How to Add Hosts in an Active Directory Domain

Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1

You can use the Add Hosts Wizard to add one or more virtual machine hosts in an Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain. The domain can be either a domain that has a two-way trust with the domain that VMM server is in or a domain that does not have a two-way trust with the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) server’s domain.

You can also use the Add Hosts Wizard to add a host that is on a perimeter network, after you have first installed a VMM agent locally on the host. For more information, see How to Add Hosts on a Perimeter Network.

When you add a Windows-based host, VMM automatically installs or enables the appropriate version virtualization software on the host and attempts to create a Windows Firewall exception, if needed:

• When you add a host to VMM and the host’s operating system supports Hyper-V, if Hyper-V is not enabled on the host, VMM will attempt to enable it automatically.

  Important

  Enabling the Hyper-V role will cause the host to immediately restart. If the host you are adding is the VMM server, restarting it will stop any jobs that are running and you must add the host again after the Hyper-V has been enabled.

• When you add a host to VMM and that host's operating system supports Virtual Server 2005 R2, VMM automatically installs the correct version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 if it is not installed already.

To add virtual machine hosts in a domain

1. In any view in the VMM Administrator Console, in the Actions pane, click Add hosts to open the Add Hosts Wizard.

2. On the Select Host Location page, do the following:

   1. Click Windows Server-based host on an Active Directory domain, and then do one of the following:

      • To add hosts on a trusted domain, type the credentials for a domain account with administrative rights on all hosts you want to add. If you are adding a host cluster, the account must have administrative rights on all nodes of the cluster.

        You cannot use the same domain account that is used as the VMM service account to add or remove a Hyper-V or Virtual Server host from VMM. For more information, see Hardening Virtual Machine Hosts Managed by VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=145057).

      • To add hosts that are not in a domain that has a two-way trust with the VMM server’s domain, clear the Host is in a trusted domain check box, and then type the credentials for a local account with administrative rights on all hosts you want to add.

   2. Click Next.

3. On the Select Host Servers page, in the Domain box, type the domain name or domain alias of the hosts you want to add, and then do one of the following:

   • In the Computer name box, type the NetBIOS name, the IP address, or the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of a host in the specified domain.

     To add a host in a different domain, change the value in the Domain box, and then enter the NetBIOS name.

     If the host is in a disjointed namespace, use the host’s fully qualified domain name (FQDN) and select the Skip the Active Directory name verification check box.

     Important

     For a host on a perimeter network, you must also ensure that the DNS name of the computer is a registered host Service Principal Name (SPN) in Active Directory Domain Services. When you use the Add Host Wizard to add a computer that is in a disjointed namespace, VMM checks Active Directory Domain Services to see if an SPN exists, and if it does not, VMM attempts to create one. If the VMM service is running under an account that has permission to add an SPN, VMM will add the missing SPN automatically. Otherwise, the host addition will fail, and you must add the SPN manually. The specific SPN that must be added is HOST/<DNS FQDN of host>, for example, HOST/hostname.contoso.com. For more information about how to create SPNs manually, see Service Logons Fail Due to Incorrectly Set SPNs (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=158198).

     Note

     You can add a failover cluster created in any of the following versions of the Windows Server 2008 operating system to VMM as a host cluster: Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, or Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition. When you specify the name of a Windows Server failover cluster or a node in a Windows Server failover cluster, the Add Hosts Wizard discovers all nodes in the cluster and adds them to VMM. If needed, the wizard enables the Hyper-V role on each node. For more information, see How to Add a Host Cluster to VMM (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=162794).

   • If the specified domain has a two-way trust with the VMM server’s domain, you can click Search to open the Computer Search dialog box, and then search for computers you want to add as hosts. For more information, see How to Search for Hosts (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163334).

     Note

     If you add multiple hosts at one time, the hosts will share the same host group, remote connection settings, and virtual machine default paths. After adding the hosts, you can change the properties for individual hosts by modifying the host properties for each. For more information, see How to Modify the Properties of a Host Group (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=162967).

4. On the Configuration Settings page, do the following:

   1. In the Host group list, select a host group that will contain the hosts or host cluster, or accept the default host group, All Hosts, which is the parent host group of all hosts and host groups.

      In VMM, host groups are used for delegating administration, for managing virtual machine self-service, and for setting the scope for host-level actions that are performed in Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO). The host group determines the default host reserves. In VMM 2008 R2, the host group also determines whether non-encrypted file transfers are allowed on the hosts. For more information, see About Host Groups.

   2. If one or more of the computers you are adding is a host or a library server that is currently being managed by another VMM server, select the Reassociate host with this Virtual Machine Manager server check box to associate those hosts with the current VMM server.

5. On the Host Properties page, do the following:

   1. In the Add the following path box, specify a virtual machine default path for storing virtual machines deployed on the hosts, and then click Add.

      Note

      The Add Host Wizard does not automatically create folders on the hosts for default paths that you specify. You must manually create the folders on the hosts before you can add default paths and use them to store virtual machines.

   2. In the Remote connection area, by default, the Enable remote connections to virtual machines on these hosts check box is enabled and set to use the global default port setting. To disable remote connections, clear the check box. To use a different port for remote connections, enter a value from 1–65,535 in the Remote connection port box. To change the global default port setting, see How to Configure Remote Access to Virtual Machines (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=162936).

      Important

      You cannot enable security for remote connections from within the Add Hosts Wizard. To enable security, you must modify the host properties in the VMM Administrator Console after the host has been added. For more information about enabling security for remote connections, see How to Configure Remote Access to Virtual Machines (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=162936)..

6. On the Summary page, click Add Hosts.

See Also

Concepts

About Host Groups
How to Add Hosts on a Perimeter Network

Other Resources

How to Add a Host Cluster to VMM
Adding ESX Server Hosts
How to Configure Remote Access to Virtual Machines