Configuring Windows Server 2012 Core [Command Prompt and SConfig]

Here are the steps in applying a "static IP address" to your Windows Server 2012 Core:

Check for your current IP address configuration so shoot a - ipconfig /all

View your current NIC card setup and get the "index" & the "name" of NIC that you are going to configure - netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces

Time to configure your NIC card with the following command –

netsh interface ipv4 set address name=ethernet source=static address=xxx.xxx.xxxx mask=255.255.255.0 gateway=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Don’t forget to configure to your DNS, using the following command to configure it –

netsh int ipv4 add dnsserver name=ethernet address=xxx.xx.xxx.xx index=1 [side note: index=1 “making it the primary dns server”]

Time to configure your computer name. There are 3 ways to get your current computer name:

• ipconfig /all
  
• set
  
• hostname
  

To rename computer, type in the following command – [side note: the newname attribute should be the name you want for your server]

netdom renamecomputer %computername% /newname:BJ-SVR12 /userd: Administrator /passwordd /reboot:0

Adding to domain is easy with the following command – [side note: the domain attribute should be your domain]

netdom join %computername% /domain:bjtech.edu /userd:Administrator /passwordd /reboot:5

Create a user account with the following command – net user bjtechnews /add *

Add the new user to group – net localgroup Administrators /add bjtechnews

Confirm the new user account – net user bjtechnews

To enable remote access to the sever using command prompt use the following command –

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote administration” new enable=yes

If you want to disable firewall, here is command for it – netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off

To reset the firewall do the following command – netsh advfirewall reset

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Now, we are done learning how to do the configuration part in command line, but what if you want to do it without knowing all the commands above. Microsoft provided SConfig menu to configure your server without any commands. To access the SConfig menu at the command prompt you will need to type the following – sconfig

I like to do the following steps in this order to configure the server:

#2 – change computername

#8 – network settings

#1 – join a domain

#4 – enable remote desktop