I am harry brelsford, the author of Windows Small Business SErver 2003 Best Practices (the purple book). I am posting up several pages a day until SBS 2008 ships. Enjoy the read!
harrybbbbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB NAtion, www.smbnation.com
# # #
17. Complete the Company Information page with the information contained in Table 2-4 (prior chapter) for SPRINGERS. Your screen should look similar to Figure 3-14. Click Next.
Figure 3-14
Complete the Company Information screen to match what you see here.
BEST PRACTICE: Complete as many fields as possible on all SBS setup dialog boxes when you set up your own SBS machine. Much of this information, known as metainformation, is used in other places within SBS for the life of the system.
Note that in SBS 2003 the Company Information screen contains telephony information. In SBS 2000, a separate telephony screen would have followed. SBS 2003 has eliminated the Product Information screen at this point, which required you to reenter the registered user name, the company name, and the product key. This is now accomplished in the Windows Server 2003 GUI setup phase.
BEST PRACTICE: You should be aware of the More Information button at the lower part of each page. Click More Information and you are presented a worksheet and a help topic for the screen being displayed. Initially introduced in SBS 2000, this is a big improvement over SBS 4.5, where only a few screens had the More Information button. More important, the More Information buttons help you install SBS 2003 correctly if you are unsure about a setting.
Notes:
18. Be careful on the Internal Domain Information page to overwrite the default naming information to reflect SpringersLTD.local as the internal domain name in the Full DNS name for internal domain field. In the NetBIOS domain name field, type SPRINGERSLTD. Leave the computer name as SPRINGERS1. Your screen should look similar to Figure 3-15. Click Next.
BEST PRACTICE: You may read a doctoral thesis on internal and external domain naming by clicking the More Information button on the Internal Domain Information screen.
Figure 3-15
Carefully complete the fields on the Internet Domain Information screen as you will commit these names in a moment.
19. On the Local Network Adapter Information page, select the network adapter card that you want to be the attached to the local area network. This is shown in Figure 3-16. Click Next.
Figure 3-16
Select the network adapter card you want to use for the local area network. The other card is temporarily disabled.
Notes:
20. Accept the default IP address (192.168.16.2) and the Class C
(255.255.255.0) subnet mask on the Local Network Adapter Configuration page. This is shown in Figure 3-17. Click Next.
Figure 3-17
Verify your information matches on this Local Network Adapter Configuration page before proceeding.
BEST PRACTICE: Here again I weave in a pocket MBA SBS/SMB consulting best practice that each of your SBS networks should be the same (even if you only have one!). One place to make each network the same is screen in Figure 3-17 where you accept the default IP addressing.
21. Accept the default selection of Log on automatically and type Husky9999! in the Password field on the Logon Information page. Click Next. This allows you to walk away from the two reboots of the SBS 2003 server machine during setup and have the setup process continue automatically.
22. The Windows Configuration page appears alerting you that the next configuration stage may take up to 30-minuntes to complete (Figure 318). Click Next.
Figure 3-18
The Windows Configuration approval screen.
BEST PRACTICE: This Windows Configuration stage SBS 2003 replaces the Baseline Scenario stage in SBS 2000. At this stage, you’ve committed the computer name and the domain name on the server
machine. Instead of taking 30 minutes, completing this stage takes closer to 15 minutes. So go get a strong cup of coffee!
Figure 3-19
Observe the progress of critical foundation components being installed for SBS 2003 on the Component Progress screen.
Notes:
Showing posts with label sbs book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sbs book. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
SBS 2003 Setup Wizard - excerpt from Windows Small Business SErver 2003 Best Practices
SBS 2003 Setup Wizard - excerpt from Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices book
Posted on June 11, 2008 by harrybrelsford Edit
hello - I am harry brelsford, author of the Windows Small Business SErver 2003 Best PRactices book and I am posting up my book a few pages per day for your consumption. Hope to have it all posted by the time SBS 2008 ship
harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB Nation, www.smbnation.com
###
15. Additional computer files are copied and installed and more configuration activity occurs. The installation is “finalized” as shown in a bullet point on the left in Figure 3-9.
Figure 3-9
The underlying Windows Server 2003 installation autopilots at this points and completes the operating system installation.
16. You are instructed to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete at the Welcome to Windows dialog box. The Log On to Windows dialog box appears. After you log on as Administrator (remember the password is Husky9999!), a dialog box will appear advising you that setup files are being copied to a temporary directory, followed by another dialog box communicating that 40 separate installation components are being loaded. A few minutes later, you are greeted by the initial SBS setup screen that is titled Continuing Microsoft Small Business Server Setup, Click Next (but first read and honor the next two BEST PRACTICES).
Figure 3-10
The SBS 2003 installation continues.
BEST PRACTICE: Depending on the hardware you have installed on your system, such as a USB device, plug-and-play device, or PCI-based device, you might see the Add New Hardware Wizard. If such is the case, complete the wizard and return to the screen in Figure 3-10.
BEST PRACTICE: You now need to configure the second drive area (Drive D) for storing data. In order to do this, click Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, expand Storage, and click Disk Management. Right click on the D: volume and select Format. The Format D: dialog box appears. Name the volume DATA in the Volume Label field, confirm NTFS as the default file system, keep the Allocation unit size as Default and select Perform
a quick format. Click OK. Click OK on the warning notice you receive. Take a few deep breathes while the formatting completes and then close the Computer Management window.
An interesting historical note for you: In SBS 2000, you had to format Drive D no later than this point (you could have also formatted it back in the character-based phase at the partition screens). But SBS 2003 is more forgiving! I’ve found that you can configure Drive D as late as after the reboot after the Windows Configuration stage (in several steps) and have it be recognized by the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Setup wizard. That improvement reflects the fact the setup wizard remains much more dynamic (and less static or fixed) in SBS 2003 compared to the predecessor SBS 2000 version. Jolly good show!
So perhaps you’re feeling unwelcome in SBS 2003 at this point. In the step
above in SBS 2000, you received a “Welcome” notice instead of the word “Continuing.” So perhaps SBS 2003 isn’t as warm and fuzzy during setup, but don’t let that prevent you from marching forward! OK—when you see the belated SBS 2003 “Welcome” message, click Next.
Notes:
BEST PRACTICE: At this point, you might well receive an informational, warning, or a blocking message on the Setup Requirements page (Figure 3-11) indicating your machine doesn’t satisfy some SBS setup requirement. First and foremost, understand that such messages appear depending on machine settings, so one SBS setup on a specific machine might vary from another SBS setup on another machine (the point being you might receive a warning or blocking message on one machine and not the other).
Figure 3-11
Messages are displayed which must be addressed.
As a general rule, a warning message does not stop the SBS setup routine and can be cured immediately. A blocking message is typically more severe and will require more extensive remedial action on your behalf. In Figure 3-11, a network adapter isn’t present and the installation can not continue. This must be fixed.
Just for giggles, I show another Setup Requirements screen I encountered that relates to supported processors in SBS 2003 (Figure 3-12). You will recall that SBS 2003 supports two physical processors and that is the configuration on the HP/Compaq ML-350 at SPRINGERS. But the ML-350 server machine also supports hyper-threading, defined in the next paragraph.
Figure 3-12
A warning message communicates to you that only two processors are supported.
Hyper-threading allows a single processor to act as two processors. When you install SBS 2003 on a machine with two physical processors that support hyper-threading (in effect telling the operating system you have four processors), you’ll receive the error message in 3-12. This is unique to SBS 2003 because it uses the standard version of Windows Server 2003 (which natively supports four processors), but then caps the processor support at two. The hyper-threading issue kinda throws SBS 2003 into a mild tizzy and it generates the two processor warning message.
But, just to add fuel to the fire, even though you received a warning message on a two processor machine using hyper-threading (causing SBS 2003 to believe you have more physical processors), SBS 2003 will actually exploit and use the two physical processors and the two “virtual” processors. I prove this by showing you Figure 3-13 where all “four” processors are active.
Figure 3-13
The Performance tab on Windows Task Manager (select from right-clicking Start task bar) shows four busy processors on the SPRINGERS SBS 2003 server machine.
Finally, SBS 2003 has a warning message if you only have one network adapter card installed. That is because Microsoft, in its endeavor to promote security best practices everywhere, wants you to have two network adapter cards to take advantage of the basic firewall capabilities included in SBS 2003. More on that topic in Chapter 5.
And, of course, if you did not receive a warning or blocking message, you will proceed with the setup.
Posted on June 11, 2008 by harrybrelsford Edit
hello - I am harry brelsford, author of the Windows Small Business SErver 2003 Best PRactices book and I am posting up my book a few pages per day for your consumption. Hope to have it all posted by the time SBS 2008 ship
harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford, CEO of SMB Nation, www.smbnation.com
###
15. Additional computer files are copied and installed and more configuration activity occurs. The installation is “finalized” as shown in a bullet point on the left in Figure 3-9.
Figure 3-9
The underlying Windows Server 2003 installation autopilots at this points and completes the operating system installation.
16. You are instructed to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete at the Welcome to Windows dialog box. The Log On to Windows dialog box appears. After you log on as Administrator (remember the password is Husky9999!), a dialog box will appear advising you that setup files are being copied to a temporary directory, followed by another dialog box communicating that 40 separate installation components are being loaded. A few minutes later, you are greeted by the initial SBS setup screen that is titled Continuing Microsoft Small Business Server Setup, Click Next (but first read and honor the next two BEST PRACTICES).
Figure 3-10
The SBS 2003 installation continues.
BEST PRACTICE: Depending on the hardware you have installed on your system, such as a USB device, plug-and-play device, or PCI-based device, you might see the Add New Hardware Wizard. If such is the case, complete the wizard and return to the screen in Figure 3-10.
BEST PRACTICE: You now need to configure the second drive area (Drive D) for storing data. In order to do this, click Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, expand Storage, and click Disk Management. Right click on the D: volume and select Format. The Format D: dialog box appears. Name the volume DATA in the Volume Label field, confirm NTFS as the default file system, keep the Allocation unit size as Default and select Perform
a quick format. Click OK. Click OK on the warning notice you receive. Take a few deep breathes while the formatting completes and then close the Computer Management window.
An interesting historical note for you: In SBS 2000, you had to format Drive D no later than this point (you could have also formatted it back in the character-based phase at the partition screens). But SBS 2003 is more forgiving! I’ve found that you can configure Drive D as late as after the reboot after the Windows Configuration stage (in several steps) and have it be recognized by the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Setup wizard. That improvement reflects the fact the setup wizard remains much more dynamic (and less static or fixed) in SBS 2003 compared to the predecessor SBS 2000 version. Jolly good show!
So perhaps you’re feeling unwelcome in SBS 2003 at this point. In the step
above in SBS 2000, you received a “Welcome” notice instead of the word “Continuing.” So perhaps SBS 2003 isn’t as warm and fuzzy during setup, but don’t let that prevent you from marching forward! OK—when you see the belated SBS 2003 “Welcome” message, click Next.
Notes:
BEST PRACTICE: At this point, you might well receive an informational, warning, or a blocking message on the Setup Requirements page (Figure 3-11) indicating your machine doesn’t satisfy some SBS setup requirement. First and foremost, understand that such messages appear depending on machine settings, so one SBS setup on a specific machine might vary from another SBS setup on another machine (the point being you might receive a warning or blocking message on one machine and not the other).
Figure 3-11
Messages are displayed which must be addressed.
As a general rule, a warning message does not stop the SBS setup routine and can be cured immediately. A blocking message is typically more severe and will require more extensive remedial action on your behalf. In Figure 3-11, a network adapter isn’t present and the installation can not continue. This must be fixed.
Just for giggles, I show another Setup Requirements screen I encountered that relates to supported processors in SBS 2003 (Figure 3-12). You will recall that SBS 2003 supports two physical processors and that is the configuration on the HP/Compaq ML-350 at SPRINGERS. But the ML-350 server machine also supports hyper-threading, defined in the next paragraph.
Figure 3-12
A warning message communicates to you that only two processors are supported.
Hyper-threading allows a single processor to act as two processors. When you install SBS 2003 on a machine with two physical processors that support hyper-threading (in effect telling the operating system you have four processors), you’ll receive the error message in 3-12. This is unique to SBS 2003 because it uses the standard version of Windows Server 2003 (which natively supports four processors), but then caps the processor support at two. The hyper-threading issue kinda throws SBS 2003 into a mild tizzy and it generates the two processor warning message.
But, just to add fuel to the fire, even though you received a warning message on a two processor machine using hyper-threading (causing SBS 2003 to believe you have more physical processors), SBS 2003 will actually exploit and use the two physical processors and the two “virtual” processors. I prove this by showing you Figure 3-13 where all “four” processors are active.
Figure 3-13
The Performance tab on Windows Task Manager (select from right-clicking Start task bar) shows four busy processors on the SPRINGERS SBS 2003 server machine.
Finally, SBS 2003 has a warning message if you only have one network adapter card installed. That is because Microsoft, in its endeavor to promote security best practices everywhere, wants you to have two network adapter cards to take advantage of the basic firewall capabilities included in SBS 2003. More on that topic in Chapter 5.
And, of course, if you did not receive a warning or blocking message, you will proceed with the setup.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
SBS 2003 book - chapter 3 - backup and release notes
I am Harry Brelsford (www.smbnation.com) the author of Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best PRactices. I am posting up parts of my book each day to get it in the wild before SBS 2008 releases! Enjoy this gift.
Backup Data
With SPRINGERS, you are installing SBS on a brand-new HP/Compaq Proliant server as part of our sample company setup. The company’s data initially remains on the old NetWare server until it will be transferred over the wire or across the network to the new SBS server. That said, the data backup precautions are nothing out of the ordinary: Last night’s backup should be verified.
But let’s trade places for a moment and present a different scenario: reuse of an existing server machine. This assumes you are like many small businesses and hope to reuse your existing server for SBS. So one of the first things you are confronted with is major data backup issues. That is, how do you transfer data, via a single machine, from your previous operating system (say NetWare or NT) to SBS?
BEST PRACTICE: Please carefully read the following scenario and appreciate that is an advanced topic for guru SBSers. First and foremost, I do assume that the foreign environment you are migrating data from has a tape backup device attached to the server, the tape backup device works, and you know how to make and verify a tape backup on the foreign system. My example uses Novell NetWare as its foreign system from which the data will be migrated to the new SBS system. But to be honest, you’ll likely see more Windows NT scenarios out there than NetWare.
Assume that you are converting from a small Novell NetWare network to SBS. Also assume that, to save money, you plan to reformat the hard drive on your existing NetWare server and install SBS. Thus, your first challenge is to make darn sure that you’ve completely protected the business’s data located on the existing NetWare server prior to reformatting its hard disk. If not, let’s just say there aren’t enough hours in the day to re-create the data you’ve lost!
The challenge here is that the tape created on a NetWare server using an NLM-based tape backup application isn’t readable by the SBS’s native tape backup application. In fact, relying on such a strategy results in an error message regarding a foreign tape when you try to access the tape under the native backup routine in SBS.
So what can you do? I’ve performed the following work-around to transfer this data from NetWare to SBS server-based environments. What makes this workaround so SBS-specific is that you can play this trick in a smaller environment, the kind of environment that SBS caters to. Obviously, this trick wouldn’t be possible in larger enterprise environments that the full versions of Windows Server 2003 cater to.
First, copy the NetWare-based data to a second server or even one or two client workstations. As you know, today’s workstations have huge hard drives that are often larger than those found on older servers in smaller companies. In my case years back, I pursued both strategies. I literally copied the firm’s data from its existing NetWare server (2.5GB of data on a NetWare partition) to a loaner NetWare 4.11 server that I brought from home. I also copied the same data to a subdirectory of a robust workstation. After I completed my SBS installation, I (of course) copied the data back to the newly created SBS server from the client workstation. Using the data copy stored on the workstation, I saved a lot of time by not dropping under the hood on SBS and performing a somewhat nasty Win2K-ism of installing Gateway Services For NetWare (GSNW) to retrieve the data from my loaner NetWare 4.11 server.
BEST PRACTICE: I’ve done the same thing with an SBS installation converting from a Linux server to a new SBS server. In this case, I wasn’t interested in wasting the time to perfect the ICE.TEN terminal emulation connection between the Linux box and the SBS server. Thus, I copied the data from the Linux box to a workstation and back to the new SBS server.
Read Release Notes
Take my advice and open the README.HTM which points you to four documents:
• Small Business Server 2003 Release Notes
• Getting Started
• Restoring Your Server (this is very cool and something I speak to in Chapter 11 of this book and my forthcoming advanced book for SBS 2003 that will be released in mid-2004).
• Windows Server 2003 Release Notes
Backup Data
With SPRINGERS, you are installing SBS on a brand-new HP/Compaq Proliant server as part of our sample company setup. The company’s data initially remains on the old NetWare server until it will be transferred over the wire or across the network to the new SBS server. That said, the data backup precautions are nothing out of the ordinary: Last night’s backup should be verified.
But let’s trade places for a moment and present a different scenario: reuse of an existing server machine. This assumes you are like many small businesses and hope to reuse your existing server for SBS. So one of the first things you are confronted with is major data backup issues. That is, how do you transfer data, via a single machine, from your previous operating system (say NetWare or NT) to SBS?
BEST PRACTICE: Please carefully read the following scenario and appreciate that is an advanced topic for guru SBSers. First and foremost, I do assume that the foreign environment you are migrating data from has a tape backup device attached to the server, the tape backup device works, and you know how to make and verify a tape backup on the foreign system. My example uses Novell NetWare as its foreign system from which the data will be migrated to the new SBS system. But to be honest, you’ll likely see more Windows NT scenarios out there than NetWare.
Assume that you are converting from a small Novell NetWare network to SBS. Also assume that, to save money, you plan to reformat the hard drive on your existing NetWare server and install SBS. Thus, your first challenge is to make darn sure that you’ve completely protected the business’s data located on the existing NetWare server prior to reformatting its hard disk. If not, let’s just say there aren’t enough hours in the day to re-create the data you’ve lost!
The challenge here is that the tape created on a NetWare server using an NLM-based tape backup application isn’t readable by the SBS’s native tape backup application. In fact, relying on such a strategy results in an error message regarding a foreign tape when you try to access the tape under the native backup routine in SBS.
So what can you do? I’ve performed the following work-around to transfer this data from NetWare to SBS server-based environments. What makes this workaround so SBS-specific is that you can play this trick in a smaller environment, the kind of environment that SBS caters to. Obviously, this trick wouldn’t be possible in larger enterprise environments that the full versions of Windows Server 2003 cater to.
First, copy the NetWare-based data to a second server or even one or two client workstations. As you know, today’s workstations have huge hard drives that are often larger than those found on older servers in smaller companies. In my case years back, I pursued both strategies. I literally copied the firm’s data from its existing NetWare server (2.5GB of data on a NetWare partition) to a loaner NetWare 4.11 server that I brought from home. I also copied the same data to a subdirectory of a robust workstation. After I completed my SBS installation, I (of course) copied the data back to the newly created SBS server from the client workstation. Using the data copy stored on the workstation, I saved a lot of time by not dropping under the hood on SBS and performing a somewhat nasty Win2K-ism of installing Gateway Services For NetWare (GSNW) to retrieve the data from my loaner NetWare 4.11 server.
BEST PRACTICE: I’ve done the same thing with an SBS installation converting from a Linux server to a new SBS server. In this case, I wasn’t interested in wasting the time to perfect the ICE.TEN terminal emulation connection between the Linux box and the SBS server. Thus, I copied the data from the Linux box to a workstation and back to the new SBS server.
Read Release Notes
Take my advice and open the README.HTM which points you to four documents:
• Small Business Server 2003 Release Notes
• Getting Started
• Restoring Your Server (this is very cool and something I speak to in Chapter 11 of this book and my forthcoming advanced book for SBS 2003 that will be released in mid-2004).
• Windows Server 2003 Release Notes
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