Showing posts with label Hyper-V. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyper-V. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2013

VMware Converter: Increase copy speed by disabling disabling SSL encryption

Locate the converter-worker.xml file. By default, it is located at:

  • Windows 7 and 2008 Server – C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
  • Windows Vista, XP and 2003 Server – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
  • In older Windows versions – %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone
  • Take a backup of the converter-worker.xml file.
  • Open the file in a text editor and locate the tag pair <useSsl></useSsl>. It is located inside the <nfc> tag and has a value of true.
  • Change the value to false.
  • Save and close the file.
  • Restart the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker service on the machine.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

SCVMM R2 converted to trail after installing SP1

After installing SP1 on SCVMM 2008 it converted to trail version.

1. Download the correct licensed version of VMM 2008 R2 SP1 from the above link.
2. Uninstall VMM 2008 R2 SP1 evaluation with retain database option
3. Start the install of the downloaded VMM 2008 R2 SP1 Licensed version and select the retained database.

Note: During reinstall you might get below error, when you click the drop down for the SQL Instance:

"No Sql Server instance is found on the specified server localhost. (ID:360)  verify that SQL 2005 is installed properly and the SLQ Server service is running"

To solve this issue uninstall the evaluation Admin Console and try to install again.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

HP ProLiant G6/G7/Gen8 Servers - Network Configuration Utility is No Longer Available Within Microsoft Server 2012 Operating System

SYMPTOM:HP Network Configuration Utility (NCU) is no longer available for download for the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Operating System.
SYMPTOM:HP NCU cannot be installed on Microsoft Windows Server 2012.
CAUSE:Microsoft Windows Server 2012 has Network Teaming functionality build into the Operating System of Microsoft Server 2012 (all editions).
Complete Article:

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Hyper-V: Configure VLANs and VLAN Tagging

The most Generic model:  enable Trunking on the physical switch (specifying the VLAN IDs and native VLAN) and apply a VLAN ID in the settings of the virtual NIC of each VM that needs it and the VM is attached to the proper External Virtual Network.

Note:  Hyper-V Virtual Networks are "trunking mode" by default.

  1. Configure the switch port as a trunk
  2. Specify VLAN IDs / Tags and native VLAN
  3. On Hyper-V create an External Virtual Network attached to the configured trunk port of the physical switch
  4. Apply a VLAN ID / Tag to each VM in the settings of the virtual network adapter

The Network Teaming model:  NIC Teaming is involved (since Hyper-V does not support bonding) - you apply the VLAN tag to the Teaming virtual NIC and attach a virtual switch to this.

  1. Create a trunked port on your switch.
  2. Create a team
  3. Create several Team Virtual NICs in parent partition assigning different VLAN IDs to each virtual NIC
  4. Create a Virtual Network from each of the Teaming Virtual NICs
  5. Connect VMs to proper Virtual Networks
  6. Don’t specify the VLAN ID field in VM properties
  7. But in some cases (e.g. HP NCU) step 6 is exactly opposite. You must specify VLAN ID both on virtual NIC level (step 3) and each VM level (step 6)

SCVMM is involved – follow the Generic Model and be sure to set the “trunking” option on the Virtual Network settings in the SCVMM management console.

Note: SCVMM exposes the two different types of trunking options (the Hyper-V Manager GUI does not expose the access mode setting) - trunk mode and access mode.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Hyper-V Event Logs Explained

Hyper-V-Config

This log contains entries that pertain to the configuration files that describe individual virtual machines. These are the XML files whose names are globally unique identifiers. They can be found under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines or under VM-specific folders on a Cluster Shared Volume. The most common error is 4096, which indicates that Hyper-V is unable to locate an expected configuration file. It isn’t entirely unusual to encounter this error in normal operations, as utilities and operations may move the XML files in a fashion that isn’t entirely in sync with the Hyper-V services. It normally doesn’t require attention unless it is a persistent error.

Hyper-V-High-Availability

This section contains events related to the interaction of Failover Clustering with Hyper-V.  Most of the events here will be informational recording of actions that the Cluster service took on individual VMs. Errors should be very rare and are generally related to the same sort of synchronization issues that cause the Hyper-V-Config 4096 errors.

Hyper-V-Hypervisor

As the name implies, these events are related to the hypervisor itself. Most of the events will be related to the creation and destruction of partitions, which are the temporary container that hold running virtual machines. If there is any sort of problem with Hyper-V itself, especially issues that prevent the service from starting, this is where you’ll find out about it.

Hyper-V-Image-Management-Service

The related service is devoted to the handling of VHD files. If any operation involving a virtual hard drive fails, details are logged here.

Hyper-V-Integration

This log tracks events associated with the Integration Services that are installed into virtual machines. Most of the problems reported here can be corrected by re-installing or upgrading the Integration Services components.

Hyper-V-Network

The virtual switch(es) in your deployment will record events here. The first events will be the creation of the virtual networks themselves, as well as pairing of external networks to physical network cards. When a virtual network adapter is created or destroyed in a virtual machine, a matching virtual port is created on the virtual switch; the creation/destruction of those ports will be registered here.

Hyper-V-SynthNic

The synthetic network cards in virtual machines will log an event when they start (12582). Look here for clues as to why a network card won’t function, such as MAC collisions.

Hyper-V-SynthStor

Virtual storage controller drivers use this log for their events. The most common event is logged by virtual SCSI controllers as they start. The virtual IDE driver is emulated and not synthetic, so it initializes before the VM loads and will not log a matching event. If a drive cannot be attached to the virtual controller port as expected, it will be logged here.

Hyper-V-VMMs

The Virtual Machine Management Service generates these events. Problems with import and export actions will be logged here, as will AVHD merge operations. Host shutdown events will also be tracked in this log. It will also report when it cannot locate the files for a VM. As in other logs, these are likely to be cleaned up once a VM is completely removed.

Hyper-V-Worker

Hyper-V’s worker threads log these events. Normally, this is the busiest of all the logs, but most of them are trivial. If you’re curious how long that last Live Migration took, this is where you’ll find it. Emulated network and storage drivers (as opposed to the synthetic drivers) will create events here.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Creating virtual hard disks takes long time- Hyper V

If you have ever created a fixed-size virtual hard disk that was larger than, oh - 2GB, you probably noticed that it takes quite a while to create.  The reason why this takes so long is that when we create a new fixed-size virtual hard disk we take the time to explicitly zero-out all of the disk space that is being assigned to the new file.

Now - we could do this practically instantaneously by not zeroing out the data - but this has an interesting potential security problem.

Imagine the following situation:

  • You have a virtual machine with a bunch of confidential data running on a central server (e.g. your company payroll).
  • This virtual machine gets moved to a new physical server in response to increased work load.
  • You create a new virtual machine which is given to someone on from the in-house dev team - but the virtual hard disk data was not zeroed out.
  • Developer then runs data recovery tools on his new, blank virtual machine and is able to recover data from the old payroll server (yikes!)

You see - data is never actually deleted from a disk when a file is moved or deleted (it is just dereferenced) so to avoid the above scenario - we must take the time to "do the right thing" and zero out the VHD contents.

Link 1

Link 2

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Expand Windows 2003 VM’s (Hyper-V ) System Drive (C Drive)

1. Shutdown VM

2. Expand VHD file in VM’s properties (in Hyper-V)

3. Switch on VM and check drive expansion is reflecting in VM’s Disc Management

4. Switch of VM

5. Mount VM’s VHD file in Hyper-V host - Disk Management>Action>Attach VHD

6. Expand VHD using Hyper-V host’s Disc Management MMC

7. Make VHD offline and then unmounts VHD

8. Start VM, now drive must showing added space.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

.avhd file remain after deleting snapshot

.avhd file still remaiing in VM folder after deleting Hyper-V snapshot.

Check VM properties to see still VM is using .avhd file.

image

If you delete all the snapshots in Hyper-V Manager, the system will merge all the .avhd files into the original VHD file after you turn off the VM, and then there is only a VHD file there. You can open the VM’s settings to check whether the hard disk of the VM is a VHD instead a .AVHD file. You can see consolidation action progress in “status” tab once VM is powered off.

image

Monday, November 19, 2012

Windows 2008 R2 VM (Hyper-V) won't boot after expanding primary VHD Disc.

I expanded C drive of Hyper V VM using helper VM and after that VM doesn't boot.

Solution: Attach Windows OS disc to VM and boot from it. Select repair option and then command line.

#CD recover

#bootrec.exe

This will restart VM and hopefully make VM bootable. In my case Bootrec was able to make VM bootable, but one applications was unable to start and was asking to activate it again.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Hyper-V cluster error: Cluster network name resource 'Cluster Name' failed to update the DNS record for name

Source:FailoverClustering
EventID: 1579
Task Category: Network Name Resource

Cluster network name resource 'Cluster Name' failed to update the DNS record for name ‘xxxxxxxxx' over adapter 'Local Area Connection'. The error code was 'DNS operation refused. (9005)'. Ensure that a DNS server is accessible from this cluster node and contact your DNS server administrator to verify the cluster identity can update the DNS record “xxxxxxxxxxx’

Solution:

Cluster  DNS A record was manually created before configuring cluster and cluster computer account was not having write access to its A record. Go to DNS A record properties > Security Tab\, add Cluster Computer Account and give full rights.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

HYPERVISOR COMPARISON 2012

A feature comparison of the three main competitors in the hypervisor space, Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.
Updated to the latest two versions, Citrix XenServer 5.6 & 6.0, Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 & 2012 and
VMware vSphere 5.0 & 5.1.  Read more

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Complete Windows Anti-Virus Exclusion List

One place on the web where you can find an updated list of ALL the AV exclusions you might want to configure for Windows Server. Feel free to add to the list, it is the wiki way!

Complete Windows Anti-Virus Exclusion List

Monday, August 27, 2012

Attach a USB disk to a Hyper-V Virtual Machine

First on your Hyper-V Server host open Server Manager and select Disk Management.

Read more here

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Export VM details to CSV in SCVMM using PowerShell

PS C:\Users\admin> GET-VM -VMMServer XXXXXX | Select Name, Owner, Description, OperatingSystem, CPU Count, Memory, VirtualHardDisks, Location, VirtualizationPlatform, HostName, Status | Export-Csv C:\Users\admin\vms.csv

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Use CSVDE to export user accounts from Active Directory

Export all user accounts in the domain

csvde -f c:\allusers.csv -r "(objectclass=person)"

Export only from on OU

csvde -f c:\allusers.csv -r "(objectclass=person)" –d “OU DN”

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Licensing Windows Server in a Virtual Environment

Following on the theme around licensing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to explain, in detail, for anyone who doesn’t already know, how to license Windows Server Operations Systems in a Virtual Environment.  Now, I’m not a licensing expert, but I’ve been through this enough times to understand it, and articulate it correctly, however, if something doesn’t make sense, add a comment!  It’s important to note, that everything I discuss below, is relevant for Microsoft and non-Microsoft virtualization environments. Read more…

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Convert VMDK to VHD and VHD to VMDK for free

StarWind Converter is a downloadable V2V conversion tool for virtual machines. You can use it to convert VMDK to VHD files and VHD to VMDK as well as to IMG file, which is a native StarWind format. This is a very simple but useful file conversion tool that will convert virtual hard drive images from VMware's VMDK format into the Microsoft's VHD format. It is a sector by sector copy operation from one format to the other. It does not modify the source image and will leave it so you can continue to use it. Read more…

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Antivirus and Hyper-V

A little while ago our support team put together this KB article in response to a problem that a lot of people have been reporting.  Basically, what is happening is that users are having problems starting virtual machines after they install antivirus software in the management operating system.  The root cause of the problem is that a number of these programs monitor file access in a way that interferes with Hyper-V’s attempts to open virtual machine files. Read more..

Monday, February 6, 2012

Setting a Static IP address in Server Core

#netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces

image

#netsh interface ipv4 set address name=”2” source=static address=”ipaddress” mask=”netmask” gateway=”gateway”

image

#netsh interface ipv4 add dnsserver name=”2” address=”ipaddressofdnsserver”

image

Commands and utilities for managing Server Core installations locally.

Control desk.cpl - View or set display settings.
Control intl.cpl - View or set regional and language options, including formats and the keyboard layout.
Control sysdm.cpl - View or set system properties.
Control timedate.cpl - View or set the date, time, and time zone.
Cscript slmgr.vbs –ato - Activate the operating system.
DiskRaid.exe - Configure software RAID.
ipconfig /all - List information about the computer’s IP address configuration.
NetDom RenameComputer - Set the server’s name and domain membership.
OCList.exe - List roles, role services, and features.
OCSetup.exe - Add or remove roles, role services, and features.
PNPUtil.exe - Install or update hardware device drivers.
Sc query type=driver - List installed device drivers.
Scregedit.wsf - Configure the operating system. Use the /cli parameter to list available configuration areas.
ServerWerOptin.exe - Configure Windows Error Reporting.
SystemInfo - List the system configuration details.
WEVUtil.exe - View and search event logs.
Wmic datafile where name=“FullFilePath” get version - List a file’s version.
Wmic nicconfig index=9 call enabledhcp - Set the computer to use dynamic IP addressing rather than static IP addressing.
Wmic nicconfig index=9 call enablestatic(“IPAddress”), (“SubnetMask”) - Set a computer’s static IP address and network mask.
Wmic nicconfig index=9 call setgateways(“GatewayIPAddress”) - Set or change the default gateway.
Wmic product get name /value “ - List installed MSI applications by name.
Wmic product where name=“Name” call uninstall - Uninstall an MSI application.
Wmic qfe list - List installed updates and hotfixes.
Wusa.exe PatchName.msu /quiet - Apply an update or hotfix to the operating system.