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How can I ensure that I can always have Hyper-V Manager access to a Hyper-V server, even in the event that the Active Directory Server is down (in a domain-login environment)?

Background:

The person who managed infrastructure before me set up the company's servers as virtual machines on top of a host running Hyper-V Server 6.1 (7601) Service Pack 1.

To manage Hyper-V, he installed Windows 7 onto a virtual machine (run on the same host) with Hyper-V Manager installed.

When the (virtual) Active Directory server (run on this same host) is rebooted, during that reboot, I'm unable to RDP into the Windows 7 virtual machine, and I'm therefore unable to access Hyper-V Manager when the Active Directory server is down. I suspect I can't login because I can't authenticate with the Active Directory Server.

I'm going to install Hyper-V Manger onto some addition manager's workstations, but how can I ensure they'll have access in a catastrophe where Active Directory authentication isn't possible?

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I would just set up a local administrator (non-AD) on the Hyper-V host. Even if the Hyper-V services are down and there is no Domain Controller, you can still use a local instance of Hyper-V management tools or RDP into the host using the local admin account.

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    Agreed, and if possible, access the REAL console via remote management card as well. Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 20:09
  • Peter, you mentioned using a local instance of Hyper-V Manager. Are you meaning it is possible to install Hyper-V Manager onto the host itself? If so, how? When I RDP into the host, there's no traditional Window's desktop; there's no start-menu or task-bar. Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 20:16
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    Hyper-V Manager is automatically installed on a full install of Windows Server 2008 (R2). It cannot be installed on a Core install and also not on Hyper-V Server 2008 (R2). BTW, you may want to do something about your accept rate. Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 21:59
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    @LonnieBest - So your host is running server core. As Ansgar said, you can not install Hyper-V manager there. But you can use PowerShell to manage pretty much all aspects of Hyper-V. You need to download and install the 'PowerShell Management Library for Hyper-V' from Codeplex. And then you have to learn the commands. I may be easier to use the GUI from a remote machine. Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 22:06
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Get a physical Domain Controller. You're in for a world of hurt, as you are seeing, when all of your domain controllers are virtual.

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  • Yesterday I set up a secondary (physical) Active Directory server that seems to be replicating. Yet, still, when I restart the primary Active Directory server, workstations don't seem to know they can authenticate with the secondary (so far). Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 20:41

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