Installing WSUS on Windows Server 2012 Server Core

Installing the WSUS Windows Feature
This only covers a default installation using the locally installed Windows Internal Database. For a more comprehensive walkthrough, have a read of this article by Boe Prox.

1. Open an elevated Powershell session on the server
2. Run: Install-WindowsFeature -Name UpdateServices -IncludeManagementTools
3. Run: wsusutil postinstall CONTENT_DIR=D:\Wsus

The Wsusutil.exe utility can be found by default under “C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools”.

The CONTENT_DIR directive is optional, but given how large the update repository can become, it’s fairly common to dedicate a separate drive to it. The command itself – amongst other things, creates the database within the WID.

If the host you’re installing WSUS on to also happens to be a virtual guest – or even if it’s physical, this still isn’t a bad idea, you might want to specify an upper memory limit for the WID – much as you would for SQL Server itself. You can do this by:

Optional: Configuring WID (SQL Server 2012 base) memory usage

1. Download and install the SQL 2012 native client from here. See installation notes below.
2. Download and install the SQL command line tools also from here. See installation notes below.
3. Open an elevated command prompt
4. Change directory to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn”
5. Run: sqlcmd -S \\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query -E
6. Run each of the following at the interactive prompt:
   sp_configure ’show advanced options’, 1
   reconfigure
   go
   sp_configure ‘max server memory’, 256
   reconfigure
   go
   exit

The figure of 256 indicates 256MB. You can tune that upwards or downwards as you see fit. Just keep in mind that the W3WP.exe processes will end up consuming a fair bit of memory as well, and you don’t want the two fighting each other for physical memory to only end up seeing one lose and subsequently thrashing the page file.

With the SQL components downloaded in steps 1 and 2 above, you can install them on Server 2012 Server Core with the following commands:

• sqlncli.msi /qb IACCEPTSQLNCLILICENSETERMS=YES
• SqlCmdLnUtils.msi /qb

Cheers,
Lain