Creating a Hyper-V host with Nano Server – Part 3

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In Part 2, I covered initially connecting via PSRemoting and domain joining the Nano Server.  In this part I'll cover finishing the Nano Server installation as a Hyper-V host managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2016.  And for that, I'll take an aside into updating Nano Server packages.

In Part 1 I mentioned making sure that you included the SCVMM packages for Nano Server in the initial image.  There is a provision for adding these and other (e.g. IIS) packages on a running Nano Server install, either via DISM (explanation here under "Install the VMM packages offline on an existing Nano Server VHD(X)") or via OneGet (explanation here).  I found the OneGet method more intuitive and consistent with everything PowerShell, but your preferences may be different.  However, I kept getting failures trying to install the SCVMM packages, via both the DISM and OneGet methods.  The error was:

install-package : Add-WindowsPackage failed. Error code = 0x800f0922 + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (System.String[]:String) [Install-Package], Exception + FullyQualifiedErrorId : FailedToInstall,Install-PackageHelper,Microsoft.PowerShell.PackageManagement.Cmdlets.InstallPackage

At the end of the article on github, I found that installing the SCVMM package has a known issue.  I tried the workarounds but ultimately I think it was due to a missing dependency.  I played around some and "something happened" that looked successful, but when the Nano Server rebooted it came up in a corrupt state (something about the digital signature changing).  At any rate, as reimaging is so fast, I punted and just made a new Nano Server image with the correct packages.

Anyhow, enough about package management in Nano Server, though I find the whole process for managing these pretty neat and am looking forward to how this changes.

Adding the Nano Server to SCVMM 2016

At this point, all that was left was adding the Nano Server to SCVMM.  I added the SCVMM runas account to the Administrators group on the Nano Server.  I opened up my SCVMM console, right-clicked the "All Hosts" group and selected "Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters" and ran through the wizard to add the Nano Server.  At this point, it's pretty much a standard Hyper-V host, albeit one that runs lightning fast and takes up a minimal footprint.  I added the virtual switch and it was off to the races to deploy some VMs.

Hopefully this little series of articles distilled down several disparate articles and provides a complete end-end demonstration of Nano Server and SCVMM 2016.