Once you have downloaded and installed the Windows Admin Center, the next step
would be to add your servers to the Windows Admin Center.
The process to add these servers is super easy.
Of course, the first thing we need to do is open up the
Windows Admin Center, and when you open it up, it'll ask you
for a certificate for authentication.
In my case, I do not have any other certificates installed, so I'm going to
select the only certificate which I have, which is the Windows Admin Center
Client certificate, and I'll click on OK.
I will then be presented with the dashboard for Windows Admin Center.
Let's take a look at a quick overview of the Windows Admin Center.
I'll start off with the Settings. Within the Settings, we've got two sections.
This is the user level and the gateway level. Of course,
any changes that you make to the user level would affect the current user's
profile, while any changes that you make to a gateway level would affect all
users that connect to this Windows Admin Center gateway. Now, the deployment
that I'm making use of in this demonstration is a local installation of the
Windows Admin Center.
So working through the Settings, under the user settings,
we have the Account option. Within the account, we can actually connect
this Windows Admin Center gateway to Microsoft Azure. To do that, all I
need to do is click on Register with Azure, which will then take me to
the gateway configuration.
I'll then go and click on Register, and then I'm presented with the Get
started with Azure in Windows Admin Center popup. The cloud that I'm
going to use is Azure Global. Since I'm not making use of Azure in China
or a U.S. Government Azure deployment,
I would need to copy this code and then enter this
one‑time code in the popup window.
Next, I will need to authenticate, and once authenticated,
I will be presented with the prompt if I would like to continue,
which I will click on Continue, and then the process
has been successfully completed.
Now when I navigate back to my Windows Admin Center, I can select my Azure
Active Directory tenant ID. I then have the option to create a new Azure Active
Directory application or use an existing application.
In my case, I'm going to create a new application and click on Connect.
Once this process has successfully completed, the last thing that I need
to do is sign in. And once this is completed,
my Windows Admin Center has been registered with Azure. So let's work
through the rest of the settings that we have. Under the user configuration,
we have the pretty basic standard settings, such as the language and region.
We can configure the personalization, and this is really only just the
colors, so we can operate in light mode or dark mode. And then we have some
suggestions that we can turn on. Under Development, here I have the ability
to enable the developer guide. I can also choose my logging level that I
would like to have. In my case, it's set to 3. Now, I can go as far as 7,
which is debug, which will give me a lot of details in the log.
I can also side load any extensions or add experimental keys. Within the
performance profile, if I turn this on, Windows Admin Center will now start
collecting performance data. Essentially it's going to look at performance
data across the Azure environment and provide me with the statistics. Now
within the gateway configuration, we can turn on the settings for
diagnostic and feedback.
However,
under extensions, this is where you have the ability to install extensions
that would work with the Windows Admin Center. Looking at available
extensions, this will show you all of the extensions that's currently
available. Right now there are 37 items that's available at the time of
recording, and as you look through the list, you'll see that the extensions
are pretty extensive, allowing you to enhance the functionality of Windows
Admin Center.
If you would like to see what extensions have been installed,
clicking on Installed extensions would show you that. You also have
the ability to uninstall any extension should you wish to uninstall
it. Feeds allow you to tie in additional extensions from different
feeds, and you can add and remove these as you please. Within the
General section,
you have the ability to manage your session expiration, and under
Internet Access, this is where you can configure how much access to the
internet you want to give Windows Admin Center. So, for example, I can
allow it full internet access, or I can allow it to only speak to Azure
services, or turn off internet access completely. If I was making use
of a proxy, this is where we'd configure the proxy configuration.
The Register section is what we've just looked at, and that is where we
register Windows Admin Center with Azure. And under Updates, I can enable
Windows Admin Center to automatically update itself.
I'll also be able to see if there is an update
available for Windows Admin Center.
So I'm going to turn this on. Now that we've worked through the Settings, let's work on adding our servers to the Windows Admin Center.