That’s right. In my quest to take the most advantage of server core, I really wanted SQL Server 2008 to be installable on server core, but with the limitations in R1 it wasn't an option.
However its now different with R2!
Today I successfully installed SQL Server 2008 x64 on Windows Server 2008 Server Core R2 (x64) and then successfully created a database on it via a remote machine!
By following the steps outlined by Joachim Nässlander on his post titled “SQL Server 2008 on Server Core 2008 R2” I successfully installed SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2008 Server Core R2.
I’m a huge fan of Server Core installations for these kinds of things. Services like DNS, WEB, SQL, ***SHAREPOINT WEB SERVERS**** are perfect for being installed on a cut down GUI-less version of Windows.
Why SharePoint WFE Server? Well it’s just a web server, anything you need to do can (or should) be able to be done remotely. For example, SharePoint Designer/Workspaces, STSADM, Powershell, Web Browser, Office, Web Services, etc.. .… its all remote enabled these days.
A SharePoint Core Server would be a light weight purpose built web server for quickly serving your important content for your users.
Anywho…. back to the installation of SQL2K8 on WIN2K8R2Core….
I started off by kicking off a command line based installation of SQL Server using various parameters outlined in Joachim’s post, replacing the account details with my SQL Server accounts credentials.
SQL Server 2008 unattended installation kick offs and various windows pop up and disappear as different tasks are run and completed.
Next the big window…. This one lasted the longest so I assume its doing the bulk of the installation & configuration of SQL server while the previous windows where the pre-requisites.
SQL Server finishes and all is said to be well.
Time for some manual steps according to Joachim!
So i open up regedit.exe and navigated to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\TCP to set the ‘Enabled’ option to ‘1’ (enabling the feature). However enabled was already enabled, so i left it enabled. :I
Next up, some setting of the Windows Firewall rules to allow remote administration and to open up the TCP/IP Ports.
So by now I'm pretty excited to test to see if I can not only connect to the server via SQL Server Management Studio, but to also create a database (just for testing purposes at this stage). However I didn't even SSMS installed anywhere.
Lucky I had a Virtual machine laying around which I could quickly install it on. Just took an extra 10mins :(
Low and behold, It not only connected, but I could also create a new database! Success, SQL Server install on Windows Server 2008 R2 Core!
Please keep in mind that this is not supported by Microsoft as far as I know and if you do this, you do it at your own risk.
Personally though, I think I just found a new practice for deploying my SQL Servers form now on in!
See no luck with getting SharePoint on Server Core yet. I’m going to have to give SharePoint 2010 a try also on Windows Server 2008 R2.