Building Windows Server with Puppet and Chocolatey

Forget using scripts and group policies to configure a new Windows Server machine. Using Chocolatey and Puppet, you can do it faster & easier than ever (and it’s more fun too). This is especially true if you’re using a Server Core installation and don’t have a GUI to help you along. Oh, and if you don’t know Puppet, you really should watch my course Puppet Fundamentals for System Administrators on Pluralsight 🙂

Assign IP address using PowerShell:
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$ New-NetIPAddress –InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" –IPAddress "192.168.51.29" –PrefixLength 24 -DefaultGateway 192.168.51.8

$ Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias "Ethernet" -ServerAddresses 192.168.50.20, 192.168.50.21

Install Chocolatey:
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$ set-executionpolicy unrestricted<br />
$ iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Restart PowerShell
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Install VMware tools
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$ choco install vmware-tools

The server will automatically restart.

Rename server
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$ rename-computer -newname newservername

Reboot
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restart-computer

Join to domain

add-computer -domain benpiper.com

Reboot again

restart-computer

Install Puppet

choco install puppet

Configure Puppet

Configure c:\programdata\puppetlabs\puppet\etc\puppet.conf

Generate puppet certificate

puppet_interactive

Sign puppet certificate on puppet master

puppet cert sign newservername

Apply appropriate profiles to server. Remember to restart the Puppet master if you change your Hiera configuration.

Run Puppet agent

puppet_interactive

Verify

puppet resource dism
puppet resource package

Assign IP address using PowerShell:#

Install Chocolatey:#

Restart PowerShell#

Install VMware tools#

Rename server#

Reboot#