Another powerful way to interact with servers that you are not logged into, or that you cannot log into in a traditional sense like Nano Server and Server Core, is to make use of the MMC tools from a remote system. By launching MMC and snapping in consoles, or by running the tools straight from the Administrative Tools folder and then specifying which server you want to interact with, you can continue with the centralized management mentality while making changes to systems you are not actively logged into. Let's test this out together.
I just finished using a remote copy of Server Manager to install the Web Server role onto CORE1. Now I want to make some changes to the default website running on CORE1. Because the console of a Server Core isn't going to allow me to simply login and open the IIS Management graphical tools, I am going to use the tools that are already installed onto my CA1 server instead.
It is possible to remotely administer the Web Server role running on CORE1. We will cover two different ways to go about this:
- Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). I typically do this by invoking the Run prompt with WinKey + R, and then typing
MMC. - Inside MMC, click the File menu and then choose Add/Remove Snap-in….
- Scroll down until you find the snap-in called Internet Information Services. Choose that, and click the Add button in order to move it over to the Selected snap-ins.
- Press the OK button.
- By default, MMC opens the IIS console for our CA1 server, which makes sense because so far we have not specified anything about CORE1. Right-click on Start Page, and select Connect to a Server…
- Type the name of the server that you want to administer. I want to see the IIS console on
CORE1.MYDOMAIN.LOCAL.Tip
There are many different tools inside MMC that can be launched and then remotely connected to another system. As an alternative to the method we just walked through, you could forego using MMC altogether, and simply open up the IIS console straight from inside the Administrative Tools folder. Once IIS Management is open, follow the same steps outlined earlier in order to connect it remotely to your remote server.
- In fact, there is one more way that sort of mixes this recipe with the preceding one regarding Server Manager. Now that the Web Server role has been installed onto CORE1, if we go back into Server Manager and right-click on our CORE1 server, you will notice that we now have the option to launch Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager right from here!
MMC contains snap-ins for most of the tools that you need in order to administer your servers, whether those servers are local or remote to you. I very rarely see administrators using the MMC console to its full potential. It would be quite easy to snap-in all of the management tools that you need for your entire organization, connect them to the servers that are relevant for each role or task, and then have one single MMC console window that was always open on your local computer. This way, any time you need to make a change in IIS, Active Directory, DNS, Group Policy, and so on, you simply open the MMC window on your machine, without the need to log into any of the servers, and make the changes.