I believe in Hyper-V!

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012–installation and configuration

I this blog post I’ll describe how to install and configure Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 from the scratch.
Why I chose to use Hyper-V Server 2012 in my production environment?
1. It’s free!
2. Less maintenance!
3. We don’t need to restart the host so often for the updates!
4. Performance and security reasons!

In this scenario I have HP ML 350G6 with 2 CPUs 32GB of RAM and 3TB disk.
HP have a great tool called HP SmartStart CD with integrated drivers and other tools required for server management, but in this case doesn’t work because WS 2012 and Hyper-V 2012 is not covered. I used this tool to create RAID array.

2

How do I integrate the drivers, (network, storage, etc…)? I used Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit software.

8

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After a very short time, my Hyper-V Server 2012 is up and running.

When Hyper-V Server 2012 console appears you can to configure Domain, Computer Name, Remote Management, Network Settings and so on….
If you don’t like command line you can use Hyper-V management console or even better Virtual Machine Manager console to connect to your Hyper-V Server 2012.
Of course, there are third-party tools, like 5nine, vtUtilities… that can maintain Hyper-V Server remotely.

Few words about Hyper-V Server 2012.
Hyper-V Server is a dedicated stand-alone product that contains the hypervisor, Windows Server driver model, virtualization capabilities, and supporting components such as failover clustering, bud doesn’t contain the robust set of features and roles as the Windows Server operating system.
Differences between Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V role installed and Hyper-V Server 2012:
– There is no GUI. You use PowerShell, SConfig, or remote administration to manage the machine.
– There are no free virtualization rights to install Windows Server in guest OS’s on this machine. This means it is good for labs, VDI, Linux hosting and upgrading older hosts without SA.
– It is stripped down so it is just a Hyper-V host and nothing else.

I hope that you will enjoy in Windows Hyper-V Server 2012 Winking smile

Romeo Mlinar
September 10, 2012
Administration, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Private Cloud, SCVMM, Virtualization, Windows Server
24 Comments

24 Responses to “Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012–installation and configuration”

  1. Paul Brown
    12 years ago (Reply)

    Hey

    Excellent website!

    Trying to follow you guide above…

    I have installed HYPER-V Server and upon entering:

    Install-WindowsFeature Server-Gui-Mgmt-Infra

    …into Powershell, I get the following error.

    https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11701032/hyperv-1.PNG

    Any idea?

    Thanks Paul

    • Romeo Mlinar
      12 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Paul,
      Sorry, my mistake! I gave the wrong information, instead of Windows Server 2012 Core I wrote Hyper-V Server 2012. Once again sorry!
      Romeo

    • Josip
      12 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Paul,

      Server Core does not have installation sources for all the features available. You can check source availability of the server with the following powershell command:
      “Get-WindowsFeature | ft Name,InstallState”
      You’ll notice “removed” for server-gui-mgmt-infra.
      Add “-Source:Wim:D:\support\install.wim:2” ( 4 instead of 2 should work aswel ). But only if your dvd drive is “D:\” and you have your server 2012 installation media mounted.
      Afterwards use remove instead of uninstall to ‘uninstall’ the GUI, and it will be available from the server without the need of the installation media.

      I hope that explains your question :)

      Regards,
      Josip

  2. Peter
    12 years ago (Reply)

    Dear Romeo,

    Thanks your howto.
    I planned the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 to a HP Proliant ML350G6 but I have two quiestions:
    – How can I manage this Hyper-V Server from an USB APC UPS? If the power is down how can turn off the server the UPS?
    – This server is an expensive server. This server always monitoring itself, temperatures, fans, the hard disks and arrays safety, etc. On the “full” Windows Server operating system I can install the monitoring software and this software can alert me (with e-mail also) if anything goes wrong.
    I think this is a very important possibility from HP and I don’t want to exlude this.

    Do you have any idea for this thoughts?

    Sorry for my bad English.

    Peter

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  5. Raneesh
    12 years ago (Reply)

    Hi,

    Thanks for the information.
    You guys are really helping us to update with the modern tech.

    I have a requirement from a client. can you please help me.

    Installation and Configuration of new DL380
    Configuring Hyper-v 2012 to create 2 VM’s
    Installation of Windows 2013 Server and configuring RAID and storage space for OS and Application

    I am new to hyper v

    • Romeo Mlinar
      12 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Raneesh,
      First of all, thank you for your comment :)!
      1. Which generation your DL380 is G4, G7 or? If is G7 unfortunately HP don’t have official drivers yet, but you can install WS2012 without any problems. I recommend you RAID 5 or RAID 10.
      2. Considering that you will be have only two VM’s I suggest minimal 2 network adapters, one dedicated to the HYPER-V host and the second dedicated to your VM’s
      3. Two partitions; the first for the System and second for the Guests.
      4. When you finished with HYPER-V role installation set HYPER-V settings… and Virtual Switch settings…

      And that’s it, simple as that ;)

      Cheers!
      Romeo

      • Raneesh
        12 years ago (Reply)

        Hi Thanks for the suggestion.

        I have doubt.
        I have created an internal virtual switch which i connected to both VMs.
        I need to get ping between both VMs and also to the host machine.

        Also i need the VMs to connect to internet also.

        I also crated one external virtual switch. I dont know to use both internal and external switch with VMs.

        Can you please help me.

  6. steve
    12 years ago (Reply)

    Just a question. How do you know all the drivers are correctly installed and used and how does one update the drivers?

    Best Regards

    • Romeo Mlinar
      12 years ago (Reply)

      Hi,
      Install RSAT on your PC or some other server, and connect to your Hyper-V server. Open device manager, and you can see all drivers on server. Also, if you need install some drivers you can do that through command prompt over the network, or C/P on the server and install from the local drive.

  7. JannySmith
    11 years ago (Reply)

    Hi. Thank you for your information. You’ve helped me.

  8. Carlito Sousa
    11 years ago (Reply)

    How to activated Network adapter in Hyper-V server 2012?
    I try to configure Network setting from sconfig common line, when i type option 8 it can’t allow me to change the settings.

    any one have idea to help me?

    Thank you for your helping

    • Romeo Mlinar
      11 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Carlito,
      Thank you for your post. I your case I think that problem is in network card driver. Before installation prepare/integrate network adapter driver into Hyper-V server installation files.
      Cheers!
      Romeo

  9. Andreas
    11 years ago (Reply)

    Hi Romeo.

    Thank you for your information. You’ve helped me.
    But I`ve got still one question:

    “There are no free virtualization rights to install Windows Server in guest OS’s on this machine.”

    Can I use the HyperV Core Edition to virtualize several 5-10 Windows 2011/2012 servers and 2011 Server Essentials?

    Pls, can you describe this what it means:
    “There are no free virtualization rights to install Windows Server in guest OS’s on this machine.”

    Thank u in advance

    • Romeo Mlinar
      11 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Andreas,

      Thank you for your comment. The sentence is a little confused :(. So, I wanted to say, if you use Hyper-V Server you don’t have licences for virtual machines included in Hyper-V server 2012 like in WS2012 std or datacenter edition. For example; If install Hyper-V role on WS 2012 std you may install two virtual machines on that Hyper-V host and you are “legal”. On WS2012 datacenter you may install unlimited number VMs and you are “legal”! Hyper-V Server 2012 is free product and given that you don’t have licence included for virtual machines, but if you want you can install unlimited number vms per hyper-v host, but you are not legal if you don’t have valid licences.
      Hope this will be helpful.
      Romeo

  10. Babin Lonston
    11 years ago (Reply)

    Hi ,

    we planning to buy a dedicated Server , if we used to install hyper-v server 2012 , what are the Security settings we need to do in it , because its always Running and in internet , Don’t want to get hacked from any stranger , how can we secure it will u please guide us to secure it

    • Romeo Mlinar
      11 years ago (Reply)

      Hi Babin,
      You don’t need nothing special except your server is not directly on the internet (published on the internet). If does you need to use certain firewall, TMG, hw appliance or something else on the front-end side. On the server use firewall and UAC by default.

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    10 years ago (Reply)

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  12. arahman54
    10 years ago (Reply)

    How can I Install 3rd party Drivers? It there any way to do it, because OS doesn’t have GUI?

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