Setting the Administrator’s PasswordThe first task that needs to be done is setting the Administrator’s password. To do so, enter the following command:
Net user administrator *
The asterisk at the end of the command tells Windows to prompt you for a password rather than you entering the password as a part of the command. The advantage of doing so is that it prevents your password from being displayed in clear text on the screen.
Setting an IP AddressIf your server is going to use a dynamic IP address, then you don’t even have to worry about this step. If the server needs a static IP address though, then you will have to set one up. This is a little tricky because the IP address must be bound to a specific interface. Therefore, you must begin the process by getting a list of network adapters in the system. To do so, enter the following command:
Netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces
Windows will now display a list of available interfaces. Make note of the number in the IDX column for the interface that you want to assign the address to. This is the interface number.
Now that you know the adapter’s number, it’s time to assign the IP address. To do so, use this command:
In the command above, ID refers to the interface number. The IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway references refer to the corresponding numbers. When used in a production environment, the actual command would look more like this:
Netsh interface ipv4 set address name=”2” source=192.168.1.15 mask=255.255.0.0 gateway=192.168.1.1
The last step in configuring an IP address is adding a DNS server. To do so, you would use this command:
Netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”ID” address=DNS IP Address index=1
Again, the ID would be replaced by the interface number and DNS IP Address would be replaced by the IP address of your DNS server.
Joining a DomainJoining a domain isn’t nearly as long of a procedure as setting up an IP address. To do so, enter this command:
Netdom join computer name /domain:domain name /userd:username /password:*
In the command above, computer name refers to the name of the server that you are joining the domain. The domain name parameter is obviously the name of the domain, and username is the name of the user account that is being used to join the server to the domain.
Activate the ServerAfter the server has been joined to the domain, it’s time to activate it. To do so, just enter this command:
Slmgr.vbs –ato
Enable the FirewallThe last step in the initial configuration process is to enable the firewall. The catch is that you can’t configure the firewall from the core server. You must instead go to another Longhorn Server and use the Firewall snap-in for MMC to remotely configure the firewall.
