Windows Server 2003 : Configuring Virtual Server

Figure 1. The default Virtual Server Administration Website

By default, only members of the local Administrators group on the Virtual Server host machine have access to the Administration Website, and you’ll be prompted for credentials when you attempt to log on.

You can create virtual networks, virtual disks, and virtual machines from within the Web site. All the settings for individual machines and their virtual hardware are controlled from this Web interface. We’ll start by configuring our networks, and then setting some useful defaults before we actually create a virtual machine. While you can also preconfigure and create Virtual Disks, we prefer to create the disks when we are creating the virtual machine.

Configuring Virtual Networks

Virtual Server will create a virtual network card for each enabled physical network card it sees on the computer during initial installation, plus another virtual network card that is only for connecting to other virtual machines on the same physical computer. To see the list of available virtual network cards, log on to the Administration Website if you aren’t already logged on, and click Configure- and then View All in the Virtual Networks section of the leftmost frame of the Web site. This will display all the virtual network cards that are currently configured, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Viewing all the virtual networks

This is a nice feature because it lets you see what virtual networks you have. But you can’t actually change anything from this page. On the server xmpl-srv4, we see that there are three virtual networks defined—two external networks and the Internal Network. The Internal Network is not connected to any physical network card on the host server; rather, it is connected to a private, virtual network on the host that only other virtual machines can connect to.

Configuring the Internal Network

To configure the Internal Network, perform the following steps:

1.	Click Configure, Internal Network under the Virtual Networks section of the leftmost frame of the Administration Website to open the “Internal Network” Virtual Network Properties shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. Configuring the “Internal Network” Virtual Network Properties
2.	Click Network Settings to change the settings for this adapter. They’re not terribly interesting for the Internal Network.
3.	Click DHCP Server to change the settings for the built-in Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, as shown in Figure 4. By default, the DHCP server is enabled for this network and uses a 10.237.0.0 network address. Figure 4. Configure the Internal Network DHCP Server
4.	Make any changes to the default DHCP settings and then click OK to save them. If you’ll be creating and assigning a DHCP role to one of your virtual machines on this network, you should disable this virtual DHCP server to avoid issues. Otherwise, it would be good to enter in the IP addresses of the DNS server or servers that will be created on the network, along with WINS servers, and a gateway if you will be configuring this network to connect to an outside network.

Configuring External Networks

To configure the external networks, follow these steps:

1.	Click Configure, External Network under the Virtual Networks section of the leftmost frame of the Administration Website to open the External Network Virtual Network. If you have multiple physical network cards on the host computer, you’ll actually be choosing from multiple external networks, each with a very long name that describes the hardware.
2.	Click Network Settings to open the Network Properties page shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. The Network Properties page
3.	Give the virtual network a useful name that identifies it clearly, but that also is a bit easier to work with. You can also change the physical network card that this network is connected (bridged) to if you need to change the default. Add any administrative notes, and click OK to save the settings.

Configuring Server Properties

There are two server properties that you can set for the host server to simplify management and creation of virtual machines. There are other settings for the server and Web site we can set. The two settings we’ll worry about now are these:

• Virtual Machine Remote Control A feature of Virtual Server that allows a remote connection directly to the virtual machine

• Search Paths The path that Virtual Server will use to find resources and components it needs

Enabling Virtual Machine Remote Control

To enable Virtual Machine Remote Control, follow these steps:

Setting Search Paths

To set search paths, perform the following steps: