AutomatedLab

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Project Summary

AutomatedLab (AL) enables you to setup test and lab environments on Hyper-v or Azure with multiple products or just a single VM in a very short time. There are only two requirements you need to make sure: You need the DVD ISO images and a Hyper-V host or an Azure subscription.

Sponsors

Huge thanks to our regular sponsor @chocolatey! In case you have lived under a rock (or worked mainly on non-Windows systems) for the past decade, Chocolatey is a brilliant package management system with a public binary package gallery as well as self-hosted options complete with enterprise-grade support. Give it a try with a local lab environment - it could not be easier 😊 Start with a Domain Controller and a Certificate Authority to validate not only package distribution, but also digital signatures. Our samples such as the NuGet server or Azure DevOps all include galleries that Chocolatey can use for publishing and downloading packages.

Requirements

Apart from the module itself your system needs to meet the following requirements:

• Windows Management Framework 5+ (Windows)
• .NET 4.7.1 (Windows PowerShell) or .NET Core 2.x (PowerShell 6+)
• OS
  • Windows Server 2012 R2+/Windows 8.1+ (Hyper-V, Azure)
  • Linux (Azure)
  • macOS (Azure, best-effort support since neither @raandree nor @nyanhp have Apple devices)
• Recommended OS language is en-us
• Admin privileges are required on Windows
• ISO files for all operating systems (Hyper-V only) and roles to be deployed (Hyper-V, Azure)
• Intel VT-x or AMD/V capable CPU
• A decent amount of RAM
• Low-Latency high-throughput storage (No spinning disks please, as there are issues related to them)

Windows

• Windows Management Framework 5+ or ideally PowerShell 7
• Windows Server 2012 R2+/Windows 8.1+
• Recommended OS language is en-us
• Admin privileges are required

Linux, macOS

• Supported host OS (Azure, Proxmox): Fedora, Ubuntu, Ubuntu WSL & Azure Cloud Shell
• Supported Linux guests: CentOS/RHEL/Fedora (any flavor), Ubuntu Server (Desktop ISO is not supported), OpenSUSE/SUSE
• macOS supported on best effort due to lack of Apple devices - feel free to sponsor two though :D
• Regularly tested on Fedora (non-WSL) and Ubuntu (WSL). Due to fragmented nature of Linux distributions, support is best-effort and takes time
• PowerShell Core 6+
• SSH or gss-ntlmssp to enable remoting (mandatory - no remoting, no way for AutomatedLab to do its thing)
  • If in doubt, try to Install-Module PSWSMAN; Install-WSMAN - no success warranted
• IP and route commands available
• Azure subscription
  • At the moment, AutomatedLab only works using Azure when using Linux.
  • KVM planned for a later date by virtue of libvirt.

Download AutomatedLab

There are two options installing AutomatedLab:

• You can use the MSI installer published on GitHub.
• Or you install from the PowerShell Gallery using the cmdlet Install-Module. Please refer to the wiki for some details.

1. Installation

2. Getting started

3. Contributing

Version History

Supported products

This solution supports setting up virtual machines with the following products

• Windows 7, 2008 R2, 8 / 8.1 and 2012 / 2012 R2, 10 / 2016, 2019, 2022
• SQL Server 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022
• Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015
• Team Foundation Services 2018, Azure DevOps Server
• Exchange 2013, 2016, 2019
• System Center Orchestrator 2012
• System Center Operations Manager 2019
• System Center Service Manager 2019
• Microsoft Endpoint Manager Configuration Manager 1902 (and newer)
• MDT
• ProGet (Private PowerShell Gallery)
• Office 2013, 2016, 2019
• DSC Pull Server (with SQL Reporting)
• Dynamics 365
• Remote Desktop Services including HTML5 web client

Feature List