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

If you been following along with this series, you know what is up Next!  We have gone through Nano Server on Virtual machines now time for it to run on some hardware.  Some parts will be repeated from the Virtual deployment but review is good right? If you don’t want to review it, skip down to Hardware Deployment (Press that ctrl + F).  If you already made a virtual Nano server just look at the Code break down as this is where the change is made.

Sections

• Deploy Nano Server on Virtual Machine
• Remote Connect to Nano Server
• Joining Nano Server to Domain
• Hyper Converge Nano Server - Storage Spaces Configuration on actual Hardware (coming soon)

Begin of Review!

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.

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

END OF REVIEW :)

Creating the Nano server VHDX for Hardware Deployment

So wait why am I creating a VHDX for a hardware deployment, isn't that for virtual machines?  Well it turns out you can actually boot servers from VHDX.  Let's create it first and then we can deploy it on the hardware.

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.  Am I repeating myself?

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

This will Vary slightly from the Virtual deployment. 

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

-OEMDrivers -driverspath <drivers location>

Notice that now we have to include drivers!

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 "Host".

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.

-OEMDrivers - This will give you basic network and storage drivers, compatibility will vary.  I have only tried this on Dell R710 servers. 

-DriversPath <path> - as of right now if you are lucky enough you can install drivers or else you are stuck with the OEMDrivers. (you don’t have to use this option if you don’t have any drivers to add)

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

This is my example so far

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType Host -MediaPath  c:\tp5 -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\NanoServerVM\NanoServerVM.vhdx - OemDrivers -ComputerName NanoServerHost

Adding Nano Server Features

So now that you have your line of code lets add our features just like we did with the virtual Server Nano machine

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType host -MediaPath  c:\tp5 -BasePath C:\Users\<UserName>\Desktop\Nanoserver\NanoServerImageGenerator\Base -TargetPath C:\TEMP\NanoServer\NanoHost.vhdx -OEMDrivers -storage -compute -clustering -Driverspath C:\Temp\Drivers

Below is the list of options you can tack on again.  In this example we are creating a Hyper-v Role, Failover clustering, file server role. (Provided by Microsoft)

Nano Server Virtual Machine VS Actual Hardware Deployment

Alright so the main difference between Virtual machine vs Hardware Deployment is specifying the Deployment Type, using OEM Drivers and/or including drivers path.  Other than that they are very similar when creating the VHDX. 

Let's go ahead and finish this deployment.  After you have chosen your options press enter.  And again don’t fat finger this password because this one will take longer time to figure out if you need to recreate this one, waiting for server reboots and stuff.

The VHDx will now be provisioned

Booting to the Nano Server with the VHDX

Odd thing about this is that you need a Windows/Server operating system to get this started (were more like dual booting with this).  Once you have the OS installed on the server you are using.  Create a folder in the Root of the C drive "NanoServer," then copy over the VHDX to it.  We are now going to Mount the VHDX.  Depending on the operating system you could either just click on it/right click mount or you have to go into disk Management and mount it.

Attach VHDX with Disk Management

Once mounted open a command prompt as the administrator (This is KEY as an Administrator).  Depending on which drive it got mounted as edit the command line.

Type in > BCDBoot X:\windows

Replace X with the drive letter of your Nano server VHDX.

If you get an error here please check if you ran command prompt as an administrator.

If all is right, go to the MsConfig window and select the Boot tab.  You should see Server 2016 technical preview listed there as the default.  If it is not the default, select it to be the default and reboot.

Wait for the machine to reboot it should now give you an option to boot into Nano server or the OS that you were just on.  Nano Server will be listed as "windows server 2016 technical preview 5," it should be the default, if not select it and proceed. 

You will now be greeted with the Recovery Console! Go ahead and log in, now you can test if you have fat fingered that password.  If you didn't go ahead and configure your network adapter.

You have now successfully deployed Nano Server on actual hardware!  Is this it?  Well we still have to cover Remotely connect to them and Joining them to the domain.  Until Next time!