Configuring TCP/IP and DNS on WS08 Server Core
Windows Server 2008 (WS08) Server Core doesn’t have a GUI. Therefore, when you install the Server Core you need to configure some of the basic parameters to get the server ready for remote administration. For example, you need to configure the IP parameters and open the appropriate ports before you can manage the Server Core from another computer. If you want to run DNS on the Server Core, you need to configure that too at the command prompt. These are some, but not all, of the basic steps that most administrators need to accomplish to get their server ready for remote administration. In this article, I will explain how to configure TCP/IP, configure the firewall to open the necessary ports and then install DNS server on a WS08 Server Core.
Configure TCP/IP Parameters
At the command prompt, type SET to see the current parameters.
To configure a static IP address, type the following command. Replace the IP address, subnet mask and gateway with your own parameters.
netsh interface ipv4 set address name=”local area connection” source=static address=172.16.1.200 mask=255.255.0.0 gateway=172.16.1.1
Specify a DNS Server
To configure a primary DNS server type the following command. Replace the IP address with your own DNS server’s IP address.
netsh interface ip set dns “local area connection” static 172.16.1.15
Open DNS Ports
Once you have the TCP/IP parameters configured, you can configure the firewall. To verify the current firewall configuration, type the following command:
netsh firewall show state
Notice that the firewall is enabled but specific ports are not open. You need to open the DNS ports as shown below. Type each one of the following commands and press enter. You will be opening ports for DNS server, remote administration, NetBIOS name service, NetBIOS datagram service, and NetBIOS session service.
netsh firewall add portopening ALL 53 DNS-server
netsh firewall add portopening TCP 135 remote-admin
netsh firewall add portopening UDP 137 netbios-ns
netsh firewall add portopening UDP 138 netbios–dgm
netsh firewall add portopening TCP 139 netbios–ssn
netsh firewall add portopening TCP 445 netbios–ns
To see the current configuration and to verify that the ports you just configured are open, type the following at the command prompt.
netsh firewall show config
You will notice various configuration options displayed for Domain and Standard profile. If you scroll down to the section Service Configuration for Domain Profile, you will notice that the File and Printer Sharing and Remote Desktop services are both set to enable. Also notice that the TCP and UDP port 53 for DNS are also open. If you would like to refer back to the information later, you can save the configuration to a text file (e.g. fwconfig.txt) by using the following command.
netsh firewall show config > fwconfig.txt
Install the DNS Server Role
Initially you won’t have any server roles installed on your WS08 Server Core. You can verify that by using the ocslist command. After you’ve installed DNS role, you might want to run ocslist again to make sure DNS role was installed successfully.
To install the DNS Server role, use the following command.
start /w ocsetup DNS-Server-Core-Role
WARNING! The role name (DNS-Server-Core-Role) is case-sensitive.
At this point you will be able to administer DNS on the WS08 Server Core from another computer because you have configured the TCP/IP, opened the necessary ports and installed the DNS server role.
NOTE: You can use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Windows Remote Shell, Terminal Server, Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and Command Prompt to manage a Server Core remotely.
Copyright ©2009 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.
