Configure Corefig as a free managament tool for Hyper-V 2012

Configure Corefig as a free managament tool for Hyper-V 2012

Reading a lot of articles online I have found that Hyper-V 2012 has some cool new features that are free to use. Some of them are in battle with VMware, like HA and the new SMB 3.0 protocol. I have installed a nested Hyper-V 2012 under the VMware setup to test the management tools. 

One tool I have found as a useful collection of PowerShell scripts is the Corefig. Here are some steps to use with this management tool and how to configure it.

On a fresh install of the Hyper-V Hypervisor one should enable the Remote Managament under the initial powershell options. To copy the files from the downloaded Corefig site firewall should be disabled on the Hyper-V 2012. This can be done via a simple command using netsh.

The next step is to download the Corefig.zip file and copy it to the Hyper-V hypervisor. One can copy the files using the Netbios protocol, and simply typing the \\hyper-vsrv location and creating a folder under the root of the Hypervisor called Corefig.

The link for the Corefig installation can be found here.

After extracting the files , we should start the Powershell script to initialize the Corefig installation process and to make it as a startup service. This can be done via a simple command:

CD C:\COREFIG

POWERSHELL .\COREFIG.PS1

Soon after that we have an instance of the Corefig started and can use all of the managament functions it offers us. A simple screenshot will show the GUI of the tool.

We can easily change the network settings, a small Control Panel utilities, and general Hyper-V settings. One great security tool is to manage the firewall via the GUI is easy for creating the first initial rules. I have disabled the firewall for testing purposes.

Acording to Microsoft this tools is verified to work with these setups:

• Verified: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Core Installation)
• Verified: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Complete GUI Installation)
• Verified: Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012

Feel free to use the tool and comment on it.