Gallery

Exclaiming Exclaimer!

Posted on 20 Mar 2006 at 12:06

Jon Honeyball discovers a new server-side engine for enhancing Exchange Server, while David Moss revisits Microsoft's RIS

I accept that some of this functionality is only going to make those who run large distributed Exchange Server implementations get excited, but there's also stuff here that's useful even down at the Small Business Server level. So it's good to report that there's an SBS version of the product too. It's not unusual for even the smallest companies to have quite complex email requirements - as time moves on and companies acquire and divest themselves of people and functional units, the email complexity will just get greater.

It's clear to me that Exclaimer is a stunning product and suddenly a lot of sysadmin functions in Exchange Server have become a lot easier. I recommend you download it and give it a whirl. You can get a 30-day fully functional trialware version too, by going to www.exclaimer.com. Now, about that new technology...

JON HONEYBALL

RIS Revisited

This month, I'm continuing last month's column on Microsoft's Remote Installation Services (RIS). Remote Installation Services give you the ability to create installation images of anything from a barebones system with just the operating system to fully fledged images that slap on the OS and a host of applications at the same time.

Before you can install Remote Installation Services on a server, however, there are a number of steps that need to be completed. First, you need to ensure that both client and server systems meet the minimum hardware requirements. Fairly obviously, if you already have Windows Server 2003 of one flavour or another installed (note that RIS isn't available on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition), the server system meets the immediate hardware requirements. There are, however, a couple of other items that need to be considered. The server must have only one network adaptor: RIS doesn't work on multihomed systems. The server also requires at least 4GB of free hard disk space for the RIS Server folder tree.

If the server has a single hard disk, it must be partitioned, the partition must use the NTFS file system and the RIS server folder tree must be placed in that partition, as RIS can't exist on the boot or systems partitions. Also, RIS doesn't support the Encrypting File System (EFS) and you can't use the Distributed File System (DFS) as a target, although you can run RIS on a server that's already a DFS server. Other requirements include a working Domain Name System (DNS) server, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server and, of course, Active Directory.

The client system requirements are even simpler. The clients preferably should have a Pre-Boot eXecution Environment (PXE) DHCP-based boot ROM version 1 or higher, but failing that you can create remote boot disks for systems that don't meet the criteria. At that point, you need to go and find out which network adaptors are supported, a simple enough process that's accomplished by running rbfg.exe (the Remote Boot Floppy Generator utility that creates the remote boot disk) and seeing what appears under the adaptor list. Adaptor types that are definitely not supported include CardBus, PC Card or any adaptor that isn't Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) based.

Before I let RIS anywhere near my working network environments, I decided that creating a test environment was clearly the best way to proceed. This requires only two systems and is quick and easy to set up. Begin by creating your Windows Server 2003 and making it a Domain Controller (DC) with Active Directory, DNS and DHCP. This is the machine on which you'll install RIS. Create a second system as a sort of master installation images system, where you run the RiPrep wizard to create images and then transfer them to the RIS server. You can then have that master system change roles and become the client onto which you install RIS images. I mentioned RiPrep, but you can also use RiSetup images.