Server Core R2 for web development

Instead of the preface

The release of the first version of Windows Server Core was almost a revolution, although, as for any revolution, the result looked a bit strange. The stated ability to manage Windows from the console was not far from the command.com level, and the mega-thing PowerShell was completely absent. (Although there’s very little that can resist a Russian engineer in the service of American business, so after a while Dmitry Sotnikov found how to make friends with PowerShell and Server Core ) . Despite the presence of IIS and the potential use as a web server, there was no support for .Net Framework and, accordingly, ASP.NET.

But evolution replaces revolution. And so, it means Windows 2008 Server Core R2.

Main Goodies (for web developer):

Here is what Microsoft has added to the new Server Core:

• slightly chopped .Net Framework 2.0
• slightly chopped .Net Framework 3.5
• slightly chopped ASP.NET
• Windows PowerShell 2.0

By “slightly chopped” are meant missing namespaces. Here is the complete list:

• Microsoft.Aspnet.Snapin
• Microsoft.Ink
• Microsoft.ManagementConsole. *
• Microsoft.StylusInput. *
• Microsoft.VisualBasic.Compatibility.VB6
• Microsoft.Windows.Themes
• Microsoft.WindowsCE.Forms
• Microsoft.WindowsMobile.DirectX. *
• System.ComponentModel.Design. *
• System.Data.Design
• System.Deployment.Application
• System.Diagnostics.Design
• System.Media
• System.Messaging.Design
• System.Speech. *
• System.Web.UI.Design. *
• System.Windows. *
• UIAutomationClientsideProviders

All other features, including WCF, WWF, LINQ - are available in full.

How to use it

On a virtual machine with gig and two 2.3GHz processors, the installation takes 8 minutes, including the creation of a virtual machine. Wait until a similar Windows Server 2008 R2 server is installed on a similar machine on a nearby virtual machine host - it has hurt.
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Now you need to put IIS and related pribludy. This is done quite simply: sudo apt get ocsetup <% componentname%> . First I recommend using the oclist command to get the list of components and the dependencies between them. After that, put what you need exactly. In my case, it looks like this:

• IIS-WebServerRole
• NetFx3-ServerCore
• IIS-ISAPIExtensions
• IIS-NetFxExtensibility
• IIS-ISAPIFilter
• IIS-ASPNET
• MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell

For greater clarity of the process, I recommend starting the installation via start / w, that is: start / w ocsetup of IIS-WebServerRole.

If you need support for 32bit code under .NetFramework, do not forget to install the corresponding components with the end of WOW64, for example: NetFx3-ServerCore-WOW64.

To simplify further life, you can install the Management Service, after which IIS can be administered by connecting to it via the MMC console with the usual Windows Server 2008 or Vista. When using PowerShell, the installation procedure looks like this:

Start / w ocsetup IIS- Management Service

Set-ItemProperty -path “HKLM: \ Software \ Microsoft \ WebManagement \ Server” -name “EnableRemoteManagement” –value 1

sc start WMSVC


Actually everything. Then everything is as usual when developing on ASP.NET

From personal experience

On servers that are used to develop a firewall, you can not bother (it is clear that this has both advantages and disadvantages), therefore netsh advfirewall set allprofile state off will deprive you of a few minutes of dancing with a tambourine.

For us, a big advantage was the lower resource consumption and, as a result, the speed of deployment. We can run more virtual machines on a single virtual host. Using PowerShell, the process of deploying and configuring new virtual machines is automated. Actively used during testing. At night, cars are created, configured, run autotests. Everything worked on the usual Server 2008, but it took about 30% more time on a bit less coverage.