Step 2 Configure the Remote Access Server

Applies To: Windows Server (Semi-Annual Channel), Windows Server 2016

This topic describes how to configure the client and server settings that are required for remote management of DirectAccess clients. Before you begin the deployment steps, ensure that you have completed the planning steps that are described in Step 2 Plan the Remote Access Deployment.

Task	Description
Install the Remote Access role	Install the Remote Access role.
Configure the deployment type	Configure the deployment type as DirectAccess and VPN, DirectAccess only, or VPN only.
Configure DirectAccess clients	Configure the Remote Access server with the security groups that contain DirectAccess clients.
Configure the Remote Access server	Configure the Remote Access server settings.
Configure the infrastructure servers	Configure the infrastructure servers that are used in the organization.
Configure application servers	Configure the application servers to require authentication and encryption.
Configuration summary and alternate GPOs	View the Remote Access configuration summary, and modify the GPOs if desired.

This topic includes sample Windows PowerShell cmdlets that you can use to automate some of the procedures described. For more information, see Using Cmdlets.

Install the Remote Access role

You must install the Remote Access role on a server in your organization that will act as the Remote Access server.

To install the Remote Access role

To install the Remote Access role on DirectAccess servers

On the DirectAccess server, in the Server Manager console, in the Dashboard, click Add roles and features.

Click Next three times to get to the server role selection screen.

On the Select Server Roles dialog, select Remote Access, and then click Next.

Click Next three times.

On the Select role services dialog, select DirectAccess and VPN (RAS) and then click Add Features.

Select Routing, select Web Application Proxy, click Add Features, and then click Next.

Click Next, and then click Install.

On the Installation progress dialog, verify that the installation was successful, and then click Close.

Windows PowerShell equivalent commands

The following Windows PowerShell cmdlet or cmdlets perform the same function as the preceding procedure. Enter each cmdlet on a single line, even though they may appear word-wrapped across several lines here because of formatting constraints.

Configure the deployment type

There are three options that you can use to deploy Remote Access from the Remote Access Management console:

DirectAccess and VPN

This guide uses the DirectAccess only method of deployment in the example procedures.

To configure the deployment type

On the Remote Access server, open the Remote Access Management console: On the Start screen, type, type Remote Access Management Console, and then press ENTER. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Yes.

In the Remote Access Management Console, in the middle pane, click Run the Remote Access Setup Wizard.

In the Configure Remote Access dialog box, select DirectAccess and VPN, DirectAccess only, or VPN only.

Configure DirectAccess clients

For a client computer to be provisioned to use DirectAccess, it must belong to the selected security group. After DirectAccess is configured, client computers in the security group are provisioned to receive the DirectAccess Group Policy Objects (GPOs) for remote management.

To configure DirectAccess clients

In the middle pane of the Remote Access Management console, in the Step 1 Remote Clients area, click Configure.

In the DirectAccess Client Setup Wizard, on the Deployment Scenario page, click Deploy DirectAccess for remote management only, and then click Next.

On the Select Groups page, click Add.

In the Select Groups dialog box, select the security groups that contain the DirectAccess client computers, and then click Next.

On the Network Connectivity Assistant page:

In the table, add the resources that will be used to determine connectivity to the internal network. A default web probe is created automatically if no other resources are configured. When configuring the web probe locations for determining connectivity to the enterprise network, ensure that you have at least one HTTP based probe configured. Configuring only a ping probe is not sufficient, and it could lead to an inaccurate determination of connectivity status. This is because ping is exempted from IPsec. As a result, ping does not ensure that the IPsec tunnels are properly established.

Add a Help Desk email address to allow users to send information if they experience connectivity issues.

Provide a friendly name for the DirectAccess connection.

Select the Allow DirectAccess clients to use local name resolution check box, if required.

When local name resolution is enabled, users who are running the NCA can resolve names by using DNS servers that are configured on the DirectAccess client computer.

Click Finish.

Configure the Remote Access server

To deploy Remote Access, you need to configure the server that will act as the Remote Access server with the following:

Correct network adapters

A public URL for the Remote Access server to which client computers can connect (the ConnectTo address)

An IP-HTTPS certificate with a subject that matches the ConnectTo address

Client computer authentication

To configure the Remote Access server

In the middle pane of the Remote Access Management console, in the Step 2 Remote Access Server area, click Configure.

In the Remote Access Server Setup Wizard, on the Network Topology page, click the deployment topology that will be used in your organization. In Type the public name or IPv4 address used by clients to connect to the Remote Access server, enter the public name for the deployment (this name matches the subject name of the IP-HTTPS certificate, for example, edge1.contoso.com), and then click Next.

On the Network Adapters page, the wizard automatically detects:

Network adapters for the networks in your deployment. If the wizard does not detect the correct network adapters, manually select the correct adapters.

IP-HTTPS certificate. This is based on the public name for the deployment that you set during the previous step of the wizard. If the wizard does not detect the correct IP-HTTPS certificate, click Browse to manually select the correct certificate.

Click Next.

On the Prefix Configuration page (this page is only visible if IPv6 is detected in the internal network), the wizard automatically detects the IPv6 settings that are used on the internal network. If your deployment requires additional prefixes, configure the IPv6 prefixes for the internal network, an IPv6 prefix to assign to DirectAccess client computers, and an IPv6 prefix to assign to VPN client computers.

On the Authentication page:

For multisite and two-factor authentication deployments, you must use computer certificate authentication. Select the Use computer certificates check box to use computer certificate authentication and select the IPsec root certificate.

To enable client computers running Windows 7 to connect via DirectAccess, select the Enable Windows 7 client computers to connect via DirectAccess check box. You must also use computer certificate authentication in this type of deployment.

Click Finish.

Configure the infrastructure servers

To configure the infrastructure servers in a Remote Access deployment, you must configure the following:

Network location server

DNS settings, including the DNS suffix search list

Any management servers that are not automatically detected by Remote Access

To configure the infrastructure servers

In the middle pane of the Remote Access Management console, in the Step 3 Infrastructure Servers area, click Configure.

In the Infrastructure Server Setup Wizard, on the Network Location Server page, click the option that corresponds to the location of the network location server in your deployment.

If the network location server is on a remote web server, enter the URL, and then click Validate before you continue.

If the network location server is on the Remote Access server, click Browse to locate the relevant certificate, and then click Next.

On the DNS page, in the table, enter additional name suffixes that will be applied as Name Resolution Policy Table (NRPT) exemptions. Select a local name resolution option, and then click Next.

On the DNS Suffix Search List page, the Remote Access server automatically detects domain suffixes in the deployment. Use the Add and Remove buttons to create the list of domain suffixes that you want to use. To add a new domain suffix, in New Suffix, enter the suffix, and then click Add. Click Next.

On the Management page, add management servers that are not detected automatically, and then click Next. Remote Access automatically adds domain controllers and Configuration Manager servers.

Click Finish.

Configure application servers

In a full Remote Access deployment, configuring application servers is an optional task. In this scenario for remote management of DirectAccess clients, application servers are not utilized and this step is greyed out to indicate that it is not active. Click Finish to apply the configuration.

Configuration summary and alternate GPOs

When the Remote Access configuration is complete, the Remote Access Review is displayed. You can review all of the settings that you previously selected, including:

GPO Settings

The DirectAccess server GPO name and Client GPO name are listed. You can click the Change link next to the GPO Settings heading to modify the GPO settings.

Remote Clients

The DirectAccess client configuration is displayed, including the security group, connectivity verifiers, and DirectAccess connection name.

Remote Access Server

The DirectAccess configuration is displayed, including the public name and address, network adapter configuration, and certificate information.

Infrastructure Servers

This list includes the network location server URL, DNS suffixes that are used by DirectAccess clients, and management server information.

Configure User Access Control and Permissions

Applies to: Windows Admin Center, Windows Admin Center Preview

If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with the user access control options in Windows Admin Center

Group based access in Windows Admin Center is not supported in workgroup environments or across non-trusted domains.

Gateway access role definitions

There are two roles for access to the Windows Admin Center gateway service:

Gateway users can connect to the Windows Admin Center gateway service to manage servers through that gateway, but they can’t change access permissions nor the authentication mechanism used to authenticate to the gateway.

Gateway administrators can configure who gets access as well as how users authenticate to the gateway. Only gateway administrators can view and configure the Access settings in Windows Admin Center. Local administrators on the gateway machine are always administrators of the Windows Admin Center gateway service.

Access to the gateway doesn’t imply access to managed servers visible by the gateway. To manage a target server, the connecting user must use credentials (either through their passed-through Windows credential or through credentials provided in the Windows Admin Center session using the Manage as action) that have administrative access to that target server.

Active Directory or local machine groups

By default, Active Directory or local machine groups are used to control gateway access. If you have an Active Directory domain, you can manage gateway user and administrator access from within the Windows Admin Center interface.

On the Users tab you can control who can access Windows Admin Center as a gateway user. By default, and if you don’t specify a security group, any user that accesses the gateway URL has access. Once you add one or more security groups to the users list, access is restricted to the members of those groups.

If you don’t use an Active Directory domain in your environment, access is controlled by the Users and Administrators local groups on the Windows Admin Center gateway machine.

Smartcard authentication

You can enforce smartcard authentication by specifying an additional required group for smartcard-based security groups. Once you have added a smartcard-based security group, a user can only access the Windows Admin Center service if they are a member of any security group AND a smartcard group included in the users list.

On the Administrators tab you can control who can access Windows Admin Center as a gateway administrator. The local administrators group on the computer will always have full administrator access and cannot be removed from the list. By adding security groups, you give members of those groups privileges to change Windows Admin Center gateway settings. The administrators list supports smartcard authentication in the same way as the users list: with the AND condition for a security group and a smartcard group.

Azure Active Directory

If your organization uses Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), you can choose to add an additional layer of security to Windows Admin Center by requiring Azure AD authentication to access the gateway. In order to access Windows Admin Center, the user’s Windows account must also have access to gateway server (even if Azure AD authentication is used). When you use Azure AD, you’ll manage Windows Admin Center user and administrator access permissions from the Azure Portal, rather than from within the Windows Admin Center UI.

Accessing Windows Admin Center when Azure AD authentication is enabled

Depending on the browser used, some users accessing Windows Admin Center with Azure AD authentication configured will receive an additional prompt from the browser where they need to provide their Windows account credentials for the machine on which Windows Admin Center is installed. After entering that information, the users will get the additional Azure Active Directory authentication prompt, which requires the credentials of an Azure account that has been granted access in the Azure AD application in Azure.

Users who’s Windows account has Administrator rights on the gateway machine will not be prompted for the Azure AD authentication.

Configuring Azure Active Directory authentication for Windows Admin Center Preview

Go to Windows Admin Center Settings > Access and use the toggle switch to turn on «Use Azure Active Directory to add a layer of security to the gateway». If you have not registered the gateway to Azure, you will be guided to do that at this time.

By default, all members of the Azure AD tenant have user access to the Windows Admin Center gateway service. Only local administrators on the gateway machine have administrator access to the Windows Admin Center gateway. Note that the rights of local administrators on the gateway machine cannot be restricted — local admins can do anything regardless of whether Azure AD is used for authentication.

If you want to give specific Azure AD users or groups gateway user or gateway administrator access to the Windows Admin Center service, you must do the following:

1. Go to your Windows Admin Center Azure AD application in the Azure portal by using the hyperlink provided in Access Settings. Note this hyperlink is only available when Azure Active Directory authentication is enabled.
   • You can also find your application in the Azure portal by going to Azure Active Directory >Enterprise applications >All applications and searching WindowsAdminCenter (the Azure AD app will be named WindowsAdminCenter-). If you don’t get any search results, ensure Show is set to all applications, application status is set to any and click Apply, then try your search. Once you’ve found the application, go to Users and groups
2. In the Properties tab, set User assignment required to Yes. Once you’ve done this, only members listed in the Users and groups tab will be able to access the Windows Admin Center gateway.
3. In the Users and groups tab, select Add user. You must assign a gateway user or gateway administrator role for each user/group added.

Once you turn on Azure AD authentication, the gateway service restarts and you must refresh your browser. You can update user access for the SME Azure AD application in the Azure portal at any time.

Users will be prompted to sign in using their Azure Active Directory identity when they attempt to access the Windows Admin Center gateway URL. Remember that users must also be a member of the local Users on the gateway server to access Windows Admin Center.

Users and administrators can view their currently logged-in account and as well as sign-out of this Azure AD account from the Account tab of Windows Admin Center Settings.

Configuring Azure Active Directory authentication for Windows Admin Center

To set up Azure AD authentication, you must first register your gateway with Azure (you only need to do this once for your Windows Admin Center gateway). This step creates an Azure AD application from which you can manage gateway user and gateway administrator access.

If you want to give specific Azure AD users or groups gateway user or gateway administrator access to the Windows Admin Center service, you must do the following:

1. Go to your SME Azure AD application in the Azure portal.
   • When you click Change access control and then select Azure Active Directory from the Windows Admin Center Access settings, you can use the hyperlink provided in the UI to access your Azure AD application in the Azure portal. This hyperlink is also available in the Access settings after you click save and have selected Azure AD as your access control identity provider.
   • You can also find your application in the Azure portal by going to Azure Active Directory >Enterprise applications >All applications and searching SME (the Azure AD app will be named SME-). If you don’t get any search results, ensure Show is set to all applications, application status is set to any and click Apply, then try your search. Once you’ve found the application, go to Users and groups
2. In the Properties tab, set User assignment required to Yes. Once you’ve done this, only members listed in the Users and groups tab will be able to access the Windows Admin Center gateway.
3. In the Users and groups tab, select Add user. You must assign a gateway user or gateway administrator role for each user/group added.

Once you save the Azure AD access control in the Change access control pane, the gateway service restarts and you must refresh your browser. You can update user access for the Windows Admin Center Azure AD application in the Azure portal at any time.

Users will be prompted to sign in using their Azure Active Directory identity when they attempt to access the Windows Admin Center gateway URL. Remember that users must also be a member of the local Users on the gateway server to access Windows Admin Center.

Using the Azure tab of Windows Admin Center general settings, users and administrators can view their currently logged-in account and as well as sign-out of this Azure AD account.

Conditional access and multi-factor authentication

One of the benefits of using Azure AD as an additional layer of security to control access to the Windows Admin Center gateway is that you can leverage Azure AD’s powerful security features like conditional access and multi-factor authentication.

Configure single sign-on

Single sign-on when deployed as a Service on Windows Server

When you install Windows Admin Center on Windows 10, it’s ready to use single sign-on. If you’re going to use Windows Admin Center on Windows Server, however, you need to set up some form of Kerberos delegation in your environment before you can use single sign-on. The delegation configures the gateway computer as trusted to delegate to the target node.

To configure Resource-based constrained delegation in your environment, use the following PowerShell example. This example shows how you would configure a Windows Server [node01.contoso.com] to accept delegation from your Windows Admin Center gateway [wac.contoso.com] in the contoso.com domain.

To remove this relationship, run the following cmdlet:

Role-based access control

Role-based access control enables you to provide users with limited access to the machine instead of making them full local administrators. Read more about role-based access control and the available roles.

Setting up RBAC consists of 2 steps: enabling support on the target computer(s) and assigning users to the relevant roles.

Make sure you have local administrator privileges on the machines where you are configuring support for role-based access control.

Apply role-based access control to a single machine

The single machine deployment model is ideal for simple environments with only a few computers to manage. Configuring a machine with support for role-based access control will result in the following changes:

• PowerShell modules with functions required by Windows Admin Center will be installed on your system drive, under C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules . All modules will start with Microsoft.Sme
• Desired State Configuration will run a one-time configuration to configure a Just Enough Administration endpoint on the machine, named Microsoft.Sme.PowerShell. This endpoint defines the 3 roles used by Windows Admin Center and will run as a temporary local administrator when a user connects to it.
• 3 new local groups will be created to control which users are assigned access to which roles:
  • Windows Admin Center Administrators
  • Windows Admin Center Hyper-V Administrators
  • Windows Admin Center Readers

To enable support for role-based access control on a single machine, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Admin Center and connect to the machine you wish to configure with role-based access control using an account with local administrator privileges on the target machine.
2. On the Overview tool, click Settings >Role-based access control.
3. Click Apply at the bottom of the page to enable support for role-based access control on the target computer. The application process involves copying PowerShell scripts and invoking a configuration (using PowerShell Desired State Configuration) on the target machine. It may take up to 10 minutes to complete, and will result in WinRM restarting. This will temporarily disconnect Windows Admin Center, PowerShell, and WMI users.
4. Refresh the page to check the status of role-based access control. When it is ready for use, the status will change to Applied.

Once the configuration is applied, you can assign users to the roles:

1. Open the Local Users and Groups tool and navigate to the Groups tab.
2. Select the Windows Admin Center Readers group.
3. In the Details pane at the bottom, click Add User and enter the name of a user or security group which should have read-only access to the server through Windows Admin Center. The users and groups can come from the local machine or your Active Directory domain.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 for the Windows Admin Center Hyper-V Administrators and Windows Admin Center Administrators groups.

You can also fill these groups consistently across your domain by configuring a Group Policy Object with the Restricted Groups Policy Setting.

Apply role-based access control to multiple machines

In a large enterprise deployment, you can use your existing automation tools to push out the role-based access control feature to your computers by downloading the configuration package from the Windows Admin Center gateway. The configuration package is designed to be used with PowerShell Desired State Configuration, but you can adapt it to work with your preferred automation solution.

Download the role-based access control configuration

To download the role-based access control configuration package, you’ll need to have access to Windows Admin Center and a PowerShell prompt.

If you’re running the Windows Admin Center gateway in service mode on Windows Server, use the following command to download the configuration package. Be sure to update the gateway address with the correct one for your environment.

If you’re running the Windows Admin Center gateway on your Windows 10 machine, run the following command instead:

When you expand the zip archive, you’ll see the following folder structure:

• InstallJeaFeatures.ps1
• JustEnoughAdministration (directory)
• Modules (directory)
  • Microsoft.SME.* (directories)
  • WindowsAdminCenter.Jea (directory)

To configure support for role-based access control on a node, you need to perform the following actions:

1. Copy the JustEnoughAdministration, Microsoft.SME.*, and WindowsAdminCenter.Jea modules to the PowerShell module directory on the target machine. Typically, this is located at C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules .
2. Update InstallJeaFeature.ps1 file to match your desired configuration for the RBAC endpoint.
3. Run InstallJeaFeature.ps1 to compile the DSC resource.
4. Deploy your DSC configuration to all of your machines to apply the configuration.

The following section explains how to do this using PowerShell Remoting.

Deploy on multiple machines

To deploy the configuration you downloaded onto multiple machines, you’ll need to update the InstallJeaFeatures.ps1 script to include the appropriate security groups for your environment, copy the files to each of your computers, and invoke the configuration scripts. You can use your preferred automation tooling to accomplish this, however this article will focus on a pure PowerShell-based approach.

By default, the configuration script will create local security groups on the machine to control access to each of the roles. This is suitable for workgroup and domain joined machines, but if you’re deploying in a domain-only environment you may wish to directly associate a domain security group with each role. To update the configuration to use domain security groups, open InstallJeaFeatures.ps1 and make the following changes:

1. Remove the 3 Group resources from the file:
   1. «Group MS-Readers-Group»
   2. «Group MS-Hyper-V-Administrators-Group»
   3. «Group MS-Administrators-Group»
2. Remove the 3 Group resources from the JeaEndpoint DependsOn property
   1. «[Group]MS-Readers-Group»
   2. «[Group]MS-Hyper-V-Administrators-Group»
   3. «[Group]MS-Administrators-Group»
3. Change the group names in the JeaEndpoint RoleDefinitions property to your desired security groups. For example, if you have a security group CONTOSO\MyTrustedAdmins that should be assigned access to the Windows Admin Center Administrators role, change ‘$env:COMPUTERNAME\Windows Admin Center Administrators’ to ‘CONTOSO\MyTrustedAdmins’ . The three strings you need to update are:
   1. ‘$env:COMPUTERNAME\Windows Admin Center Administrators’
   2. ‘$env:COMPUTERNAME\Windows Admin Center Hyper-V Administrators’
   3. ‘$env:COMPUTERNAME\Windows Admin Center Readers’

Be sure to use unique security groups for each role. Configuration will fail if the same security group is assigned to multiple roles.