Remotely Configuring Server Core's Firewall
On this snowy April day here in Denver, I'm in the process of building Chapter 5 of my e-book for Tricerat titled The Definitive Guide to Building a Windows Server 2008 Infrastructure. If you haven't downloaded your free copy of this guide, you can get your own copy at: http://www.tricerat.com/ebooks/index.php
Chapter 5 is all about Server Core, and the more I play with it the more compelling it seems for many IT environments. Server Core is a great tool because of its low resource requirements, but its command-line nature can be a put-off for many. What you may not know is that many of the remote interfaces we're used to using with the "full" edition of Windows Server still work against a core instance.
The firewall is no different. Although you can use the netsh command to configure the firewall from the command line, that tool can be excessively complicated and cumbersome. Heck, many of us stopped using the firewall in XP because of some of the very same "complicated and cumbersome" management interfaces.
Well, in researching Chapter 5 I stumbled across this little tidbit that'll allow you to use the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security GUI from a Vista or "full" Server 2008 box to manage a Core firewall. Click past the fold to learn how.
This comes directly from the rough draft of Chapter 5, so its still a little...well...rough. But, it gives you some idea of the power of Server Core:
If you do not plan to use Group Policy to manage your Windows Firewall but instead want to manage it for the local machine only, it is possible to enable remote management of the firewall through another computer. Do this with the command netsh advfirewall set currentprofile settings remotemanagement enable. Once entered, create a new MMC console on a "full" Server 2008 or Vista machine using the mmc command. Click File | Add/Remove Snap-In and add the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security snap-in to the console. In the resulting screen you'll be asked to provide the computer whose firewall you want to manage. Enter the name of your Server Core computer into the resulting screen. You can now remotely manage the firewall of your Server Core computer through the GUI interface.
Pretty nice, eh? Don't forget to check out the full book as its developed at http://www.tricerat.com.
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