Building a Dual-Xeon Citrix Lab: Part 3 – Windows and Hyper-V installation

This is the third in a series of posts about my new dual-Xeon Citrix lab project. This time, we are reviewing the installation and configuration of the host.

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Operating system

In the first post, I’ve explained the reason why I am using Windows instead of VMware ESX. There is three ways to deliver Hyper-V:

1. Windows Server
   • Datacenter version with included guest virtual machines licenses
   • Windows GUI
2. Windows Hyper-V Server
   • Free
   • Separate guest virtual machines licenses
   • Hyper-V GUI
   • Limited to Hyper-V
3. Windows Core
   • Separate guest virtual machines licenses
   • No GUI

I’ve selected the full version of Windows Server 2012 R2 to host my lab.

Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation version is available on the Microsoft website:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2012-r2 

Create USB boot Key

To be able to install the OS, I’ve created a usb bootable key with Rufus from the ISO file downloaded on the Microsoft website.
Download Rufus 2.2.

Install Windows Server 2012 R2

Boot on the USB key previously created and follow the steps as below.

I selected the standard version which was a mistake. Because I will have to convert my installation later to Datacenter.

Select Custom Installation.

Select your partition.

Windows is installing.

Enter a password for the local administrator account.

Windows configuration

Administrator account

I would recommend to disable the default administrator account and to create a new account with administrator privileges.

Open compmgmt.msc, select Local users and groups.

For my lab, I’ve created a new root account with full permissions.

Note: make sure that your new account has administrator rights.

Server name

By default when installing Windows Server 2012 R2, the installer is not asking for a server name and is giving a random name…

To rename the server, go to Server Manager, Local Server and click on the computer name and then on change.

Change the name of the server to the name your want(SRV on my lab), then reboot.

Activate Windows

Internet connectivity is required to activate your host.

How to activate Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation

Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter is required to be able to automatically activate guest virtual machines. Follow the procedure below to convert your Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard to Datacenter:

How to activate all Windows Guest virtual machines on Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2

IP configuration

There is two Gigabit Ethernet ports on the motherboard, so better use them all.

1. Network Adapter 1 (RDP): 192.168.1.12/24(Static IP)
   • Dedicated for remote access
2. Network Adapter 2 (VM): 192.168.1.10/24(Static IP)
   • Dedicated for virtual machines

We are done with the basic IP configuration. We will review later the network configuration for Hyper-V.

RAID Configuration

My storage configuration is below:

• 1x SSD 128 GB (OS)
• 1x SSD 512 GB (VM)
• 2x 640 GB – RAID-0 (TEMP)
• 3x 932 GB – RAID-5 (Software & Files)

To create the RAID-0, open diskmgmt.msc. Right-click on the disks you want to add to the RAID-0 and select Remove the volume. Then select the first disk and select New Striped Volume.

Select the two disks to add to the RAID-0 and click on Add.

Select Finish to complete the wizard.

To create the RAID-5, Remove the volume on the three disks and select New RAID-5 Volume.

Windows will take a few minutes to configure the disks.

Update the server

The first step required is to update the server with Windows Updates. The build installed is from 2013, so there is a lot of pending updates.

Reboot the server.

Drivers

Next, Install Java as required by most software. The nVidia website also requires java to detect the current video card installed.

Then Install the Graphic drivers.

Reboot the server and then install the remaining drivers.

Next step is to install the Intel C621 Chipset drivers.

Download official drivers from supermicro.com:
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/CDR_Images/CDR-X10/CDR-X10_1.03_noME_for_Intel_X10_platform.iso

C621 Chipset drivers installation

Most components were properly recognized at this time.

I also installed Storage drivers.

That’s all for the drivers.

Additional software

I’ve also installed a few useful software on my Hyper-V host:

• AnyToISO 3.7.0 PRO

Create .ISO file from anything. ($25 @crystalidea.com)

• Virtual CloneDrive

Mount ISO file to the Hyper-V host. (Free @ http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html)

• WinSCP

SFTP, SCP and FTP client for Windows. (Free @ https://winscp.net)

• Internet Download Manager 6.23 PRO ($30 @ internetdownloadmanager.com)

Tool to increase download speeds by up to 5 times, resume and schedule downloads.

• WinRAR 5.10 PRO ($30 @ win-rar.net)

Most popular compression tool.

• ShareX 10.1

Best tool to take screenshots. (Free @getsharex.com)

• Thinfinity Remote Desktop Server 3.0

HTML5 RDP Server. ($80 @cybelesoft.com/thinfinity/remote-desktop/server)

• MobaXterm

SSH Client ($69 @mobaxterm.mobatek.net)

• Notepad++

Best free text editor. (Free @notepad-plus-plus.org)

• Speccy

Fast, cost-effective tool for profiling your IT resources. Speccy gives you detailed reports on every aspect of every PC. ($25 @piriform.com/business/speccy-business-edition)

Install Hyper-V role

Select Add Roles and Features on the Server Manager dashboard.

Click Next until Server Roles then select Hyper-V.

Select Next.

On this screen, select the network adapter assigned to virtual machines.

The next screen is to configure the location of the virtual machines files.

• VM Configuration -> D:\Hyper-V\Configuration
• VM Disks -> D:\VM

Review the configuration

Then start Hyper-V Manager.

In the next post, I’ll review the configuration of Hyper-V.

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