12:35 PM : Reinstall Complete
Yes, you read that right. In addition to everything else I had to deal with this morning (meetings, requirements delivery for some members of my team), I did a full reinstall of Configuration Manager 2007, this time on Windows Server 2003 R2. I had some nagging errors in the logs that just wouldn’t clear up so I attributed it to Windows Server 2008 and started over. The good news is that I was able to get the entire Site Status tree to show up green this time, meaning there are no problems. The weird part was what I had to do to resolve the errors. I think (am not sure) the resolution was to go look at and delete the error messages (which ended two hours previously) and refresh the component. I don’t like that as a resolution, but on another component I went to do the same thing and clearing the error messages and refreshing the component didn’t fix the problem: I actually had to go resolve a problem. The funny part is that it was back to SPNs again. During the reinstall, I just installed SQL Server 2005 SP2 to the same box to ease my pain, and I didn’t update the SPNs.
Whatever happened, it’s entirely green now. I’m hoping to get through a few more Webcasts on operating system deployment this afternoon, but I have 2.5 hours worth of meetings and only 2.5 hours left to go in the day. Might be another late night.
6:58 PM : Catch Up
Just finished grilling. For anyone who cares, it’s not a good idea to grill a still-partially-frozen New York Strip steak. It takes forever, burns the outside 1/4 inch, and goes from rare to well-done in about two minutes, which I missed. I like my steak medium-rare. Not a pleasant meal.
Today was pretty chaotic overall, which doesn’t lend itself well to blogging my way through the deployment experience. It largely failed today because I only had a few minutes here and there to work on deployment between meetings. So, to catch you up to where I am now, let’s run through what I did in those few minute sessions. I mostly toyed with operating system deployment. I watched all of Keith Comb’s’ Webcast entitled “Deploying Operating Systems with System Center Configuration Manager (Part 1 of 2)”. It was absolutely fantastic as far as detail is concerned, and should be watched even before deploying Configuration Manager – there are a couple of key things to note that he says (permissions on Active Directory’s System node and schema extension).
I also used his Webcast to start setting up the structure for deploying operating systems. One of the first things I did was to add the Broadcom NetXtreme II drivers to Configuration Manager – they are used by some of our desktops and servers, and WinPE2 doesn’t have the driver embedded, meaning that attempts to do a light-touch or zero-touch install on those computers fails. The driver was fairly easy to import and I won’t belabor the point by stepping through what I did. I will note, however, that you have to download the RIS (remote installation services, the name for Microsoft’s deployment solution from years ago) version of the drivers or you’ll just bang your head against the wall trying to figure out how to extract the drivers. Once the drivers are added, I made sure to add them to the appropriate boot images and update the distribution point. I’ll also note at this point that I love the ability to easily embed the drivers here. In the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit I know how to get around, but this approach was much more intuitive.
After adding the NetXtreme drivers, I pulled the file called “install.wim” off of the Windows Server 2008 x64 Datacenter, Enterprise, and Standard volume licensing DVD. A WIM file is a compressed image; Microsoft started using WIM files for deployment with Windows Vista. A WIM file can also store multiple operating system installs. In this case, the install.wim was over 2GB but contained images for both the full and core installs of all three predominant flavors of Windows Server 2008 x64. (Web Server 2008 ships on a different DVD.) When I first added the WIM to Configuration Manager, I added it to the node called Operating System Images. I also created a nice folder structure to make separation of images easier to understand. When I added the WIM, I couldn’t tell whether or not I was going to be able to access all of the images in the WIM. I’ll save you the heart-stopping anxiety by informing you that you’ll be able to access the images once you get to the task sequence portion of deploying operating systems.
That was actually the next thing I tackled: creating a simple task sequence to deploy the operating system. Let me stress that it was extremely simple: I entered the options to join the machine to the domain and selected the version of Windows Server I wanted to install from the WIM, and that’s about it. My thought at that point was, “I can’t believe how easy this is!”
7:14 PM : Not So Fast
The last thing I did before I left work (this is still technically part of the Catch Up, but warranted a logical division in the flow of the post) was to attempt to install the operating system. We have an IP KVM and 12 blade servers sitting bare metal in our data center, so I used the IP KVM to try a PXE boot off of one of those servers. No dice. The first thing I found out was that I needed to install the PXE service point role. After muddling through the interface to find where to add the role (root/Site Database/Site Management/<site>/Site Settings/Site Systems/<server>), I was able to add the role and set the options pretty much to their defaults. I did set a PXE password which I removed later when I found out that it would cripple zero-touch installs. I tried the PXE boot. No dice.
After a bit more reading, I found out that I also needed the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008, so I downloaded and installed that. The article I was reading (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978399.aspx) also said that I needed to configure the WDS PXE filter, which I tried to do from the Start menu, but there is some error with the tool. I’ve tried a couple more PXE boots after altering a few settings, but still: no dice.
7:46 PM : Validation Exists for a Reason!
Twenty minutes of the last half hour was spent responding to an e-mail, the other ten spent trying to figure out the problem with the PXE filter. I should have thought of this sooner, but mousing over the red exclamation point revealed the validation error: no Windows Deployment Services. I had installed the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, which is also necessary, but hadn’t installed WDS (something the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit relies on). It is now installing; I had to add it through the Add/Remove Windows Components wizard because it wasn’t in the Add Role wizard.
7:54 PM : Reboot
Rebooted the server after install and am waiting…
8:06 PM : PXEFilter.vbs
Configured PXEFilter.vbs with the following settings:
sProviderServer = “MGR1″
sSiteCode = “DC1″
sNamespace = “root\sms\site_” & sSiteCode
sUsername = “”
sPassword = “”
sCollection = “DC10000D” ‘ Corresponds to PXE Registered Systems Collection (a custom collection I created)
8:11 PM : No Dice
8:28 PM : Break Time
I think part of my problem is related to Windows Deployment Services, but haven’t triangulated what the exact problem is yet. Have to take a break to get my son to bed.
9:43 PM : Back Again
10:07 PM : Breakthrough
Some success! I have a successful PXE boot. I made a couple of changes to get the PXE boot: I told WDS that it shouldn’t authorize itself with DCHP, recycled the service, and reauthorized it and recycled the service again. I don’t think that had anything to do with it, though. I think the change that had an effect was explicitly advertising the task sequence for installing Windows Server 2008 to the PXE Registered Systems collection, where the PXEFilter.vbs told Configuration Manager to create a machine account.
10:08 PM : Configuration Manger Logo
I see a big background that says “Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007″. I’m guessing that’s a good sign.
10:12 PM : Success in IP KVM
Same thing via the IP KVM with a bare-metal server.
10:18 PM : Done for the Night
So after reboot, both servers I was working with (one virtual server, one real bare-metal server) still don’t have an operating system. I’m guessing that’s a problem with the task sequence, but since I didn’t put much effort at all into the task sequence, I’m not to worried about it. I think it will come up easily from here in the morning. I’m quitting for the evening.
