System Centre Configuration Manager

As this blog really does not have a purpose bar somewhere to hold ramblings, i thought i would a quick series on SCCM 2012 and Windows 8, as these will start to appear in Windows based network over the next couple of years and it really becomes my holding place for my own experiences with these technologies.

Rather strapped for modern hardware and not wanting to virtualise the SCCM product, I was able to get a HP DL360 G5 as a test server (8Gb Ram, couple of processors and a reasonable set of disks - configured as a System drive (C) 136Gb, and Data Drive (D) 410Gb. Windows 2008 R2 was installed, network configured (4 NIC's teamed to a single virtual NIC with static IP). The WDS and WSUS roles were installed (along with required features) but NOT configured and the .Net 3.5.1 feature was also installed.

SCCM 2012 Beta 2 was downloaded, and I was informed that .Net 4.0 was also required so this was downloaded from Microsoft along with the latest security updates, then SCCM was attempted to be installed again.

As this was a test system, I went with a Primary Site Install, but did not click the Typical check box as I have always been advised against this on previous version of SMS/SCCM. At the download screen I originally went with a path that had a space, but replacing that with a hyphen it allowed me to progress to seeing the extra updates be downloaded.

I then got to the first gotcha, you must have SQL Server already installed, So installation cancelled and  SQL install started. SQL must be 2008 SP1 with CU10 (it does not support 2008 SP2 or R2). SQL 2008 Installation does not appear to work in remote desktop mode, so a switch to the KVM switch and another attempt.

The following SQL 2008 feature were installed.

• Database Engine Services
• SQL Server Replication
• Reporting Services
• Client Tools Connectivity
• Management Tools - Basic
• Management Tools - Complete

Default instance with the root moved to the larger D drive. Services were set to run with local system accounts. Rest of configuration used the defaults. Due to the compatibility issues with Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008, Service Pack 1 was installed immediately after the SQL install had completed. SP1 demands a reboot, so the 2 ports for SQL were opened in the firewall (1433 for Database Access and 80 for Reporting services) and ensured that Named pipes and TCP/IP were configured for SQL use, then the reboot then the installation of the CU10 updates.

The AD had already been extended for SCCM schema extensions, as SCCM2007 had previously been installed.

Then create and install the required certificates on the CA as per the guidance on Technet but that then hit a problem as the CA was running Windows 2003 but the client was 2008, so the web enrollment would not work so had to use certreq commands instead, NOTE that at this point you need to be logged into the SCCM server with a domain account to ensure that you can access a AD CA.

On trying to enable HTTPS access via the IIS console, this was not installed so the following role features where added to the IIS role.

• Common HTTP Features
• Directory Browsing
• HTTP Errors
• HTTP Redirection
• Health and Diagnostics
• HTTP Logging
• Logging Tools
• Request Monitor
• Tracing
• Performance
• Static Content Compression
• Management Tools
• IIS Management Console
• IIS 6 Management Compatibility
• IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
• IIS 6 WMI Compatibility

Restarted the SCCM installer, to be informed that BITS and RDC needed to be installed, added these from Features and tried again. It stopped very quickly at the start of the installation, where I noticed that SQL server had stopped. New Certificates were added to SQL server and confirmed that they were running, and after another reboot tried again. Then SQL was in a real muddle see this blog (nickstips.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/sql-ssl-and-sql-server-2008-service-doesnt-start-error-code-2146885628/)

And then it stopped again, it moved its own self signed certificate in and stopped the SQL server, so this new certificate was fixed as per the blog above and SQL started and the SCCM started to move on.

And then you wait. a good while later I have a working admin console. next I will start to look at the guided test cases and especially the Operating System deployments.