Managing a Non-Domain Hyper-V Server 2016

Recently I’ve been using Hyper-V quite a lot due to the convenience of it being part of Windows 10 Pro and Server 2016. This got me wanting to try out Hyper-V Server 2016 for home lab use. After getting errors trying to connect Windows 10’s Hyper-V manager to the Server and doing some googling I realized it wasn’t going to be as simple to manage as ESXi/XenServer/Proxmox. In a domain it’s much easier to manager Hyper-V Server but, like most home users will find, when you’re not on a domain, things aren’t so simple.


Configuring Hyper-V Server 2016

The first thing to do is to turn on Remote Desktop (option 7). The prompts are easy to follow, I would advise picking option 2 to allow any clients.

As optional steps, you may want to change the hostname and set up a static IP address.

Next, type powershell in the command prompt to get the powershell prompt. Run the following commands, answering Y when prompted.

Enable-PSRemoting
Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role server


Configuring Windows 10 Client

You may want to map the hostname of your server directly to it’s IP in your clients hosts file. A simple google search will tell you how to do this.

In windows 10 we need to turn on the Hyper-V MMC. Type in “Turn Windows Features on or off” in the start menu.

Expand these options and tick the one highlighted.

Next up, open Powershell (Admin) by right clicking on the start button.

Paste in these commands, answering Y to all of them when prompted. Replace HYPER-V-X6 with your servers host name.

Enable-PSRemoting
Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value "HYPER-V-X6"
Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role client -DelegateComputer "HYPER-V-X6"

The final change we have to make is a local group policy. Open gpedit.msc from the start menu and expand down Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credentials Delegation. Right click Allow delegating fresh credentials with NTLM-only server authentication and click edit.

Tick the enable circle then click on the show… box.

Type in wsman/server-hostname and click OK on both windows and close the local group policy editor.


Connecting to the Server

Now you can open Hyper-V Manager from the start menu. Go to Action > Connect to Server….

Type in the hostname and tick Connect as another user: <none>. Click Set User….

You’ll need to input the user in hostname\user format.

After clicking OK on both windows it should connect!

That’s all I’ll be covering in this article.

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