File servers, how to set them up,
who knows how to do all that?
I do, and guess what, come hang out with me now
and you’re gonna know how to do it also.
Hello everybody, my name is Adam Gordon,
an edutainer here at ITProTV,
coming at you with another fun and exciting episode
on our ongoing conversation
about how do I do that stuff in Windows Server?
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In this episode, we’re going to be talking about
how to set up a File Server
using the File Services in Windows Server 2022.
You know, I get asked about
how to do this a lot from customers
when I’m in the field working with them,
from students when I’m teaching,
we’ve heard about this concept,
we know that there’s a centralized solution
allowing us to share resources and manage access to them.
We know it’s buried somewhere inside those roles
and services Microsoft provides,
but we’re not quite sure how to set it up.
We’ve heard it’s complicated
and we know there’s all these other things,
Server Pools, Storage Pulls, Volumes, Discs,
the list goes on and we’re just not sure we can do it.
Well, let me tell you, there’s nothing you can’t do
if you just take the time to figure it out.
And when it comes to setting up File Services,
it really couldn’t be easier.
Let me show you what I mean.
Join me here if you will.
We’re in our Server 2022 virtual machine.
Running Server 2022 is a VM.
It’s just giving me the opportunity
to be able to create these conversations
and have them with you
without having to worry about having
all of this physical infrastructure,
sitting in our data centers, dedicated to doing this non-stop.
I can just run this thing right off my Windows 11 laptop,
which is what I do when I create these episodes
and we have these conversations, but I can do it from anywhere.
And believe it or not, I’m sitting in a beach in Bali right now,
even though that looks like our data center.
Alright, so back to where we are,
we’re gonna go ahead and talk about File Services.
Now, I’m using and I’m in the Server Manager
in Windows Server 2022.
We always begin our conversations here
and I always show you how to open up the Server Manager
if you’re not aware of where it is and how you can find it.
We go down to the Start menu,
and in case the Server Manager
has not already started up for you,
it’s gonna be there on the right in the navigation area,
it’s one of those tiles that is pinned,
it’s always in the upper left-hand corner.
Click that, you’ll be able to launch the Server Manager,
it’s gonna look just like this.
Now, in many servers that are configured up
out of the box so to speak, standard default installation,
we’re gonna see there is an element
of File and Storage Services already configured,
and it’s gonna be sitting there waiting for you.
It may not necessarily be there in your server,
it really just depends on your environment,
but let’s assume for a minute
on that left navigation bar right there
that you see File and Storage Services,
like I’m highlighting in blue.
What that indicates to you is that
some element of the File and Storage Services are configured,
but it may or may not be the File Server
that you’re interested in,
and we have to go under the hood, so to speak, and take a look.
So we’re gonna go ahead and we’re gonna click on that,
and we’re gonna see, sure enough,
that there are some File and Storage Services
that are currently exposed and available.
We see if we go in for a closer look,
we can see the server locally and how it is managed,
and underneath we can see Volumes, Discs
and potentially Storage Pools,
if they are configured and available.
Right now, I don’t have any Storage Pools in the system,
but I could set them up.
I don’t have anything other than just one simple Disc
that I’m working with, but you can see that right there.
And I currently have a couple of different Volumes
and I can see them displayed
and I can see the Storage status and consumption on them.
So I’ve got basic Storage System
management capabilities and visibilities,
but I don’t see anything about a File Server.
So in order to configure that, we’re gonna have to go
and install that as either a role or a feature.
And so we’re gonna go up
and we’re gonna go to Manage right up here
at the upper right-hand corner,
and we’re gonna click there
and we’re gonna use our Add Roles and Features option,
and we’re gonna go ahead and begin that process.
We’re gonna click and let me just bring this over here
and kind of plant it right in the middle of the screen
so you can see it.
We’re gonna be on a ‘Before you begin’ screen.
Not a lot we’ve got to worry about here,
so we just overview material Microsoft provides.
We can just quickly and simply click through this.
We can even skip this in future iterations
if we choose to, getting rid of it
so we don’t have to look at it again if we don’t want to.
We’re then gonna be on our ‘Installation Type’ screen
and we’re doing our standard default Install
which is Role or Feature based,
which is what we’re here to do,
or do we want to configure Remote Desktop Services.
If we choose to do that, we would make another selection.
Remote Desktop Services allow us
to provide services remotely from this machine
and make them available to other people
so they can connect; it’s up to us to decide.
But we want to configure the File Service,
so we’re gonna stay with our default choice.
We’re then gonna be asked to provide a focus on
through Service Selection, which server,
which machine, which end point we want to configure.
We always see the local machine there by default
and the Select a Server from the Server Pool box,
but if there are multiple servers we’re managing,
perhaps some of them are remote,
we’ll see multiple servers listed here,
we have to be aware
of the naming convention of the servers
and choose the one that we want to configure.
In this case, I’ll go with the default, the local one.
I have an option to select a virtual hard disc there
and to configure that virtual hard disc.
Pre-configuring it means it will have this capability,
this service, this feature, this role installed,
and then when I bring it up
and use it to spawn one or more virtual machines,
they’ll already be configured this way.
So I can do that if I choose to, if I want to.
There are additional steps
and I will have to provide a path
to where that virtual hard Disc File will be found,
the .vhdx file.
We’re not gonna do that in this discussion,
but at least you know that it is available.
We’re gonna stick with our server, select it,
we’re gonna click Next.
We then are gonna be presented
with our first of two screens
that will be of interest to us, our Roles.
Now, in order to install the Filer Server,
we have to know that it is actually gonna be
part of a Role that is available to us,
so we need to know what screen to look on.
And that Role that we’re gonna look for
is called the File and Storage Services,
we were just taking a look at that
on the Dashboard before we got started.
And we can see it’s selected there,
or at least I’m pointing to it right there,
about halfway down the screen.
It says File and Storage Services.
It says ‘1 of 12 installed’,
and there’s a black mark in the square
indicating that some configuration is taking place,
as we suggested, but we’re not fully configured yet.
So we’re gonna go ahead
and we’re gonna click the arrow to open this up.
We will see that the ‘File and iSCSI services’ area
is not selected, it is white, there is no check next to it,
unlike the Storage Services which are installed
and configured, as you can see, by default as I suggested.
So, we’re gonna go ahead.
We’re gonna open up ‘File and iSCSI services’,
exposing the additional options that we have.
And sure enough, at the top of that list,
I’m highlighting it,
kind of hovering over it right there, it says File Server.
And I can select that box, and when I do that,
I put a check in the box above,
I put a check in the File Server box,
and if all I want to do is set up the File Server
and have that up and running,
I’m good, I don’t need to make any other choices.
If there’s some other services, other roles,
other capabilities I may want to install as part of this,
I can bring those in here as well.
For instance, if we look a little bit further down on this list,
I see the File Server Resource Manager
that will give me a graphical interface
to manage aspects of the File Server
and apply configurations and manage various settings,
so I may want to install that,
and I have the File Server VSS Agent Service,
that’s going to allow me to be able to go
and do backups on this particular system
using the Volume Shadow Copy Service
to be able to backup our content,
all the data that is stored on the File Server
using either Microsoft Backup,
the Windows backup product,
or perhaps a third party solution, Veeam, or whatever it may be.
Alright, so we’re gonna go ahead,
we’re gonna select the File Server Resource Manager.
The reason I’m gonna do that is we then see
that there are some dependencies,
some additional features, capabilities that we’re selecting,
require other Tools, in order to operate
in other words, and Microsoft is smart enough to realize,
“Hey, you know what, we should just select those for you,
tell you what they are so you know we’re installing them,
and then simply allow you to see that
and recommend that you click to Add the features
and it’s not a recommendation, ‘cause if you don’t,
we’re not gonna be able to go through the installation.”
It’s pretty much required, but the reality is,
this gives us all of the support we need,
the Remote Server Administration Tools,
the Role Capabilities associated with administration
for the File Services Tools,
specifically the File Server Resource Manager Toolset
that we’re asking to have installed.
Great, we’re gonna add those in as well, we’re all good there.
Now we’re gonna go ahead, we’re gonna click Next.
When we’ve done that,
we have no additional selections here
because they’ve already been made for us.
Microsoft went ahead and selected them, if you remember,
and the Remote Server Administration Tools right here
have been pre-configured
under the Role Administration Tools,
and if we go down, we will see the File Services Tools
and the File Server Resource Manager Tools
which we’ve asked to install to support the Resource Manager
are already selected based on the screen we just saw
in the pop-up dialogue box we clicked and selected
to add those features from.
In other words, I don’t have to know
how to go three or four layers deep
and find this specific set of Tools and settings,
Microsoft does it for me.
Two thumbs up, we like that a lot,
very convenient and very helpful.
We’re gonna accept that, click Next,
go to Summary of the activities that are about to happen.
I can restart the machine automatically, if necessary,
by checking that box off.
We get a prompt saying,
“Hey, if you restart, people are gonna get cut off,
be aware of that, we’re not gonna warn you.”
Okay, I’m aware, no problem,
I’m the only one working on the server, no big deal.
We’re gonna click Yes, we’re gonna click Install.
I’m gonna let this do its thing.
Now, installs can take anywhere from maybe 30 seconds
to a minute, to several minutes,
depending on the number of features you’ve selected,
the number of Tools that have to be installed,
Services configured, all that kind of stuff.
Our blue progress bar up there tells us
how far we have come and how far we have left to go.
It usually jumps to roughly around
half to maybe three quarters
almost immediately as you saw it do,
and then it hangs there for a little bit,
so just be patient with it,
don’t worry about it, things are happening.
As a matter of fact, you can even close this Window
and the Install will finish and tell us when it’s done.
It is now done, but it will tell us it’s done,
we don’t even need to stay in the box if we don’t want to,
we can simply look right up here
and be able to get a status update
and it will tell us that we’re done.
So we can go ahead and click Close, that’s been configured.
We now are gonna be able to tell
that our File Server is installed.
So let’s go take a look at that,
we’re gonna go up to our Tools menu right over here,
and actually we can first look up here to see
that our Feature install was indeed complete.
That’s just a visual representation of that,
but we’re good with that,
we know that that has happened,
let’s just get rid of those indicators.
We’ll go to Tools and now,
remember we installed the File Server Resource Manager,
we can see that that is in our Toolset,
we’re gonna open that up and just let that come up.
We’ll give that just a second,
I’m gonna minimize it, we’ll come right back to it.
We can go back to our File and Storage Services area
in our navigation bar as well,
and when we do that, we’re gonna see another indicator
of the fact that our File Server is now up and running.
Remember we saw Servers,
we saw Volumes, Discs, Storage Pools
prior to doing the configuration?
Now we see some additional stuff,
Shares, iSCSI and Work folders,
and these three new elements
are directly related to the File Server
and the services that it supports that we have installed.
And so, when we go to Shares here,
we can then go in and begin to think about
creating Shares to serve up
and share whatever data may be on this File Server
that we felt needed a File Server to manage it.
We can then work with iSCSI services
and virtual Discs can be created and provided and provisioned;
we have that capability as well.
And we have what are known as Work Folders
where we can go ahead
and we can configure the Work Folder service
and then provide those folders similar to Shares,
but a little bit different,
and we’re able to manage those as well.
All three of those capabilities, all three of those services,
all three of those options now become available to us,
as we’ve installed and configured the File Server.
We’re gonna minimize our Server Manager,
we’re gonna go back to that File Server Resource Manager.
Remember, this is optional,
we don’t need to install this, it’s just a follow on.
It gives us extended, additional, broader capabilities
to manage and work with the File Server
once we configure it;
and we can always configure it after the fact, by the way,
it doesn’t have to be installed at the same time.
So we can always come back and do this later,
but it’s nice just to quickly know what’s in here.
If you’re interested in being able
to manage the Filer Server a little bit more deeply,
not just providing Shares,
but then actually creating quotas associated
with those Shares and managing them,
being able to see and understand
how File Screening is done,
to understand what kind of files
we will or will not allow access to,
how to report on capabilities around Storage and Storage Usage,
as well as doing classification
and classification management
and associated tasks with file management
that are set up to run and monitoring those,
lining all those things are available here
through the Resource Manager.
And we now have Options,
and Options as you know, are a good thing.
So you’ve seen how to install and stand up the Filer Server,
you’ve seen how to install
the Associated Management capabilities
through the File Server Resource Manager separately,
and you’ve seen how to manage the basic elements
of the File Server through the Server Manager.
So we’ve made, hopefully, some really good progress for you.
It can be complicated, but remember,
it’s only complicated until you start.
Once you get going, you tend to find out
it’s really not all that difficult.
For this and all other really cool conversations
around how do I do that in Windows, keep coming back.
Remember, subscribe to that YouTube channel.
Check us out over at ITProTV.
I’ll be going to get ready for new and exciting episodes
with more cool stuff we want to show you how to do.
I’m gonna wish you happy severing until I come back and do that,
and I’ll see you soon.