Getting Started with Nano Server

As we discussed in Chapter 1, Introduction to Nano Server, Nano Server has absolutely no local GUI and it takes up far less disk space. Server roles and optional features exist outside of Nano Server, and we refer to them as packages. Those packages can be added to Nano Server image on demand. Microsoft developed Nano Server with just enough OS. In other words, it's only the OS and the components of the OS that we need for the function which is required, and nothing more. With Nano Server, the 400 MB base image basically holds Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), reverse forwarders for application compatibility, and a PowerShell core. Nano Server installation will always be ready to be remoted into and can be managed remotely using remote PowerShell, or with any standard Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) GUIs such as Hyper-V Manager, failover cluster manager, and Server Manager. If any additional roles and features are needed, we can have them actually installed online with a package management (a.k.a OneGet) provider, we can inject them at image creation as well, or we can copy them over a running Nano Server and install them using the DISM tool or Nano Server PowerShell module.

Nano Server is fully supported using the same drivers that exist in the Server Core installation of Windows Server 2016.

The main key roles and features for Nano Server are:

• Hyper-V compute role, storage (Scale-out File Serve, Storage Spaces Direct, Storage Replica), and failover clustering
• Born-in-the-cloud application is the modern-day web server for Core CLR, ASP.NET 5, Node.js, and PaaS v2
• Base operating system for Windows Server containers and Hyper-V containers

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Getting started with Nano Server
• Building and customizing a Nano Server image using Windows PowerShell
• Building and customizing a Nano Server image using Nano Server image builder
• Customizing a Nano Server image using DISM