Chapter 3. Performing Essential Maintenance Tasks

Most administrators quickly realize that they don't really understand the ramifications of working without a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in Server Core. Yes, many configuration tasks proceed without any trouble. However, once you get past the basic configuration, you need to start installing applications and performing other tasks that are quite easy when working with a GUI, but may become quite hard when working with a character-mode interface. This chapter helps reduce the pain of configuration tasks.

In addition to application installation and other configuration tasks, you must also consider how best to secure and maintain your server. Chapter 1 has already shown you some of the security configuration by telling you how to create a new user and assign that user to a particular group. However, you'll find that you need to perform many other tasks to secure your server. Although this chapter doesn't provide details on all of the security commands and utilities, you'll discover how to perform essential tasks. Maintenance in this chapter follows along the same lines as security—you'll discover the essentials you need.