Today I want to show you how to manage non-domain joined servers or Workgroup servers using Server Manager. This can be very useful when working with multiple domains and manage all from the same computer. The Process consists of two tasks, let’s start.
Provide administrative credentials for the server not joined to the domain
To add a non-domain joined server or a Workgroup server to Server Manager, you must use DNS or Import option in the Add Servers Wizard.
Then you must right-click on the selected server and select “Manage As” from the context menu. This displays a Windows Security dialog box, in which you must supply the administrative credentials for the remote server.
Add the non-domain joined server to the TrustedHosts list on the computer running Server Manager.
Domain membership automatically establishes a trust relationship between the computers in the domain. To manage computers that aren’t in the same domain or are in a workgroup, you must establish that trust yourself by adding the computers you want to manage to the TrustedHosts list on the computer running Server Manager.
The TrustedHosts list is located on a logical drive called WSMan:
1 2 3 4 | cd WSMan:\localhost\Client\ Get-ChildItem |
with the following command, you can see the list of machines that are in the TrustedHosts list, by default the list is empty.
1 2 3 | Get-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts |
To add a server to the list you must use the following command:
1 2 3 | Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value <ComputerName> |
The -value parameter accepts different formats. Here I show you some possible options:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | ##### Add specific computers to the TrustedHosts list ##### Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value "Server01.Domain.local, Server02" ##### Add specific IP address to the TrustedHosts list ##### Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value 192.168.1.200 ##### Add all domain computers to the TrustedHosts list ##### Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts *.Domain.local |
The TrustedHosts list only saves the last set value. This is because the TrustedHosts list is updated using the Set-Item command that you have executed by overwriting the previous entries. if you want to add an additional computer, without deleting the previous entries, you must use the following method.
1 2 3 4 | $CurrentList = (Get-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts).value Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value "Server03.Domain.local, $CurrentList" |
If you want to know more about WSMan Provider, check out this link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.wsman.management/providers/wsman-provider?view=powershell-6&viewFallbackFrom=powershell-Microsoft.WsMan.Management
