How to add a Server Core IIS server to a domain

I have been messing around with Server Core, this is a much friendlier version when I need to closely manage physical hardware resources like CPU and memory. Plus, there are fewer updates that I need to install with the much more limited OS foot print.

As I buld my IIS servers to test a reproduction of an issue, I need to add them to a domain so that I can perform some of the necessary configuration. Here is how I did it.

First as shown in Figure 1, I needed to find out the name of my machine, once it had been built. I entered the command ‘hostname’ which returned the required value. It is possible to rename the host, but wanted to avoid any conflicts and left the default name.

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Figure 1, getting the IIS server name, server core, hostname

Next, I used the ‘netdom join’ command, providing the hostname, domain and a user id and password of an account with the permission to add machines to the domain, as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2, dding a server core machine to a domain

Lastly, it is required then to perform a reboot to complete the process. I entered ‘shutdown /r’ to reboot the server core machine, as shown in Figure 3.

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Figure 3, how to restart/reboot a server core server

That was it.

If I ever wanted to remove the server core server from the domain, I would use the ‘netdom remove’ command as shown in Figure 4.

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Figure 4, ow to remove a server core server from a domain