How to Deploy Virtual Windows Nano Server 2016 (Technical Preview 5)

Today we are going to walk through my experiences of installing Nano Server and later on Storage Spaces Direct with Nano server, so stay tune if you're interested.  This is will be split up into Multiple Sections.

• Nano Server Virtual Deployment
• Nano Server Hardware Deployment
• Remote connect to Nano Server
• Joining Nano Server to the Domain
• Hyper Converge Nano Server - Storage Spaces Configuration on actual Hardware (coming soon)

Intro Nano Server

So what is Nano Server?  It’s a scaled down version of Server 2016 which has just the bare essentials to run.  What do I mean by this?  Nano server is doesn’t exactly have a GUI to configure nor a windows features to click to install or predefined/installed features.  The only GUI it has is the Recovery Console other than that it has to be administered by a remote PowerShell session.

Nano Server Recovery Console

Recovery console is the only GUI interface Nano Server has.  From here you can configure your NICs.  I did not find an option for vlans with my NICs. 

Recovery console login (above), Recovery main menu (below)

You can also reset your remote settings here if something has gone wrong with your remote PowerShell sessions and you can no longer connect.  I haven't had this happen to me yet fingers crossed.

Nano Server General Deployment Notes

First off when doing deployments just remember when deploying Nano server, it is vanilla and plain.  In order to make yourself a Nano server that knows "file server" you must specify it while creating the Nano server VHDX.  As stated before it does not have the ability click to install features or do a "Get-WindowsFeatures" with PowerShell to install features.  If you have forgotten to add a feature it is better off to recreate the Nano Server rather than trying to add it in afterward.  Also if you ever have issues with a Nano Server just recreate it rather than spend time trouble shooting it.

Prerequisites

800MB of disk space, YES only 800MB for a Nano server deployment.  It does grow a bit larger adding other features.

Requirements

Server 2016 TP 5 ISO

• If you don’t have it download it from here, sign up for an account if you don’t have one as its free.

  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-technical-preview

  

  Once you have the iso extract it somewhere (I used a program called 7zip to extract it).  I prefer it to be on the root of the c drive.

  

  Virtual Deployment of Nano Server

  Time to go exploring, open the C drive and go to the files you have just extracted (c:\tp5).  Once in the TP5 folder copy the "NanoServer" Folder to the Desktop.

  Open PowerShell as an administrator Import the PowerShell modules from the recently copied NanoServerImageGenerator folder, from here run the following command

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Import-Module .\NanoServerImageGenerator -Verbose

Creating the Nano server VHDX for Virtual machine

Nano server can be created in 1 line of code, it’s a bit tricky at first but once you have your line of code it is fairly straight forward and repeatable.

The break down. Read through the break down before trying to create one.

New-NanoServerImage -Edition <edition> -DeploymentType <Guest/Host> -MediaPath <path to root of media> -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\NanoServerVM\NanoServerVM.vhd -ComputerName <computer name>

Edition - this is "Standard" or "Datacenter"

So far the only difference between the Standard and Datacenter software wise is having access to Storage Spaces Direct and Storage replica with the Datacenter edition.

Deployment Type - This specifies if it will be a "Guest" VM hosted by a Hyper-V host or "Host" which will be deployed on an actual machine, for this instance we will be making this a guest.

MediaPath - This is where I had the TP5 ISO extracted earlier to (C:\TP)

TargetPath - This is where your VM will be stored and the name of the VM so rename the NanoServerVM.VHD accordingly.  (It will create the Nano server VHDX in PowerShell’s current location unless specified)

NOTE: Also note the extension Specify VHD (gen1) or VHDX (gen2) machine type.

ComputerName - Just straight forward this will name the machine.

NOTE! This deployment will get you a dummy server as it has no option to install other services or features yet!

This is my example so far

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType Guest -MediaPath  c:\tp5 -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\NanoServerVM\NanoServerVM.vhdx -ComputerName NanoServer

Adding Nano Server Features

So now that you have your line of code how do you add features?  Simple add it at the end of the code you just wrote.

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType Guest -MediaPath  c:\tp5 -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\NanoServerVM\NanoServerVM.vhdx -ComputerName NanoServer -compute -clustering

Now this will have Hyper-V and Fail over clustering installed once the VHDX is compiled.

Below are the options that you can add depending on your deployment. (provided by Microsoft)

Once you choose the options you would like to add press enter.  This will now prompt you for a password, NOTE it will only ask you this once so don’t fat finger it! Or else you will have to compile another one.

It will then Prompt you for a password for the Nano server VHD

The VHDx will now be provisioned

Go get Coffee or make a sandwich as this can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes or more to complete.

The VHDx will located where you set the -targetpath ".\nanoServerVM" from above.  When I ran the code to create the Nano Server I was currently at "c:\users\%username%\desktop\NanoServerImageGenerator"

It will be generated under "c:\users\%username%\desktop\NanoServerImageGenerator\NanoServerVM"

Now load it into HyperV the same way we are importing a normal server. Create a new Hyper-V host and select with an existing Harddrive then select the VHD we had just generated. Turn on the VM and now say hello to the recovery console which was shown in the beginning of the post.

Log in with the user name: Administrator and the password you choose when we provisioned the VHDx

Configure the IP address under Networking.

Congrats! You have just deployed a Virtual Nano Machine, Next time we will be deploying this on actual hardware.