Weblog.BassQ.nl » SCVMM

Three Steps to a PXE-Free XenDesktop on Hyper-V

BassQ — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:33:21 +0000

http://community.citrix.com/display/ocb/2010/04/13/Three+Steps+to+a+PXE-Free+XenDesktop+on+Hyper-V

I ran into an interesting situation last week while working with Tony Sanchez from our Global Microsoft Team. He was setting up XenDesktop 4 on Hyper-V 2008 R2. However, the lab he was at used a Windows Deployment Server (WDS) for image management and it relies extensively on PXE. Rather than modify the WDS to support the Provisioning Services PXE boot file, we decided the best solution was to make a boot ISO that will load the OS directly from the Provisioning Services host and then boot the guests from that ISO.

Background

Since not all my readers are familiar with using the Boot Device Manager, I will set the stage. When configuring a virtual machine to boot off of a CD-ROM image for PVS, you need to do three things:

Add a Legacy network card on the host since the Synthetic network adapter is not created until the Operating System loads.
Configure the BIOS boot order so that CD-ROM is first in the list.
Assign a bootable ISO image to the CD-ROM/DVD drive.

Take Note
The PXE boot option is required in order for the NIC Option ROM to stay resident in memory during the pre-boot process. This way, UNDI will be available to the boot device to properly initialize the NIC. Otherwise, the “API not found” message would be displayed by the boot device.

In deployments of XenDesktop where you have more than about 15 machines, the XenDesktop Setup Wizard (XDSW) is normally used to create and link the XenDesktops with Hyper-V. Unfortunately, the XDSW does not support all the possible VM configuration options when duplicating the source virtual machine. One of the properties that is not transferred to the new virtual machine is the ISO in the DVD drive. Normally, this behavior is the preferred because Hyper-V needs a special configuration to support sharing an ISO across multiple guests simultaneously (See this Technet article), which if not configured correctly can cause startup issues.

If you do not want to configure ISO sharing, you can use the VMM server and VMM library to copy the boot ISO to each virtual machine’s folder. If the ISO was large, I would say spend time setting up the sharing configuration; however, in this case the file itself is only 300K and copying it will eliminate the possibility of file sharing/locking issues.

Now you understand some of the challenges, I can tell you the three steps to a PXE-free Hyper-V deployment.:

Create a PVS Boot ISO using the Boot Device Manager
Import that PVS Boot ISO into the VMM Library
Execute a PowerShell script

Step 1: Create a PVS Boot ISO

The Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager is a three-dialog wizard that lets you pre-configure the boot environment just like a PXE server would, except you can then write that to a drive or CD-ROM media. The Boot Device Manager is found on the Start menu of any provisioning server at All Programs >> Citrix >> Provisioning Services >> Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager.

I do not want to spend a lot of time discussing the various options or provide a tutorial on this utility; however, I will provide a few pointers. First, be sure to enable the “Citrix PVS Two-Stage Boot Service” and set it to start automatically on any servers you will use as the targets for the ISO image. Second, if you are using Windows 7, be sure to enable the PAE Mode on the second page of the wizard, like this:

Third, be sure to select Citrix ISO Recorder as the boot device (shown below) before burning the ISO image, lest you accidentally wipe out your local hard disk. For a complete guide on using the Boot Disk Manager, see this Citrix Support Article CTX121331.

Step 2: Import the ISO into the SCVMM Library

Take the ISO you created in Step 1 and save it to the folder where the SCVMM library stores are located. I created a new folder called ISOs at the same level as VHDs and placed the ISO in that folder. Next start the SCVMM Administrative Console and go to the Library tab. Select the MSSCVMMLibrary node and click Refresh on the context-menu to add the ISOs to the library as shown here:

Step 3: Execute the PowerShell Script

Next, you can copy the contents of the PowerShell script below and save it to a file called AttachISO.PS1. I realize that I am not yet a PowerShell guru, so I am aware that several optimizations and error checks could be made to this script. Feel free to modify it for your own use. My goal was provide a working example to help with this issue. The PowerShell script below does the following:

Sets the boot order to CD, PXE (Legacy NIC), IDE, Floppy
Copies the ISO image from the library to the VM’s folder
Creates a DVD drive object at the IDE bus 1:0 if no DVD drive is found
Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified on the command-line
For larger environments, it lets you know how many VMs it has left to process

AttachISO PowerShell Script

# Purpose:      Attach ISO image from VMM Server Library to Guest Virtual Machine
# Date Written: 12 April 2010
# Author:       Paul Wilson (no implied or expressed warranties)
# Usage:        AttachISO [UNC Path to ISO in Library] [VM Name to Match Criteria]

# Check for the two required arguments and offer command-line assistance if not found

if ($args -eq $null -or $args.Count -lt 2)
{
   write-output "Usage: AttachISO.ps1 UNC_fileName_ISO_File VMNameMatches"
   write-output "Example: .\AttachISO.ps1 ""\\SCVMM\MSSCVMMLibrary\ISOs\pvbt.iso"" ""Desktop"" "
   exit 1
}

# Grab the arguments and store them for later use

$ISOPath = $args[0]
$VMNameMatches = $args[1]

# Get the name of the SCVMM server we are running this on.
# The VMM server could be passed as a parameter as well.

$VMMServer = Get-VMMServer -Computername "localhost"

# Get the ISO image reference object using the ISO path provided earlier.
# Using the full path guarantees the right object is found. 

$ISOImage = Get-ISO -VMMServer $VMMServer | where { $_.SharePath -eq "$ISOPath" }

if ($ISOImage -eq $null)
{
   write-output "Unable to find ISO: $ISOPath"
   exit 1
}

# Get the collection of VMs that match the name parameters supplied and output that information

$VMs = Get-VM | where { $_.Name -match "$VMNameMatches" }
if ($VMs -eq $null)
{
   write-output "No VMs match the pattern: $VMNameMatches"
   exit 1
}
else
{
   $LeftToGo = $VMs.Count
   if ($LeftToGo -eq $null)
   {
      $matchString = "Only one VM matched the pattern: {0}" -f $VMNameMatches
      $LeftToGo = 1
    }
    else
    {
      $matchString = "{0} VMs match the pattern: {1}" -f $VMs.Count, $VMNameMatches
    }
    write-output $matchString
}

# This loop goes through each VM found and does the following:
#   1. Sets the boot order to CD, PXE Nic, IDE, Floppy.
#   2. Gets the DVD/CD drive object.
#   3. The script will copy the ISO image from the library to the VM's folder.
#      The copy is part of the Set-VirtualDVDDrive and New-VirtualDVDDrive cmdlets.
#   4. Creates the DVD drive object if none found and sets it to the ISO.
#   5. Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified.
#   6. Outputs the number of VMs remaining to process. Added for large deployments. 

foreach ($VM in $VMS)
{
   $LeftToGo = $LeftToGo - 1
   Set-VM -VM $VM -BootOrder CD,PXEBoot,IDEHardDrive,Floppy
   $current_dvd = get-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM

   if ($current_dvd -eq $null -or $current_dvd.count -eq 0)
   {
      $newDVD = New-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM -Bus 1 -LUN 0 -ISO $ISOImage
      $DVDResultMessage = "Created DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
   }
   else
   {
      if ($current_dvd.Connection -ne "None")
      {
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -noMedia
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage
         $DVDResultMessage = "Replaced existing media in DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
       }
       else
       {
         set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage
         $DVDResultMessage = "Successfully attached ISO to the DVD Drive of {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo
       }
    }
    write-output $DVDResultMessage
}

Failover Clustering for Hyper-V with File Server Storage

BassQ — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:02:00 +0000

Overview
In a previous blog post, I described 5 different ways to implement Windows Server Failover Clustering with Hyper-V. Those options included: Parent-based Failover Clustering with two physical servers, Child-based Failover Clustering with two physical servers, Mixed Physical/Virtual Failover Clustering, Failover Clustering with two child partitions on one physical server and Standalone demo laptop with Virtual iSCSI SAN.

However, I failed to mention in that post the option to use CIFS/SMB file server share as your option for Failover Clustering storage. This scenario is so unique (with differences in flexibility, cost and performance), that I would argue it constitutes a sixth method. Here’s how you can do it.

Before and After Diagrams
As I did with the previous blog post, let me describe the scenario using two diagrams. First, here is a diagram describing the scenario before a failure:

Now, here’s a diagram describing the scenario after a failure in SPTNODE1:

As you can see, we use a file server (called SPTSERVER1) for storing the Hyper-V files. The idea is to store the configuration files, the VHD itself and the VHD snapshots in the \\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\VM1 folder. As we do when using a SAN for shared storage, the surviving node will take over and start the VM in case of a failure. We can also use the very same scenario for Quick Migration, making the VM move orderly from one node to another by saving the state to the file share and instructing to other node to take over and restore the VM.

Pre-requisites
Before you move forward, you want to make sure you have at least two physical computers running Hyper-V. In our scenario, STPNODE1 and STPNODE2 are running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (Full or Core installs work fine).

Add the Hyper-V role to STPNODE1 and STPNODE2.

Add the Failover Clustering feature to STPNODE1 and STPNODE2.

You will need to use a general purpose server to act as a file server or a NAS box compatible with CIFS/SMB. You probably want to run Windows Server 2008 for improved performance (new TCP/IP stack and SMBv2 protocol). In our scenario, STPSERVER1 is the file server running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (Full or Core installs work fine).

Grant the required permissions for \\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\ to the computer accounts for STPNODE1 and STPNODE2, as described at http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/06/24/storing-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-files-on-an-cifs-smb-file-share.aspx.

You might also want to have a management client which could be your desktop (running Windows Vista SP1) or another server (running a Full install of Windows Server 2008). In our scenario, SPTCLIENT1 is the management client.

Install the Windows Server RTM patch described at http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/06/26/windows-server-2008-hyper-v-released-today-includes-a-list-of-main-hyper-v-related-links.aspx in both nodes and also in the management client.

You will need to have a domain infrastructure (Windows Server Failover Clustering requires a domain). The domain controller is not shown in the diagrams.

Steps
You start the process by creating a cluster with the two Hyper-V nodes. To do this, you will use the Failover Cluster Management MMC from either node. In that tool, you will:

Validate the configuration
Create the cluster
Adjust the quorum configuration
Create the virtual machine in one of the nodes
Make the VM highly available

Running Validation
Here’s the initial screen of the Failover Cluster Management MMC, when first loaded.

Before you create the cluster, you must Validate your Configuration. Be sure to run *all* Validation tests, since solutions are only supported if you do so.

Since we are not using shared storage, the storage tests will generate a warning. Completing validation with a warning is acceptable.

If you run into any errors during Validation, you must fix those before you proceed.

Creating the Cluster
After you run validation, click the option to “Create a Cluster”. First, you must specify the nodes. In this case we’re using SPTNODE1 and SPTNODE2.

Second, you specify the name of the cluster.

After confirming the data entered, the cluster is created, as shown below:

Note that we end up with a warning (yellow triangle). If you click the “View Report” button, you find what the issue is:
No appropriate disk could be found for the quorum disk.

This is expected. With only two nodes with no shared storage, you don’t have a valid quorum configuration and a single node failure will cause the cluster to fail.

You can see that in the cluster information below:

Typically, in a shared storage configuration, you would get that third vote from a shared witness disk (also know as a quorum disk).

We will overcome that in the next step.

Configuring the Cluster Quorum Settings
To get our third vote for the cluster without using shared storage, we will use the new option in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering to use a file server witness.

First, you need to add permission for the cluster computer account to the file share. The cluster computer account was created when we created the cluster.

As you did when granting permissions to SPTNODE1 and SPTNODE2, add full control permissions for the SPTDEMO\SPTCLUSTER$ account in the share and in the file system at SPTSERVER1.

Next, use the Failover Cluster Management tool to change the Quorum Configuration.

You will find this option by right-clicking the cluster name, then selecting “More Actions”, as shown below:

The wizard will guide you through the process. You will select the option for “Node and File Share Majority”, as shown below:

In the next screen, you will specify the actual shared folder path for the file share witness resource. We will use \\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\WITNESS. See below:

After you confirm the operation, you will see the update in the quorum configuration, now showing no warning signs.

I would recommend that you also check the status of the storage in the cluster.

You do this by clicking on the “Storage” node under the cluster name in the Failover Cluster Management tool. Here’s what you should see at this point:

As you can see, this is one of the cases where you have a healthy cluster with no shared storage. Exchange Server 2007 CCR clusters also do that.

Creating a regular Virtual Machine on a cluster node
At this point, if you check the Hyper-V Manager tool, you will see no virtual machines:

Now we will use the Hyper-V Manager to create a new VM in SPTNODE1 using only a file share for storage. If you’re doing this from SPTNODE1, you should have no isses. If you’re doing this from any other computer (like the management client SPTCLIENT1), be sure to check this post on how to configure Constrained Delegation to allow remote management of Hyper-V when using file shares: http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/06/27/using-constrained-delegation-to-remotely-manage-a-server-running-hyper-v-that-uses-cifs-smb-file-shares.aspx

Again, this is done through a wizard. This is a regular VM creation, except for the fact that we’re using UNC paths (file share paths) for the storage, instead of regular folders on a local disk. In my specific case, we’re storing this new VM at \\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\VM1.

Here you see the virtual machine configuration folder:

Then the location of the new VHD file for the VM:

And even the ISO file we’re mounting will also come from that file server:

Once all is confirmed, we have a new VM, which you should keep in an “off” state for now:

Making the Virtual Machine Highly Available
Now we go back to the Failover Cluster Management tool to make the newly created VM highly available.

Click on the “Services and Applications” node under the cluster name and select the option to “Configure a Service or Application”. Again, it’s a wizard:

After selecting “Virtual Machine” as the type of service, you will select from a list of existing VMs. In our case, there’s only VM1:

After confirming your settings, the VM is made highly available, with a warning:

Again, if you click on the “View Report” button, you find the issues
The path ‘\\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\VM1′ where the virtual machine configuration is stored is not on a failover cluster and might not be highly available. To achieve the highest availability, store the virtual machine configuration on a clustered file server (configured within a failover cluster).

The path ‘\\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\VM1′ where the virtual machine snapshots are stored is not on a failover cluster and might not be highly available. To achieve the highest availability, store the virtual machine snapshots on a clustered file server (configured within a failover cluster).

The path ‘\\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\VM1\VM1.vhd’ where the virtual hard disk is stored is not on a failover cluster and might not be highly available. To achieve the highest availability, store the virtual hard disk on a clustered file server (configured within a failover cluster).

The path ‘\\SPTSERVER1\VMSHARE\ISO\WindowsServer2008-amd64.iso’ where the virtual hard disk is stored is not on a failover cluster and might not be highly available. To achieve the highest availability, store the virtual hard disk on a clustered file server (configured within a failover cluster).

As it usually does, the Failover Cluster Management tool is being very careful, pointing out that the file server share you are using is a potential single point of failure.

In order to have true high availability, you need to make sure that file share is also highly available. To achieve that, you need to place that file share in Failover Cluster as well.

The wizard has no way to detect if the file share is also clustered, so you will always get these warnings.

Now, you can go back and check the properties of the new highly available VM and bring it online.

One interesting thing you will notice is that you will not have any storage associated with that service, as you can see below:

In the summary page, you also confirm that, since you do not have the typical clustered disk listed in the summary for the virtual machine:

Moving the VM to another node
The last step is to prove that you can fail or move the VM to another node.

To do this, I use the option to “Move this service or application to another node”, which you can find when you right-click the virtual machine. See below:

When you do this, you will see that the VM will be taken offline in the source node (the state is saved first), as you can see below:

Then the VM will be brought online on the destination node (by restoring the state). Check below:

This process takes only a moment, and will depend only on how much memory you VM has and how long it takes to save the state to the file server share (from SPTNODE1) and then to restore the state from that same file share (from SPTNODE2).

You can see the final state, after the move to SPTNODE2 is completed, below:

Conclusion
I hope these steps will give you enough to recreate this scenario in your environment and validate that you can create a Failover Cluster for Hyper-V using only a CIFS/SMB file share for storage.

Keep in mind that, if your configuration can pass the Failover Cluster Validation with only a warning due to the missing shared storage, you solution is supported.

Also remember that this solution will only be truly highly available if you file share is also highly available. I’m sure you will find plenty of documentation out there on how to make file servers highly available.

Last, there is the question of performance. As I mentioned in the previous blog post using Hyper-V with file shares, I was impressed with the increased performance of a Windows Server 2008 file server, specially for this type of workload. However, I will leave it to you to test this configuration for yourself and draw your own conclusions about performance. With faster IP networks (including 10Gb Ethernet) and the improvements in the SMB v2 protocol, you might be tempted to trade performance for the added flexibility and reduced cost this could bring to your Hyper-V storage management.

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool v2.1 (VHD)

BassQ — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:49:03 +0000

Source; http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/12/10/Offline-Virtual-Machine-Servicing-Tool-v2.1-.aspx

Virtualization affects how we plan, build, deploy, operate, and service workloads. Customers are creating large libraries of virtual machines containing various configurations. The patch-state of these virtual machines are not always known. Ensuring that offline virtual machines are properly patched and won’t become vulnerable the instant they come online is critical.

I am therefore very pleased to state that the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool v2.1 has now been released!

Congratulations to the Solution Accelerator team for this release!

The Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1 has free, tested guidance and automated tools to help customers keep their virtualized machines updated, without introducing vulnerabilities into their IT infrastructure.

The tool combines the Windows Workflow programming model with the Windows PowerShell interface to automatically bring groups of virtual machines online, service them with the latest security updates, and return them to an offline state.

What’s New?

Release 2.1 is a direct response to customer and Microsoft field requests to support the R2 wave. Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1 now supports the following products:
· Hyper-V-R2
· VMM 2008 R2
· SCCM 2007 SP2
· WSUS 3.0 SP2
· OVMST 2.1 also supports updates to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines.

Download here; Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2.1
More info; http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 RTM!

BassQ — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:44:33 +0000

Zane Adam: System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 has RTM’d and GA via volume licensing is set for October 1. This is great news for all and I’d like to especially thank our VMM 2008 R2 Development, Product Management, and Test teams. Lots of hard work fueled by their passion in virtualization and management has resulted in a very good software release.

A 180-day evaluation version is now available, too, on the Microsoft Download site. You can access it here.

Please experience for yourself what the 10,000+ people who have previously downloaded our ‘Release Candidate’ plus organizations such as Continental Airlines, Lionbridge Technologies, and Indiana University have seen with VMM 2008 R2!

I encourage everyone to explore the new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 and its new features such as quick storage migration, live migration, and many others. We even offer support for vSphere 4.

To learn more on the new features and capabilities of VMM2008 R2, please try to attend our upcoming TechNet session ‘Technical Overview of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2’. Presented by our Technical Product Manager Kenon Owens, it will be chocked full of new and cool VMM 2008 R2 items. Go here to register for this Wednesday, September 09, 2009 (10:00 AM Pacific) event.

Source : http://techlog.org/archive/2009/08/24/system_center_virtual_machine_

SCVMM 2008 and VMware integration

BassQ — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:13:20 +0000

I downloaded and installed SCVMM 2008 today and installed it to check out the VMware integration. I created a new virtual machine with Windows Server 2008 x64 with 1,5GB of RAM and started the installation from an attached ISO. When I did that the installation failed during WAIK installation. I copied the WAIK files (from \Prerequisites\WAIK\1033) to the server and installed WAIK from there. I than reran the setup procedure and SCVMM installed fine.

The first thing you do after installation is to add some hosts. This beta of SCVMM 2008 supports the following virtualization hosts:

Virtual Server 2005
Hyper-V (on Windows Server 2008)
VMware VI3 (with VirtualCenter)

To manage ESX you need to add a VirtualCenter server. SCVMM cannot connect to ESX servers directly. The result (click to enlarge):

In the screenshot above at the right, you’ll see an action called Add VMware VirtualCenter . That action launches a wizard that asks you for the name of your VirtualCenter box and your credentials. Upon completion, the wizard adds folders to SCVMM for each VMware datacenter object and then adds the ESX boxes.

If you look at the screenshot further, the Summary tab shows some information about the ESX host like CPU, memory, storage and the virtual machines on the host. The Storage and Networking tab shows the following info:

When you click on the Virtual Machines button and select the ESX host you get a list of virtual machines:

From that list you can do what’s expected: stop, start, suspend, modify the virtual machine settings, VMotion, etc… You can also connect to the console of virtual machines. The first time you do this you need to install an ActiveX control. The console looks like this:

That’s all I have time for today. Next I will check out how SCVMM works with ISOs and virtual machine templates and how that ties in with VirtualCenter. I will report those findings later.

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta

BassQ — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:51:49 +0000

Arlindo Alves from Microsoft Belgium posted two articles on how to install the just released System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta.

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta Part I
In the first part Arlindo explains how to install the server components of SCVMM 2008 Beta.

Installing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta Part II
In the second part Arlindo describes the console installation.