Copyright 2010 Digiliant, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Transcription

1 User s Guide

2 Copyright 2010 Digiliant, LLC. All Rights Reserved. This User s Guide is provided AS-IS and Digiliant, LLC makes no warranty as to its accuracies or use. Any use of this documentation or the information contained therein is at the risk of the user. Documentation may include technical or other inaccuracies or typographical errors. Digiliant, LLC reserves the right to make changes to this documentation at any time without prior notice. Digiliant and the Digiliant Logo are registered trademarks of Digiliant, LLC and may not be used without writtrn permission. Microsoft, Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008, the Windows Logo, and all other trademarks are the property of Microsoft Corporation and their respective owners. No part of this documentation may be reproduced, transmited, or translated by any means, electronic, mechanical, optical, other by any other means without the prior written permission of Digiliant, LLC.

3 Table of Contents Digiliant Windows Storage Server 2008 Default Settings... iii Overview of Windows Storage Server Editions... 2 Basic Configuration and Remote Access... 3 Provide Computer Information... 4 Update This Server... 7 Customize This Server... 8 Server Manager Connecting with the Remote Desktop Protocol Setting Up User Access Creating New Users and Groups Disk, Volume, and Share Management Disk Management Advanced Volume Features Share and Storage Manager Provisioning a Share Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Installing Support for Namespaces and Replication Creating a New Namespace Adding Folders to a Namespace Folder Replication Managing Replication Groups How Replication Works i

4 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Creating an iscsi Target Creating a Virtual Hard Drive for an iscsi Target Connecting to an iscsi Target Advanced Virtual Disk Management Tools Virtual Disk Properties Managing Virtual Disk Snapshots Appendix A: iscsi Ports and Windows Firewall Enabling iscsi in the Windows Firewall Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server ii

5 Digiliant Windows Storage Server 2008 Default Settings These are the Factory Default Settings of your server. If you change any of them, please take care to make a record of them as technical support will most likely not be able to assist, such as losing your password. Digiliant Default Settings Setting Name Administrator User Name Administrator Password Computer Name Workgroup Name Domain Name TCP/IP for all Network Cards Default Setting Administrator digiliant NASSERVER WORKGROUP Not a member of a Domain DHCP iii

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7 Overview of Windows Storage Server 2008 Overview of Windows Storage Server 2008 The Digiliant NW Series Storage Servers run Microsoft Windows Storage Server This operating system provides an easy-to-use graphical interface to create a powerful, yet simple platform to handle your storage needs. These systems are designed to be deployed and working in a live environment in as little as 15 min. with only minor configuration changes required, such as the Computer Name and if it will be a Stand Alone server or a member of a Windows Active Directory Domain. Please note that this guide has been written to familiarize current network administrators and IT staff on how to install, configure, and support a Digiliant NAS running Windows Storage Server Therefore it is assumed that a basic to intermediate knowledge of Windows Networking and Server Software is already known. If you find that you need information beyond the scope of this guide, you may find some books published by Microsoft to be of help. While they are written for the full version of Windows Server 2008 and cover subjects not supported on Storage Server, they do cover areas such as proper user organization and how to set NTFS file permissions. Some recommend publications are: Windows Server 2008 Administrator s Companion (Hardcover) ISBN: Windows Server 2008 Administrator s Pocket Consultant (Paperback) ISBN: Some of the material covered in this guide has also been taken and updated from our Storage Server 2003 Guide, which you may find useful as well. Please be aware that while a lot of the concepts covered there are still valid, Windows Storage Server 2008 does many things differently, which is the purpose of this new guide. If you would like to download a PDF copy of the older 2003 Guide, it is available at: 1

8 Overview of Windows Storage Server 2008 Editions Digiliant offers 3 different versions of Windows Storage Server Depending on the edition your system came with, you may or may not have access to all the features contained in this user s guide. The versions we offer are: Windows Storage Server 2008 Basic Edition x64 Windows Storage Server 2008 Workgroup Edition x64 Windows Storage Server 2008 Standard Edition x64 Below is an overview of the main differences between the versions covered in this guide. All of the versions offered are a powerful storage operating system; however each edition supports additional features that are designed for the needs of your operation. While the Basic Edition is a great choice for a small office, a mid-sized business would look more towards the Workgroup Edition. And a larger company or corporation with even greater storage needs would look towards the Standard Edition. File, Print, and Server Features Description Basic Workgroup Standard SMB Connections Unlimited NFS Support No Yes Yes Print Services Yes, but limited to 2 Yes Yes printers DFS Replication No Yes Yes File Server No No Yes Resource Manager (FSRM) Single Instance No No Yes Storage (SIS) DHCP Server No No Yes Search Yes Yes Yes iscsi Target No Yes Yes 2

9 Configuration and Remote Access Basic Configuration and Remote Access The Initial Configuration Tasks window will open up every time an administrator logs onto the storage server, unless Do not show this window at logon is checked in the lower left hand corner. From this single window you can quickly and easily make all the minimal changes to the default settings and have your server fully operation in 15 min. or less. Below is a picture of the Initial Configuration Tasks window and we ll go into the details of each option in the next section. 3

10 Configuration and Remote Access Configuration Options The Initial Configuration Tasks window is divided into three sections. 1. Provide Computer Information 2. Update This Server 3. Customize This Server Provide Computer Information Important, basic configuration options are set here. They are: Set Time Zone Set time zone will bring up the Date and Time window where you can change the system time to the correction date, time, and time zone for your location. Configure Networking The Configure networking link will open a windows where you can set custom settings for your network devices. Most servers will use a Static IP Address to ensure that there is no interruption in access to your data. If you Right-Click the mouse on the network device you wish to configure, a menu will pop up. 4

11 Configuration and Remote Access The last option on the menu is Properties. Left- Clicking on it will bring up the configuration window for that device. The Connection Properties window is where you ll make setting changes such as what the server s IP, Subnet Mask, Gateway, and Domain Name Server (DNS) addresses to connect your storage server to your network. This is also where you can add support for additional networks, such as AppleTalk as needed (please see the documentation of those systems). Most users will only need to change settings on the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) connection. Following the IP address allocation procedures of your installation, you can easily enter them in this single window. If you need to enter advanced settings, such as more than two DNS servers or the location of a WINS server, click the Advanced button to make those changes. 5

12 Configuration and Remote Access Provide Computer Name and Domain Your Windows Storage Server 2008 system can act as a stand-alone storage server and operate in a peer-to peer model, or you can join it into your existing Windows Active Directory Domain. Clicking on Provide computer name and domain will bring up the System Properties window and display the Name tab. If you need to change the default name of NASSERVER and/or the default workgroup of WORKGROUP, click the Advanced button. Under Computer name you can enter a new name for the system, such as NAS-01 or however you wish to identify your system. The Member of selection below is where you tell Windows Storage Server 2008 if it will be part of a simple Workgroup (default) or a member of a Domain. If you are using a peer-to-peer system for network sharing (each computer has a user logon stored locally) then leave Workgroup selected and you can either leave the default name listed or type in a new one, such as Accounting. If you plan on using your Storage Server in a Domain please be aware that it cannot be an actual domain controller, only a member like a workstation. To join a domain, select Domain under Member of, type in the name of the domain, and then click OK. You will then be prompted to enter your credentials to join the server. Contact your network administrator if you are having problems authenticating to the domain. Once the server is part of the desired domain you will be prompted to reboot the system. If you chose not to, please be aware that you cannot access domain features until you do so. 6

13 Configuration and Remote Access Update This Server Settings for Automatic Updates are made here, along with a link to start a manual update as well. Enable Automatic Updating and Feedback Changing settings here determines how Storage Server will download and install updates from Microsoft as well as how it will inform you of problems found. In most cases the default settings will work just fine, so you can click on Enable Windows Automatic updating and feedback to set them. If you need to make custom changes to these settings then click Manually configure settings instead. From the Manually Configure Settings window you can tailor how your Storage Server downloads and install updates, reports errors, and if you would like to participate in Microsoft s Customer Feedback Program. Click the Change Setting button for each section to bring up a configuration dialog window and make changes as you see fit. Digiliant recommends that all settings are left at their default values unless the user fully understands any possible implications from changing them, such as updates not installing. 7

14 Configuration and Remote Access Download and Install Updates Clicking on this will bring up the Windows Update program. From here you can see if there are any pending updates or you can check for new ones. If you wish to make changes to how Windows Update downloads and installs you can do so by clicking the appropriate option on the left side of the window. If Windows Update has pending installs you can simply click on Install Updates to start the installation process. You can also click on the View available updates link below the button if you wish to choose which updates will be installed. After Windows Updates is finished it may prompt you to reboot the system in order to finish the update process. Some files cannot be updated while the server is still running. Windows Updates will remind you periodically that a restart is needed if you choose not to restart at the end of the update process. Customize This Server The final section of the Initial Configuration Tasks window is the Customize This Server section. From here you can select advanced options, such as what roles your server will perform and if Remote Desktop access is enabled. Add Roles By default, Windows Storage Server 2008 will have the File Services feature installed. If you need to install additional services click on Add roles to bring up the Add Roles Wizard. The first page is a brief introduction to this wizard that by default will displayed each time the wizard is started. If you do not need this page to be displayed, simply check Skip this page by default. When you are ready to continue, click Next. 8

15 Configuration and Remote Access At the Select Server Roles you can check each role you wish your server to perform, such as Print Services. Please note that Digiliant does not support roles other than File Services (installed by default) and Print Services, which allows the server to also act as a Print Server for your network. While it is possible to add roles such as the IIS Web Server or install applications and other server programs like Microsoft SQL Server on a Digiliant NAS running Windows Storage Server 2008, these implementations have not been tested and therefore we are unable to provide any technical support for them. If you wish to deploy non-supported roles, you can find information at Microsoft or by using your favorite search engine. Add Features The Add features link brings up the Add Features Wizard. Here you can select advanced features such as UNIX support and Network Load Balancing. Simply click on the options that you wish to install and click the Next button. Follow any on screen prompts. When the wizard is completed you may be prompted to restart the system. We recommend that you do so to ensure that any feature you just installed is fully active and running correctly. Enable Remote Desktop Windows Storage Server 2008 includes Remote Desktop capabilities. This means that you can remotely access and administrate your server anywhere on your local network. In order to allow the system to be installed without a mouse, keyboard, and monitor attached, we enable this feature. By default all users with Administrator Privileges will be able to log into the storage server in a remote desktop session. If you wish to change these settings, click the Enable Remote Desktop link to bring up its configuration window. 9

16 Configuration and Remote Access Under the Remote Desktop section you can choose to disable this feature if you wish (not recommended) or require a higher level of security in order to log in via a remote desktop session. If you wish to enable the highest level of security then select the last option in the list. Please note that once you enable this you must use a newer and more secured version of the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client in order to connect to the server. Make sure that you run Windows Updates on every system on your network that you wish to use for remote access to the server. The updated client if available may be listed under the Optional updates. Please refer to your documentation of that system for support on how to select custom updates if you cannot find this. Windows XP systems and above will have the client required for the most secured connection method either already installed or available from Windows Updates. If you have an older system, contact Microsoft to obtain a newer version or simply leave the Remote Desktop option set at middle option that allows connections from any Remote Desktop Client. Configure Windows Firewall In order to protect the server from common network attacks, the Windows Firewall service is installed and turned on by default. If you wish to make changes to it, such as which programs and ports to allow through, or to disable it completely, click on the Configure Windows Firewall link. The main Windows Firewall window will display the current status of the firewall. On the left side you can click on links to turn it on or off as well as make advanced configuration options. If you do need to open additional ports, most of the required ones are preinstalled already. Simply click what access you want to allow through the firewall, such as iscsi and then click OK. If you need to create a new port setting you can do that as well. Please refer to the documentation of the program you need to open the port for details on how to create the rule. 10

17 Configuration and Remote Access Server Manager The Server Manager is the main configuration tool of Windows Storage Server 2008 and is used to make more advanced configuration settings such as disk partitions, user access, and even check status messages on server operation. This tool will launch by default on each login and you can disable this action by checking the Do not show this console at logon box in the Server Summary section. You can also easily access this console with the shortcut on the desktop, or by clicking on the Start Button and then clicking the shortcut at the top-left of the task page. In the following chapters we will cover addition settings and configurations for more advanced deployments, and this is the tool we will use in order to configure and administer them with. While you can still use the traditional ways to create your network shares, add users, and manage your disk volumes, Microsoft has provided a powerful, yet easy to use console tool that puts all these tasks in one convenient place. 11

18 Configuration and Remote Access Connecting with the Remote Desktop Protocol You can connect to and administer you server remotely from any workstation and logon as if you were on the system itself. This is accomplished by using the Remote Desktop Connection program that comes standard on all versions of the Windows Desktop operating systems starting with Windows XP. Remote Desktop Connection Client You can usually find the client program in the Accessories folder from the Start Button. By default your Digiliant Windows Storage Server 2008 system name is NASSERVER, if you ve changed it then use that name instead. Simply type that name into the Computer box and click connect. Please note that the picture shown is the RDC program from Windows 7. Yours may vary and you may need to run Windows Updates to ensure you have the most current RDC program installed. Once you have created a connection to the system you can simply use it as if you are physically sitting locally. Not only does this give you the freedom to administer your server from anywhere but it also allows you to operate in a headless mode (without monitor, keyboard, and mouse) as well. 12

19 Setting Up User Access Setting Up User Access Before you can setup shares and allow access to data you must set up and configure User Accounts and Access Rights. Windows Storage Server 2008 can do this one of two ways, either as a standalone system in Peer-to-Peer network or you can join it to a Windows Active Directory Domain. The advantage of the Domain is that all it makes user management much easier by sharing access information to all systems in the domain. That way you don t have to define a user account for everyone on every system, you simply create the user credentials once and that s it. This chapter will focus on how to configure your Digiliant Windows Storage Server 2008 system in a Peer-to-Peer network. If you need assistance on how to create Users and Groups on a Windows Domain, please consult you network administrator or the documentation of your Windows Server operating system. There are many differences in how this is done on the compatible server systems, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 and is beyond the scope of this guide. Before you begin it is a good idea to have a list of the entire logon IDs and Passwords in your organization of all the people who need to access this system. This is the biggest downfall of the Peer-to-Peer environment, you will have to create the accounts that these users use on their system on the storage server. While you do not have to recreate them exactly you can make management of user access much easier by simply cloning their current logons for seamless access to data shares. Creating New Users and Groups To create new user accounts open the Server Manager console. You can find this on the Desktop or on the Task Pane by clicking on the Start Button. 13

20 Setting Up User Access On the left-hand side of the console, open up Configuration and then the Local Users and Groups lists. Here is where we will create a new user account. In the center area of the console you should see a list of the currently defined users. Right-click on the whitespace in that center view and a menu will appear. Left-click on the first option called New User. 14

21 Setting Up User Access Creating New Users The New User dialog box will appear and this is where you enter basic user information. Your Storage Server is configured to use Strong Passwords and thus will require you to meet their requirements. If the password for the user you are creating is rejected you will need to create a new one. It is then recommended that you change the password for this user to match this password to ease connection to the server. It is also recommended that you only check the User cannot change password and Password never expires options. This will ensure that everything stays in sync. When you are finished, click Create. Creating User Groups In order to be granted access to shares or other resources on the Storage Server, every user must have rights. These are defined by the Group(s) that the user account is associated with. By default every user account you create will be a member of the Users Group, which is fine in most cases. However, by using groups you can ease configuration requirements when you need to, for example, allow access to shares by certain people and deny access to others. 15

22 Setting Up User Access To create a new user Group, click on the Groups Tab under Users as shown above. Then right-click on the empty space under the existing groups and a menu will appear. Left-click on New Group. 16

23 Setting Up User Access Under Group name is where you specify the name of the user group that you want to create. This is a short name and you want to keep it as simple as possible. Then in the Description field you can type in the long or full name of the group. When you are finished, click Create. In the next sections we will cover how to assign users to your groups and why this may be something you may want to use in your organization. Assigning Users to Groups Using the Accounting Department example above is a good reason to show why you may wish to assign users to a group. There will be some discussion of Network Shares and Security settings, but it will be limited to users. Please refer to the next Chapter, Disk, Volume, and Share Management for more information. Assume that you are planning on creating a share called Accounting where you will keep documents and such in regards to the financial operations of your organization. Therefore it is safe to assume that you want to control who can access that data as not everyone will have a need to. By assigning the correct user accounts to the Accounting group you can make the Accounting share accessible only to people who are a member of this group. 17

24 Setting Up User Access Right-click on the user you wish to assign additional groups to. Then left-click on Properties to edit the user account. On the User Properties dialog click on the Member Of Tab to assign which groups this user will belong to. Near the bottom of this dialog, click on Add to bring up the Select Groups dialog box. At the bottom of the dialog in the white area simply type the name of the group and click on Check Names to the right. Windows will then fill in the full name of the group(s) that you typed. You can enter more than one group by separating them with a semicolon. Then click OK to close this box and OK again to close the User Properties dialog. 18

25 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Disk, Volume, and Share Management Your Digiliant Windows Storage Server 2008 system comes preconfigured with an Operating System (OS) partition and a DATA partition where you will store your data. The DATA partition is actually a Hardware RAID and its size depends on how many individual hard drives your system came with and how large they are, as well as the RAID type. In most cases you will not need to modify these drives at all. However, by default we create your DATA partition as one single partition. On larger systems, such as the 8U and 9U systems that contain an upwards of 96TB of data there will be two data partitions as the drives are split among two physical RAID controllers. In order to make modifications to your partitions, open up Disk Management in the Server Manager as shown below. 19

26 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Disk Management Your disks are already setup at build and there is really no reason to make any changes other than if you lost an array and had to rebuild it from scratch. Right-click the box of the disk, such as Disk 1 and a menu will appear. If the total size of the drive is more than 2TB in size select Convert to GPT Disk. If you do not then Windows will not be able to create volumes larger than 2TB in size. Once the conversion is complete you can recreate your volume(s). Advanced Volume Features If you wish to make changes a DATA volume, right-click it and a menu will appear. From there you can Delete volume, Shrink volume or Extend volume (if there is unused space on the drive). Please be sure to backup any data before you use these advanced features as data loss is possible. Deleting a Volume Right-click on the volume you wish to remove and select Delete. Answer yes to any prompts and the space will be made available to create one or more new volumes. Please note that this will delete all data that was on the old volume. If you have data already then you may wish to Shrink volume instead. Creating a Volume Right-click on the black block of available space and select New Simple Volume. Make any changes you need to from their default settings, but be sure to check Quick Format or it will take quite a long time before the volume is available for use. 20

27 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Shrinking a Volume Right-click the volume you want to make smaller and select Shrink volume. Windows will not allow you to resize the volume any smaller than the size in use for data. Type in the new size you want and click Shrink. The process time varies and once it completes you will have space free to create new volumes. Extending a Volume If you have free space on a drive then you can extend a volume to include some or all of that space. Simply right-click on the volume you wish to add more space to and select Extend volume. Type in the amount you want to add and click Extend. WARNING to 9U System Users Although Storage Server will allow you to create a Stripe (RAID 0) and merge your two DATA volumes into one large drive, we highly recommend that you do not do this. The reason is because if you lose one array for some reason then the stripe will break and you will LOSE ALL DATA across both DATA volumes. If you still wish to do this please be aware that Digiliant does not support this and we will be unable to provide support should you decide to create a stripe. We also do not recommend that you create a Mirror (RAID 1) between the DATA volumes as well. You already have Hardware RAID protection and not only will you lose 50% of your total storage space but you can also slow system performance down as well from Windows constantly copying data between them. 21

28 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Share and Storage Manager Before you can start storing data you need to setup the actual location(s) where you want to place it. This is done the easiest using the new Share and Storage Management tool located in the Administrative Tools menu by clicking the Start button. From this single tool you can create and manage your system shares in one easy location. In the following sections we ll go over how to create shares, set their permissions, and enable quotas so you can fine tune to meet your data storage needs. 22

29 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Provisioning a Share On the right side of the console is the Actions pane. Click on Provision Share to start the Provision a Shared Folder Wizard. This starts the process of creating a share for user data. Share Folder Location The first page of the wizard is the location of the share you wish to create. Under Location click Browse and select the drive you want to use. Then you can create a New Folder and rename it to help identify what this folder will contain. For this example we have chosen Accounting. Click Next to go to the next step. NTFS Permissions In most cases you can leave the default option of No, do not change NTFS permissions selected but for this example we will set permissions so we can restrict access to this share only to Administrators and members of the Accounting Group. Click Yes change NTFS permissions and click Edit Permissions. 23

30 Disk, Volume, and Share Management The Permissions dialog is where we will change the default permissions for the Accounting share. Click Add to bring up the Users or Group dialog box. Enter the name of the group you need to add and click Check Names to make sure it s defined correctly. Then click OK. Now that Accounting shows up as a group, click on it to highlight it and then in the Permissions to Accounting box check Full Control, and the click Apply on the bottom. Now that permissions are set we need to remove access to the Users group. This is accomplished by removing the Inherited Permissions from the parent. Since everyone is part of the Users group by default we do not want to deny Users access since all deny settings will supersede allow permissions. Click on the Advanced button. 24

31 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Near the bottom uncheck the Include inherited permissions from this object s parent and then click Remove on the dialog box that comes up. Now you will only see two groups listed under Permission entries, the Accounting and Administrators groups which is what we want. Click OK to close this box and then click Next on the wizard page. Share Protocol The next page is where you can select your sharing protocol. This guide only covers SMB (Network Share) and not NFS. Click SMB and the name of the share is automatically populated. You can change the name if you would like to but it is recommended to leave it the same as name as the actual directory to easily identify it. Click Next and you will be given the opportunity to type in a user friendly description of this share. If you need to set advanced options you can by clicking the Advanced button, however the default settings will work most of the time. When you click Next the SMB Permissions page comes up. Windows Permission Best Practices state setting user access at the file level is preferred, which was done with the NTFS Permissions page. The reason is that it is quite easy to create conflicting permissions and the NTFS permissions will supersede the SMB permissions. Therefore it is best to select the third option, Administrators have Full Control; all other users and groups have only Read access and Write access and then click Next. 25

32 Disk, Volume, and Share Management Quota Policy The Quota Policy page is where you can impose storage limits if you need to. You can check Apply quota and select from some of the existing templates. If you do need to enable a quota and would like more information, click the link on the bottom of the page. When you are finished click Next. File Screen Policy If you need to restrict certain files in this share then you can check Apply file screen and chose a template such as Block Audio and Video Files. For more information click the link at the bottom of the page. Otherwise you can leave this option off by default and click Next. 26

33 Disk, Volume, and Share Management DFS Namespace Publishing If you have a Distributed File System or DFS setup you can publish this share into your DFS. We will cover how to setup and configure a DFS in the next chapter. For the purpose of this share simply click Next. Review Settings and Create Share This is the final page and where you can review a summary of all the settings of the share before you actually create it. If everything is set correctly then click Create. The confirmation page will then appear and let you know if there were any issues that need to be corrected, but in most cases the share will be completed successfully. Click Close to complete the wizard. 27

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35 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication One of the problems that can exist on a larger network is keeping track of multiple shares across multiple servers. This is where the Distributed File System or DFS comes in. Using DFS you can create a Root Share as a centralized location to allow users to easily find other shares in one place instead of having to search multiple locations or map multiple connections. While you can run DFS in a Standalone (peer-to-peer) environment, you do lose many of the features that Storage Server 2008 can provide when it is a member of an Active Directory Domain. Since any created share on a standalone system will be displayed by simply browsing to the system, DFS is generally not needed when you only have a single storage server in a peer-topeer environment. Therefore we will only cover DFS in a Domain Setting and the advanced features it provides, such as Replication among many member systems. Installing Support for Namespaces and Replication The root of a DFS is called a Namespace and should be something that will identify the data content contained within. Before you will be able to create one you need to install the DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication options in File Services under Roles. This can be done by bringing up the Server Manager and clicking on Roles. 29

36 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication One right hand side of the Server Manager next to Role Services click on Add Role Services. This will start the wizard that will enable your Storage Server 2008 system to create and manage DFS. Select Role Services The first option of the wizard is where you need to check the Distributed File System and its two sub options, DFS Namespaces and DFS Replication. Once you have them all checked click on Next. 30

37 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Create a DFS Namespace The option the wizard asks you is if you want to go ahead and create a Namespace. Check the option to Create a namespace later and click Next. The reason for this is you only get basic options from the wizard and it s better to use the actual DFS Management Tools to create your namespaces with. Confirm Installation Selections The final option is to Confirm your Installation Selections. Go ahead and click on Install to begin the process of adding DFS Support to your Storage Server. 31

38 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Now that we have installed the required files to enable DFS and Replication you can access them from the Server Manager as shown below. Creating a New Namespace Before users can utilize the features of DFS you must create one or more Namespaces first. A Namespace is a centralized location for multiple shares. For example, your Accounting Department has one share for Billing and another one for Company Assets that are on two different servers. With DFS we can consolidate them into one location to not only make it easier for users to access but also enable administrators to ensure those shares are always available. To create a Namespace, click on New Namespace on the right hand side of the Server Manager to start the New Namespace Wizard. The following sections will use a Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise System as our Active Directory Domain Controller named SERVER2008 and a Windows Storage Server 2008 Standard named NAS-01 to create a Namespace on. 32

39 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Namespace Server The first page of the New Namespace Wizard is where you select which server you want to host this namespace on. While you can choose any server on your network, it is recommended to use your storage server. Once you set the host server, click Next. Namespace Name and Settings Here is where you select a Name for the root of your namespace. Make sure the name you choose clearly states what type of data is contained within. For the purpose of this manual we will create a namespace for a fictional Accounting Department. Once you ve typed in the name, click Next. 33

40 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Namespace Type Since the host server is part of a Windows 2008 Active Directory Domain, we will select to use a Domain-based namespace. While we can create a Standalone namespace we ultimately want to set up File Replication, which requires a domain. If you happen to be running a Windows 2008 Domain, check Enable Windows Server 2008 mode for additional features. Click Next when you are done. Review Settings The final page of the wizard will summarize the settings of the namespace. If everything looks correct then click Create. 34

41 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Adding Folders to a Namespace Now that we have created a namespace for an Accounting Department we need to add folders for users to store data. In the Server Manager expand Roles until you have selected the Accounting namespace. As you can see we do not have any folders defined yet so the namespace is empty. Simply click on New Folder on the right side of the console to add a folder into the namespace. 35

42 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication New Folder Folders inside a namespace are actually individual network shares and the New Folder option will is an easy way to create new ones. In the Name field type in a name for the new namespace folder. Then click on the Add button to create the actual share. Under Server select which server in your network that you want to host the share at. Again, we recommend that you host all of your shares from your storage server. After the server is contacted you ll see a list of all the current shares on it. We will create a new one so click New Shared Folder. 36

43 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication In the Create Share box type in a name for the new share, it should be a simple name for what you plan to store inside. Click on Browse to set the location of this new share. In the Browse For Folder window you can expand out the drives of the server and either select an existing folder or click on Make New Folder to create a new one. Click on the destination folder and then click OK. Finally, set the Shared folder permissions to All users have read and write permissions. It s always best to use NTFS permissions to control file access and this way we prevent possible permission conflicts, but changing this will prevent users from not being able to write to the folder. Click OK to continue. 37

44 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Now the new share will be available as an option for the target of the new namespace folder. Click the folder and then click OK to continue. The New Folder window shows the location of the folder we are about to create. Under Folder targets you can see the server and location of where the data will be stored. While you can add more targets, we ll cover that later in this chapter as it deals with replication. Click OK to create the new namespace folder. 38

45 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication In the Server Manager you will now see the new folder listed in the center of the console. You may repeat the Add Folder Target as many times as you need to. We recommend that you create a folder for different types of files, such as a Payroll folder and a Taxes folder for example. That way you can keep your data organized for easier access. Now that we have a functional namespace, any computer on your domain can access it like any other share. What makes namespaces so powerful in a domain is that you access them with the actual domain name, not the server name. That way once you have replication set up if the primary server goes down then one of the replication servers takes over. This is completely invisible to the user. The other reason for using the domain name is because a namespace can have folders from shares across many different servers so we can centralize the location where users access data. From one simple network map you can access data from any server in your organization, as shown from this Windows 7 Professional workstation. 39

46 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Folder Replication One of the more powerful features of Windows Storage Server 2008 is Replication. With two or more servers replicating folders you can ensure a high availability of data in the event that the primary server goes down. This is accomplished by having two or more Target Folders for each folder in your namespace. In order to demonstrate how this is done, let s expand on the Accounting namespace we just created. We will also need a second server to host a new folder target on and we ll use a second Windows Storage Server 2008 system named NAS-02 to do so. While we could use the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise server that is the domain controller for this network, we want to both limit the strain on our domain controller and utilize the features of Storage Server. Before we can replicate a folder in our namespace we need to add at least one more target to the folder(s). To do so we need to be at the namespace in the Server Manager as show below. 40

47 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Click on the Folder you wish to add a target to highlight it and then click on Add Folder Target on the bottom half of the right side in the Server Manager. In the example on the previous page, you ll note that the header is Billing, which is the name of the folder we want to add the additional target to. New Folder Target Clicking Add Folder Target brings up the New Folder Target window. As with the Billing Folder we created previously, adding a new target is done the same way with one exception; we will connect to a second server and create a share on it instead of the server where we created the namespace on. Once you have the path to the folder target set, click OK. Because we now have more than one target for our Billing Folder we ll be asked if we want to create a replication group. Since we do, click Yes to start the wizard. 41

48 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Replication Group and Replicated Folder Name By default the wizard will populate the Replication group name and Replicated folder name fields, which you should not change. Click on Next to continue. Replication Eligibility The Replication Eligibility page will check if the target folders will work with replication. In the Details you will see the location of the two folders that will be used to create this replication set. Click Next to continue. 42

49 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Primary Member Now we need to tell the wizard which server will be the Primary Member of this replication group. If you click the Primary server list, it will display your choices based on what servers are hosting a folder target. In this example, NAS-02 is our backup server so NAS-01 will be the Primary Server, which is the default. Once you have selected your primary server, click Next to continue. Topology Selection Topology is the type of replication you want to take place. In most cases Full mesh will work the best, but if you end up having more than 10 servers in your replication set you may want to select Hub and spoke. Since we only have two servers we will leave the default setting of Full mesh. Click Next to continue. 43

50 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Replication Group Schedule and Bandwidth By default the wizard will set up the replication group to replicate continuously and use all available bandwidth to keep the files in sync. For this example we will leave the default settings, but if need to restrict the days or amount of bandwidth used for replication, you can create a custom setting as well. Click Next to continue. Review Settings and Create Replication Group The last page of the wizard will review the settings in case you need to make a change. When you are satisfied, click Create to create the replication group. 44

51 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Managing Replication Groups In the Server Manager once you have created a replication group you can manage it by going to the Replication section under Roles as shown below. Simply click on the group name you wish to manage to access the available tools on the right side of the console. The two you will want to check on a regular basis are Create Diagnostic Report, which will show you any potential problems that may have come up, and Verify Topology to ensure that your servers are replicating in the manner you need them to. 45

52 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication How Replication Works Now that we have a replication group in place for the Billing Folder you may not be completely clear on the importance of why we set it up. As far as people accessing data from Billing, they will still reach their data from the same location of the namespace. A typical Windows 7 Professional user would see this when they go to the Billing Folder to access data. One directory that holds the files. If we look at NAS-01 we can browse to find the location of the Billing Share to see the same file that we did on the Windows 7 Professional system. Since NAS-01 was chosen as the Primary Server for the replication set, this is where users will actual get their files from. 46

53 Distributed File System (DFS) and Replication Finally, if we go into NAS-02 and browse to where it s Billing folder share is we will see the same contents as NAS-01. Suppose that NAS-01 goes down due to an operating system crash and can no longer host the Billing folder. Users will be unaware of this because NAS-02 will now take over until NAS-01 is brought back online. At the next scheduled replication time NAS-01 will resynchronize with NAS-02 and resume operation as the Primary Server. What this means to you is that you can create an environment that ensures data is available to your users even if a file server goes offline. As long as at least one server in a replication group is online then as far as your users are concerned everything is working as normal. 47

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55 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Creating and Managing iscsi Targets iscsi is a protocol that allows you to create storage space on a remote storage device and yet still appear as a locally attached hard drive. iscsi requires two parts to function, the Target, which is where the data is actually stored and the Initiator that connects the client system to the target. A perfect example of this would be a virtual server where it can store its drives on a storage server instead of the host system. In order to create an iscsi Target you must be running Windows Storage Server 2008 Workgroup or Standard Editions. The Basic Edition does not support iscsi. Creating an iscsi Target Before you can create your target you need to get some information from the system that will be connecting to it from its Initiator Program. Windows Visa, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 have the Microsoft iscsi Initiator already installed but for earlier versions such as Windows Server 2003 you need to download it from Microsoft.com and install it first. At the time of this writing you can download it at: BEFD1319F825&displaylang=en 49

56 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets In Windows Vista you ll find the iscsi Initiator in the Control Panel, and in both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 it s located in Administrative Tools. Go ahead and launch the program once you ve installed and/or located it. If your initiator is not Microsoft s, please refer to its documentation or contact your vendor for support. This is the initiator that comes with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. Yours may differ a little bit depending on what version you are running but they are all pretty much the same. Click on the Configuration Tab to find the Initiator Name. This is a unique name on your network to identify this system like a computer name. We recommend that you leave it alone but if you need to change it, click Change and type in a new name as long as remains unique on the network. Make a note of the name as we ll need it during the creation of the iscsi Target. When you are done click Cancel to close the initiator. Open the Server Manager and under Storage is where you ll find the iscsi Targets console. Once you have it displayed, right-click on it to bring up a menu and select Create iscsi Target. Go ahead and click Next on the first page of the wizard. Note: If at any time you are asked to allow iscsi in the Windows Firewall please do so. 50

57 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets iscsi Target Identification Type in a Name for the target that states what it is for and then a Description of what this target is for. As with initiator identifiers your iscsi target names need to be unique as well. Take the time to clearly identify the purpose of your targets to make later administration easier. Click Next to continue. iscsi Initiators Identifiers This page is where you specify which initiators can connect to this target. You can click Browse and hopefully find the one you are looking for, which unfortunately does not always work. Go ahead and enter the name you copied from your initiator if you cannot find it. Click Next to continue. The final page will appear at this point so click Finish to end the wizard. 51

58 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Creating a Virtual Hard Drive for an iscsi Target Now that we have created a target we need to create the actual drive it will use for data storage. Microsoft iscsi uses virtual hard drive files instead of taking sections of your data array so we ll need to create one before we can connect the target to a system. After a target is created it will be displayed in Server Manager. Right-click the target you want to create a virtual disk for and select Create Virtual Disk for iscsi Target. This will start the Create Virtual Disk Wizard and attach the new drive to the target for us. Go ahead and click Next on the first page to continue. File Before you click Browse, decide on where you want to store you virtual drives as the wizard will not allow you to create them. When you do browse to your location you will have to add \filename.vhd to the end as shown in the picture. If you don t the wizard will inform you it needs the full path and filename before it can continue. When you have it correctly entered, click Next to continue. 52

59 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Size Type in the size for the virtual drive in Megabytes, such as 1024 for 1 GB of space in the Size of virtual disk (MB) box. Click Next to continue. Description In the Virtual disk description field, type in a name that identifies what this virtual disk will be used for. Click Next to continue and the Finish on the final page to end the wizard. 53

60 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Connecting to an iscsi Target Now that we have created a target we can use our initiator to connect to it. Launch the Microsoft iscsi Initiator again. If you cannot connect to your target using the following guide, please refer to Appendix A about how to allow iscsi with the Windows Firewall if something is still blocked. Click on the Discovery Tab. Here is where we will tell the initiator about the server the target is located on. Sometimes the initiator will find it automatically and sometimes it will not. If it is not displayed, click Discover Portal. Under IP address or DNS name type in the name or IP address of the server hosting the target. The default TCP port for iscsi is 3260 so leave it at the default setting and click OK. 54

61 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Now click on the Targets Tab and you should see the name being used by the remote server, which is similar to the Identifier Name of this system. If you do not see it, click Refresh and it should appear. Notice that it s Status is Inactive. That means while we are talking to the iscsi target now we are not actually connected to it yet. Click the Connect button. Leave the settings at default and click OK. Now back on the Targets Tab you see that the status has changed to Active. This means we are now connected to the iscsi target. 55

62 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Finally, click on the Volumes and Devices Tab. This page displays all the iscsi Volumes that this initiator is connected to. Click on Auto Configure to make them available for use on the system and then click OK to close the initiator. Depending on what operating system you are using, you will now need to create a partition and format it before you can begin to use it. The initiator used in this guide was the one included with Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise and demonstrated how you connect an iscsi target to a production server in your network. To make the drive available we simply open up Disk Management. As far as Disk Management is concerned, the 1GB iscsi Target is a local drive. 56

63 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Advanced Virtual Disk Management Tools Now that we have a Virtual Disk created there are some advanced features that Windows Storage 2008 provides to not only protect your data but also mount them on the server as a local drive. To access these features, bring up the Server Manager and drop down to the Devices console as shown below. If you right-click one of your disks the tools menu will appear. From here you can do tasks such as create a new virtual disk or expand an existing one. You can even delete them or import one from another server as well. You can also take a manual Snapshot of the current contents of the selected disk or even mount it as a local drive. 57

64 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Virtual Disk Properties If you need to make changes to a virtual drive after its been created, right-click the disk and choose Properties from the command menu. This window is where you can set advanced features and view the current status of the disk, such as if you have it mounted as a drive. General Here you can Enable the disk and change the description of it. Target Access Displayed in iscsi Targets are the active iscsi targets you have that can access this virtual drive. If you need more than one, click Add. You can also remove targets if you click its name and then Remove. 58

65 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Disk Access If you have this virtual disk mounted, Disk Access will tell you its status and what its current mount point is. Currently this disk is mounted as local drive E: on the Storage Server. Snapshots After you have started to take snapshots of virtual disks, they will appear in the Snapshots Tab. You can also create new snapshots here or delete ones on the list. If you want to roll back to an earlier state you can do so as well. Finally, if you want to export the disk to another server, you can. 59

66 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Snapshot Storage The last tab under Properties is Snapshot Storage. This is where you can specify how much disk space that can be used to save snapshots with. Once this space runs out, Windows Storage Server 2008 will delete old snapshots to make space for the new one. They are deleted oldest first. Storage Drive is where you can select which drive on the server will hold the snapshots. Maximum storage size (MB) gives you the option to limit to the amount of space snapshots can use, or to limit it to a certain amount. If you select Use Limit then you can specify the size in MB, so 2047 as shown would be 2GB of space allowed for snapshots. After you have made your changes, click OK to close the window. Managing Virtual Disk Snapshots A Snapshot is a copy of the state of a virtual disk. You can use them to backup your data and even mount them as a local drive. An example of how this can be useful is that say a user copies over a document file with a new copy and lost a lot of work. You can simply mount a snapshot of that virtual disk and make a copy of that file and recover what was lost. Snapshots are found in the Server Manager in the iscsi Targets console as shown on the next page. 60

67 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Mounting and Dismounting a Snapshot To mount a snapshot as a local drive, right-click the disk you want to mount to bring up its command menu. Select Disk Access->Mount Snapshot and it will appear in Disk Management as if it were a locally installed disk. When you are finished using it and want to dismount the snapshot, bring the command menu up and click Dismount Snapshot, 61

68 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Setting an Automatic Snapshot Schedule While manual snapshots are quite convenient, you can configure a Snapshot Schedule to have them created automatically. To do so simply right-click Schedules under Snapshots in the iscsi Targets console to start the wizard. Go ahead and click Next on the welcome page. Schedule Actions The default selection of simply Take snapshots of the virtual disks in most cases is what you ll want to select. The other option will not only take snapshots but it will also mount them as drives, which can tie up server resources. Click Next to continue. Name Type in a good description of this schedule in the Schedule name field and click Next to continue. 62

69 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Virtual Disks You can specify here if you want all of your virtual disks to be selected for this schedule or if you want to only select certain ones. Once you ve made your selection(s), click Next to continue. Frequency You are now presented with various options on when you want the schedule to run. Select the frequency that is most appropriate for your data. For this guide we ll just select Daily. Click Next to continue. 63

70 Creating and Managing iscsi Targets Daily Schedule The options for a Daily Schedule will let you pick the time the schedule runs, which days it will run, and when this schedule should start running. In most cases you would want to run this during your off peak hours, and generally on Weekdays. Click Next and then Finish to close the wizard. 64

71 Appendix A: iscsi Ports and Windows Firewall Appendix A: iscsi Ports and Windows Firewall The Microsoft iscsi Target requires certain TCP/UDP Ports to be open to work properly. The following table shows which ports are required, what they are used for, and will assist you in opening the necessary ports and create the required rules for a 3rd-party firewall application or hardware appliance. Please refer to your documentation for help as this appendix only covers the built-in Windows Firewall. Microsoft iscsi Target Ports and Applications Port or Application TCP 3260 TCP 135 UDP 138 C:\Windows\System32\Wintarget.exe C:\Windows\System32\WTStatusProxy.exe Description The Microsoft iscsi Target Service. This is the primary port used for iscsi on Windows Storage Server 2008 Workgroup and Standard Editions. Remote Procedure Call. Required for the Component Object Module (COM) to communicate through. NetBIOS Datagram Service. This is most likely already allowed, but if it isn t then it needs to be added manually. The Microsoft iscsi Software Target Service program file. The Microsoft iscsi Software Target Status Proxy program. 65

72 Appendix A: iscsi Ports and Windows Firewall Enabling iscsi in the Windows Firewall When the iscsi Target Console asks you if you want to enable iscsi in the firewall and you select Yes, there shouldn t be a need for any additional configuration. If you find that you cannot connect to your iscsi targets, check the following rule to ensure that it s enable as shown below in the Server Manager. Under Inbound Rules scroll until you see iscsi Service (TCP-In) as shown highlighted above. If it s Disabled, click Enable on the right side of the console and try your connection to the targets again. The firewall should now be open. 66

73 Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server If for any reason you need to restore your Digiliant Windows Storage 2008 Server back to factory defaults you ll need to boot from the Restore DVD that shipped in a pocket attached to the inside of the back cover of this guide. When your server left the factory it was set to boot CD/DVDs first so simply insert the DVD and restart the system. Note: When you see a prompt to press any key to boot from DVD press any key, you ll only have a few seconds before the system will boot from the primary raid. Wait for the DVD to load until you see the Digiliant Recovery Management screen. From here you can Restore OS to factory default, Go to command prompt for advanced tools, or Restart the computer. Press the 1 key and then Enter to start the Restore process. 67

74 Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server The first screen of the Restore process will display the RAID Arrays in your system with the OS RAID as the first selection and followed by one or more DATA RAID sets depending on your system and configuration from the factory. In most cases you will press 0 and then press Enter. The last screen before the disk is wiped and the image is restored will be a confirmation screen that will display which drive will be restored. Type yes and press Enter to start the restore. ** WARNING ** Make sure you have the correct Disk selected. If you restore to the wrong one you will lose data! 68

75 Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server The disk will now be formatted and the Factory Image will be restored. Depending on the size this could take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more. You will be shown the current progress and an estimated time of completion. When the restore is complete the DVD should eject and the progress screen will prompt you to Press Enter key to restart the computer. Take out the DVD, close the drive, and press Enter to reboot the system. The system will then begin the Windows Setup portion and may reboot a few times. In a few minutes you should see a screen asking for your Product Key. 69

76 Appendix B: Restoring your Digiliant Server Your Product Key has been attached to your server in one of two places. If you have Tower Server you will find it located on the Left-Side of the case on the Upper-Front side. And if you have a Rack mount Server it will be at the Front-Center of the Top of the system, you most likely will have to pull it out far enough to read it. Type in your Key and click Next. You will then be asked to agree to Microsoft s End User License or you cannot use the system. Check the I Agree box and click Next. Please note that if your agreement says Beta Software anywhere it is because Microsoft did not update the agreement for some reason after the beta ended. Rest assured you have the officially released version of Windows Storage Server Finally you are taken to a Welcome screen. Simply click OK and the restore is now complete. You may configure the system to your individual needs. 70