The Server Management Tools (SMT) is a new service hosted in Microsoft Azure, which is still in preview at the time of this writing.
The Server Management Tools includes the following features:
Using the Azure portal from anywhere, on any browser, Server management tools is a free cloud service that requires Azure subscription which enables you to remotely manage machines running Windows Server 2016 including Nano Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, and Windows Server 2012 with and without Hyper-V.
To create a new connection for the first time, you will need to create a new gateway by configuring an existing server to connect to Azure as the gateway to your environment, as shown in the following diagram. The gateway allows connections to be routed to other servers and you can then use web-based versions of familiar tools, such as PowerShell, Task Manager, Event Viewer, Firewall, File Explorer, Network Settings, Windows Update, Registry Editor, and so on, to manage servers in that network:
The server management gateway can be a Windows Server 2012 R2 Server running the Windows Management Framework 5.0—WMF 5.0 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50395) or Windows Server 2016 with no additional preparation. You also need a Microsoft Azure subscription and an account.
The gateway will handle the connection to Azure and the Server Management Gateway that is deployed on-premises needs connection to the Internet. The managed Nano servers do not need a direct connection to the Internet; the gateway will connect to the managed Nano servers. With that, the gateway needs a connection to Nano server(s) that will be managed from Azure.
One of my favorite remote management features in SMT is the web-based PowerShell console, as shown in the following screenshot:
In order to manage Nano server installation using SMT carry out the following steps:
Server management tools
in Marketplace or navigate to Marketplace | Management | More | Server management tools.profile.json
and GatewayService.MSI
. Run the GatewayService
, as shown in the following screenshot and walk through the steps in the MSI setup file.Note that you can also install the Gateway on a Windows Server Core machine using the following MSI parameters through the command line:
GatewayService.msi /qn GATEWAYPROFILEJSON=c: empgatewayprofile.json ACCEPTEULA=true ACCEPTPRIVACYPOLICY=true
You need to replace the preceding path with the appropriate absolute path to the profile.json
.
Manage as
command and enter administrative credentials of your Nano Server, as shown in the following screenshot:As shown in the following screenshot, you should be able to manage your Nano machine if the Microsoft Azure portal can reach it through the gateway:
Now you can start remote managing your Nano server. As mentioned earlier, the new management tool is really handy if you want to manage Server Core or Nano Server.
The main management story in Nano Server is core PowerShell:
PowerShell relies on the .NET Framework, as you noticed Nano Server is a small and tiny OS and only has the Core Common Language Runtime (CLR). The Core CLR is a tiny subset of the .NET Framework, the PowerShell team went ahead and refactored PowerShell to run on Core CLR, which was a huge effort. The good news is that PowerShell users probably will not miss the most important features. It has full language compatibility and supports PowerShell remoting, so you can use the most popular remote command, such as (Invoke-Command
, New-PSSession
, Enter-PSSession
, and so on).
Each Nano Server image contains, by default, Core CLR that takes up 45 MB of space, PowerShell itself takes about 8 MB of space, and there is 2 MB available for two built-in modules. Remoting is turned on by default, so a Nano server installation will always be ready to be remoted into and be managed remotely.
Managing virtual machines with PowerShell Direct recipe in Chapter 4, Saving Time and Cost with Hyper-V Automation.
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