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A <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td width="20%">[[Understanding and Configuring VMM 2008 Self-Service Portal is a web site on which members of a Self-Service User role are able to create Roles|Previous]]<td align="center">[[VMM 2008 Essentials|Table of Contents]]<td width="20%" align="right"></td><tr><td width="20%">Understanding and manage virtual machines based on pre-configured templates. Configuring VMM 2008 User Roles<td align="center"><td width="20%" align="right"></td></table><hr>

<htmlet>vmm</htmlet>  A VMM 2008 Self-Service Portal is a web site on which authorized users are able to manage existing virtual machines and also create new virtual machines based on pre-configured templates.  Self-Service Portals may be installed on any server within the domain, including servers running the VMM Server component, but excluding the domain controller. This chapter of [[VMM 2008 Essentials]] will cover the installation, configuration and management of a VMM 20-08 2008 Self-Service Portal.

The VMM 2008 Self-Service Portal is supported on all editions of the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 SP2 systems. Amongst the requirements for the Self-Service Portal are the Internet Information Service 6.0 (IIS) feature which must be installation installed prior to installing the portal. In addition, on Windows Server 2008 systems the IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility and IIS 6 WMI Compatibility roles must also be installed prior to installing the portal.

As with the other VMM components, the Self-Service Portal is installed using the VMM 2008 setup wizard which can be launched either from the VMM 2008 installation media, or the trial download. Once Setup is running, click on the ''VMM Self-Service Portal'' option and wait while some temporary files are copied. Read and accept the licensing terms and conditions, make a Windows Experience Improvement Program selection if prompted to do so, and run the prerequisites check. If any problems are reported by the check, resolve the issues and re-run the check until it passes successfully. Any problems will be accompanied by step-by-step instructions on how to resolve the corresponding issue.

Once the prerequisites check has passed, select a destination folder into which the files should be installed, or use the default location provided. The next screen provides the option to configure the following Web Server settings:

The actions that the user is able to perform on the virtual machines is are dependent on the permissions assigned to the user role. For example, if permission to shut down virtual machines was denied to the user role this option will not be available to role members within the portal.

In the case of running virtual machinemachines, a connection may be established to the virtual machine's desktop by selecting the machine from the list and selecting the ''Connect to VM'' link in the ''Actions'' pane. Once selected, a ''Remote Control Session'' browser window will appear containing the desktop of the selected virtual machine:

As previously discussed, Self-Service User Role members may create new virtual machines from within the Self-Service Portal only if the role has permission to do so and templates have been configured for use by the role's members. Assuming these criteria have been met, a new virtual machine is created by clicking on the ''New Computer'' link located under ''Create'' on the right hand side of the portal web page. Once this selection has been made, a new browser windows window containing the ''New Virtual Machine'' web page will appear as illustrated below: