Windows 10: Free Windows Server 2016 virtual labs - no hardware required

Brink · Sep 8, 2018

Gain hands-on experience with the new version of Windows Server in security, software-defined datacenter and containers, using the latest virtual labs.

Guided labs make it easy to check out what’s new without spending time and money to install and configure an environment. Using the virtual labs for Windows Server 2016 you can learn about what the new technology does and how to configure it. It’s not a video, a demo you watch, or a simulator; it’s you connecting with your browser, on your PC, to our lab for free.

When you sign in with your Microsoft account you’ll be able to access any of the individual labs in a private, sandboxed environment. It all adds up to about 6 hours of content, and you can come back later if you need to.

Check out each of these 60-minute experiences:

Implementing Breach Resistance Security in Windows Server 2016

Shielded Virtual Machines

Building a Storage Infrastructure on Windows Server 2016

Installing and Managing Nano Server

Exploring Virtualization on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016

Failover Clustering and Rolling Cluster Upgrades

Implementing a Software Defined Network with Windows Server 2016

Click to expand...

Source: https://info.microsoft.com/WindowsSe...rtualLabs.html

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Brink · Sep 8, 2018

Credential Guard lab companion

If you have heard about Credential Guard in Windows Server 2016 (and in Windows 10), but do not have an environment to try it out, here is a lab environment we built for you to play.

Lab access

The link will lead you to a sign up page, after that, you will see the following labs listed for Windows Server 2016:

Windows Server 2016 labs

There are 3 exercises in the “Implementing Breach Resistance Security in Windows Server 2016”:

Credential Guard

Remote Credential Guard

Device Guard

This blogpost will walk you through the Credential Guard lab details.

After click on the link of Breach Resistance lab, you be required to sign in and then you can launch the lab:

Sign-in

Launch page

It takes a few minutes to create the VMs, and once it has done, you will see the following machines prepared:

Initialize

DC: domain controller, which is not used for this exercise.

SRV01 and SRV02: both are Windows Server 2016, and used for the lab exercise.

Lab exercise – Explained

The steps are listed in the Content section:

Content

This lab is structured to cover the following in sequence:

Understand how attackers can use the hash in memory to gain access to domain controllers

Configure Credential Guard

Verify the hash in memory is protected using Credential Guard

You can follow the steps listed under the content section to complete the lab, the intent of the blog, is to break the procedures into groups, to help you understand the exercise better.

Prep the hash

Lsass.exe is the process which handles user logon, it stores the user credential information in its memory. The memory is cleared when the machine starts up. In this lab environment, all the virtual machines start at the time lab launches, when you logon to the machine, you will only have the logon user credential information in memory. In order to demonstrate an attacker gaining user access using other account’s hash, the first part of the lab is to simulate a server which has been running for a while, different users had remotely or locally connected to it, therefore, lsass memory stored many different user credential information.
This is accomplished by step 1-8.

Retrieving credential hash

Mimikatz is a popular tool for retrieving lsass memory information. The tool has been copied to the lab machines, step 9-13 walk you through the process of dumping lsass memory using Mimikatz.

Pass the Hash

Pass the hash is a hacking technique that allows an attacker to authenticate by using the underlying NTLM, instead of specifying the user password. In step 14 to 24, you will extract LabAdmin hash from lsass using Mimikatz, and use the hash to open a PowerShell console, and perform a couple of operations using the LabAdmin privilege:

Add a user to the domain admin group

Open remote PowerShell connection to a domain controller

Both operations could not be performed by the logon user. But using the hash of the LabAdmin, an attacker will be able to do it using the information retrieve from Lsass memory.

Configure and verify Credential Guard

Step 25 to 36 illustrate the steps to configure credential guard, then verify its status using msinfo32.exe and PowerShell.

Step 37 to 43 goes further to use Mimikatz to show the hash in Lsass is now encrypted using Credential Guard.

More info

The exercise illustrated the benefit of Credential Guard in Windows Server 2016 as well as Windows 10. For more information, you can find here.
Click to expand...

Source: Credential Guard lab companion Datacenter and Private Cloud Security Blog

See also:

Enable or Disable Credential Guard in Windows 10 Windows 10 Security System Tutorials

Verify if Credential Guard is Enabled or Disabled in Windows 10 Windows 10 Security System Tutorials

Andre Da Costa · Sep 8, 2018

Install Sharepoint 2016 on Windows 10

Client versions are not supported:

One of the following server operating systems:

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter

Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

Minimum requirements for SharePoint servers in a farm

One of the following server operating systems:

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter

Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ins...

Learn more:

http://mstechtalk.com/sharepoint-server-2016-in...

You might want to setup a Hyper-V virtual machine with a Windows Server 2012/2016 Domain.

Cluster Head · Sep 8, 2018

Exchange Support For Windows Server 2016

Exchange Support For Windows Server 2016

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5 is available from the TechNet Evaluation Centre. While that’s great to download the bits and get the OS running in your test lab, please do not update the OS on your Exchange servers right now or introduce 2016 DCs into production. This post is just a quick reminder about what is *NOT* currently in the Exchange team’s support matrix.

Over the years there have been issues and lots of posts in the TechNet forums where people have run into some challenges when they have either:

•Upgraded the OS in place to a new version Windows Server

•Tried to install Exchange onto an unsupported version of Windows Server

Unfortunately there is not much that can be done to help apart from digging out backups as this is not a supported solution at this time.

Walking The Supported Path

TechNet documents the Exchange Product Group’s supported OS for each version of Exchange. Here are the links for your convenience:

System Requirements Supportability Matrix
2007 Consolidated Single Page
2010
2013
2016

Note that the supportability matrix has been condensed into a single page that includes all versions.

Currently Supported Operating Systems

TechNet documents the below at the time of writing as supported Operating Systems for Exchange

To reinforce the point of using only what is explicitly stated in the table, there is an additional note

Currently Supported Active Directory Environments

TechNet documents the below at the time of writing as supported Active Directory Environments for Exchange

You will note that Windows Server 2016 is not currently listed as a supported OS platform for Exchange. In addition to this please also note that Windows Server 2016 is not currently listed as supported Domain Controllers.

For example, when writing this post Exchange 2016 supports the following platforms:

•Windows Server 2012

•Windows Server 2012 R2

Again note that Windows Server 2016 is not listed.

I didn’t list Exchange 2003 as hopefully no one out there is going to be trying that. *

Keep a weather eye on the Exchange team’s blog or Twitter account for breaking news on Windows Server 2012 support for Exchange.

Cheers,

Rhoderick
Click to expand...

Source: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...s-server-2016/

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