Apache HTTP server on Windows Server 2008 Server Core

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Microsoft’s James O’Neill wrote about how:

“Some bright spark tried running Apache on [Windows Server 2008 Server] Core and having no special Windows dependencies it works.”

I couldn’t find any references to this elsewhere on the ‘net so I had to give it a go – it’s actually really easy:

  1. Install Windows Server 2008 Server Core
  2. Map a network drive, insert a CD or some other media and copy over the Apache HTTP server installer MSI.
  3. Issue the command, msiexec /i apache_2.2.4-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi.

    Not surprisingly, the installer is unable to create application shortcuts:

    Apache HTTP Server 2.2 Installer Information

    Warning 1909. Could not create shortcut Apache Online Documentation.lnk. Verify that the destination folder exists and that you can access it.

    Apache HTTP Server 2.2 Installer Information

    Warning 1909. Could not create shortcut Help, I’m stuck!.lnk. Verify that the destination folder exists and that you can access it.

    Presumably, that’s what causes an error dialog with no message and an OK button at the end of the install.

  4. Open up the firewall with netsh firewall set portopening TCP 80 "Apache Web Server".
  5. Point a browser at the server’s IP address and the words “It works!” should be displayed.

OK, so Apache running on Windows is no big deal but if this one cross-platform application runs on Server Core with no modifications, think what else this stripped out version of Windows can be used for.

Fixing RIS after installing Windows Server 2003 SP2

Posted on By Mark Wilson

This may be an isolated incident, as I’ve already written about how my Windows Server 2003 SP2 installation appeared to be broken (but was ultimately successful) but ever since SP2 was installed, I’ve been warned about service startup failures and have been unable to PXE boot to RIS.

I haven’t bothered too much – my RIS server is used for XP builds and I rarely need to build XP machines these days but as there are no fully-featured Windows Vista display drivers for my IBM ThinkPad T40, I wanted to rebuild it on XP today.

It turns out that the problem was trivial. RIS has been replaced in Windows Server 2003 SP2 by Windows Deployment Services (WDS). WDS includes something called Windows Deployment Services Legacy – which looks remarkably like RIS to me (it uses WDS binaries to provide RIS functionality). I fired up the Windows Deployment Services Legacy administrative tool and performed a diagnostic check, after which PXE boots resulted in a successful connection to the OSChooser.

Windows Server 2008 Server Core

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Scotty McLeod recently gave a presentation to the Windows Server UK User Group on Windows Server 2008 Server Core. I mentioned Server Core in a previous post but here’s some more on the subject, based on Scotty’s presentation (it’s also worth checking out Micheal Pietroforte’s post on Server Core essentials).

  • Contrary to popular belief, Server Core still has a GUI. There is no Start Menu, no Explorer, no Internet Explorer (it is entirely command-line driven), but the logon screen is graphical and some GUI applications can be used (the latest beta includes an old version of notepad.exe that has very few dependencies and rundll.exe can be used to launch some GUI hooks). It is rumoured that, because some of the product teams didn’t follow Microsoft’s own application development rules, it’s too difficult to remove the GUI from Windows without breaking it completely.
  • At present, the Server Core image is about 600MB in size – small enough to facilitate some interesting potential deployment scenarios – and, because of its small size, Server Core installs quickly.
  • The number of supported roles for Server Core is growing quickly – that could be seen as a potential weakness but even so, the basic principle of providing a reduced attack service for common server scenarios still holds true. Interestingly, one of the roles (and potentially the most problematic of them all) is as an (IIS) web server – only for ISAPI/ASP applications (i.e. no .NET Framework – yet) but rumour has it that Apache will also run on Server Core and a cut-down IIS allows the installation of PHP for a Windows alternative to a LAMP web server (this lends itself to an unfortunate acronym though – WIMP – Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP).
  • Because there is no .NET Framework for Server Core at this time, there is no ability to run PowerShell scripts.
  • After installation, Server Core has a blank administrator password. This must be changed at logon but can be changed to another blank password; however keeping it blank will prevent remote access to the server.
  • Core server has huge potential, but still seems to be a little disjointed on the administration front (ironic, given what a huge improvement has been made in the full installation through the introduction of the Server Manager tool) – it seems that the recommended approach is to use a full Windows Server 2008 server as a management server for the various Core Server installations around the enterprise.

Spreading some link love

Posted on By Mark Wilson

The rel="nofollow" attribute on HTML anchors was supposed to help prevent comment spam. Unfortunately, as Michael Hampton explains at length, NoFollow hasn’t worked – at least not based on the volume of comment spam that Akismet has removed since I moved to WordPress ([[akismet_counter]] spam comments detected as you read this post).

U comment. I follow.Randa Clay has created an alternative – the I Follow Movement – sites that acknowledge the contribution that commenting makes to the blogoshere (avoiding the need to specifically add links to a blogroll in order to spread some link love). I figure that if NoFollow is not preventing comment spam, the least I can do is let the information people leave here in comments work for them in the search engines (at the risk that a few spam comments will still make it through).

Following Owen’s example, I’ve implemented the DoFollow WordPress plug-in on this site so URLs in comments will now (hopefully) be picked up by the Googlebot, Slurp, MSNbot, Teoma and others. Incidentally, if I specifically add rel="nofollow" to a link, it still works – so it’s still possible to block links that you really don’t want the bots to follow (robots.txt directives are unaffected too).

So, please, comment away – and consider doing the same on your site.