    : 4f00
PSComputerName          :

Testing the iSCSI session...

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-IscsiConnection


ConnectionIdentifier : feffe060cd87c029-1
InitiatorAddress     : 0.0.0.0
InitiatorPortNumber  : 15552
TargetAddress        : 192.168.12.34
TargetPortNumber     : 3260
PSComputerName       :

Looks good so you permanently register it (you don't want your iSCSI volumes disappearing after a reboot after all this).

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-IscsiSession | Register-IscsiSession

Now, check to see if you have a iSCSI session:

PS C:\Windows\system32> get-IscsiSession


AuthenticationType      : NONE
InitiatorInstanceName   : ROOT\ISCSIPRT\0000_0
InitiatorNodeAddress    : iqn.1991-05.com.microsoft:testsrv.example.com
InitiatorPortalAddress  : 0.0.0.0
InitiatorSideIdentifier : 400301370020
IsConnected             : True
IsDataDigest            : False
IsDiscovered            : True
IsHeaderDigest          : False
IsPersistent            : True
NumberOfConnections     : 1
SessionIdentifier       : bfbfe030cd87c020-400201370020d002
TargetNodeAddress       : iqn.2001-05.com.equallogic:0-af1bf6-66acce3eb-fd02300
                          24795492f-testvol1
TargetSideIdentifier    : 4f00
PSComputerName          :

Looking good.  Now check your drives again:

PS C:\Windows\system32> get-disk

Number Friendly Name                            Operationa Total Size Partition
                                                lStatus                Style
------ -------------                            ---------- ---------- ---------
0      XENSRC PVDISK SCSI Disk Device           Online          88 GB MBR
1      XENSRC PVDISK SCSI Disk Device           Online          40 GB MBR
2      EQLOGIC 100E-00 SCSI Disk Device         Online       77.01 GB RAW

You can see the Dell Equalogic SAN volume has been added as disk number 2.
Now you just need to format the disk and give it a drive letter:

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-Disk | Where partitionstyle -eq 'raw' | Initialize-D
isk -PartitionStyle MBR -PassThru | New-Partition -AssignDriveLetter -UseMaximum
Size | Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel "iDisk3" -Confirm:$fal
se

DriveLetter FileSystemL FileSystem  DriveType  HealthStat SizeRemain       Size
            abel                               us                ing
----------- ----------- ----------  ---------  ---------- ----------       ----
F           iDisk3      NTFS        Fixed      Healthy      76.91 GB      77 GB

Remember: Get-Disk | Where partitionstyle -eq 'raw' is CRUCIAL if you do not want to initialize a disk with data on it already.

That's it.  You've added an iSCSI drive from the command line.
 

Hard Disks with PowerShell

The other day, I needed to extend a Hyper-V iSCSI disk store (after increasing the size on the SAN).  I didn't know how.  One of our consultants used DISKPART - oh yeah - forgot that from NT 3.51 (or perhaps earlier).  I was using PowerShell's Get-Disk but wasn't able to go much further.  So I mocked up a VM to play with.  I added a drive and formatted it (after looking at the Hey, Scripting Guy! blog).

  PS  C:\Windows\system32> Get-Disk | Where partitionstyle -eq 'raw' | Initialize-Disk -PartitionStyle MBR -PassThru |New-Partition -AssignDriveLetter -UseMaximumSize |Format-Volume -FileSystem NTFS -NewFileSystemLabel "disk2" -Confirm:$false

You can run most of the commandlets between the pipes as individual commands (not sure that makes it any easier).

Anyway, once I had my test drive, it was time to expand it.  I halted the system and then made the changes in Citrix XenCenter.  After restarting, I checked to see that the drive was now 40GB instead of 25GB.  HOWEVER, this is misleading.  Although the DRIVE is now 40GB, the partition being used is still only 25GB.

PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-Partition -DiskNumber 1

Disk Number: 1

PartitionNumber DriveLetter  Offset       Size Type
--------------- -----------  ---------    ---- ----
1               E            1048576     25 GB IFS

To expand the disk, I had hoped there was a simple "MaxSize" but instead I found this:

PS C:\> $size = (Get-PartitionSupportedSize –DiskNumber 1 –PartitionNumber 1)

PS C:\> Resize-Partition -DiskNumber 1 –PartitionNumber 1 -Size $size.SizeMax

Ta-dahh!  Sadly, DISKPART is easier.  But, for the PowerShell purists, running Windows Core 2012 R2, this does the trick.