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Using DSC on Nano Server

Applies To: Windows PowerShell 5.0

DSC on Nano Server is an optional package in the NanoServer\Packages folder of the Windows Server 2016 media. The package can be installed when you create a VHD for a Nano Server by specifying Microsoft-NanoServer-DSC-Package as the value of the Packages parameter of the New-NanoServerImage function. For example, if you are creating a VHD for a virtual machine, the command would look like the following:

New-NanoServerImage -Edition Standard -DeploymentType Guest -MediaPath f:\ -BasePath .\Base -TargetPath .\Nano1\Nano.vhd -ComputerName Nano1 -Packages Microsoft-NanoServer-DSC-Package

For information about installing and using Nano Server, as well as how to manage Nano Server with PowerShell Remoting, see Getting Started with Nano Server.

DSC features available on Nano Server

Because Nano Server supports only a limited set of APIs compared to a full version of Windows Server, DSC on Nano Server does not have full functional parity with DSC running on full SKUs for the time being. DSC on Nano Server is in active development and is not yet feature complete.

The following DSC features are currently available on Nano Server:

Both push and pull modes

DSC features not available on Nano Server

The following DSC features are not currently available on Nano Server:

  • Decrypting MOF document with encrypted password(s)
  • Pull Server--you cannot currently set up a pull server on Nano Server
  • Anything that is not in the list of feature works

Using custom DSC resources on Nano Server

Due to a limited sets of Windows APIs and CLR libraries available on Nano Server, DSC resources that work on the full CLR version of Windows do not necessarily work on Nano Server. Complete end-to-end testing before deploying any DSC custom resources to a production environment.

See Also