VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘virtual machine’

Over the past few years I’ve been asked to troubleshoot and explain why cloning a virtual machine (VM) from a master template would take a longer time than expected more than once. Usually when I’m asked the virtualization admin is frustrated at the hypervisor. “This shouldn’t take this long. It needs to be fixed!” they say. “I definitely agree,” I say, “but let’s take a deeper look at what is happening here first before we flame the vendor’s help desk technician on the phone.”

So, this post is about taking a deeper look at where the master template VM resides versus where the cloned template is destined. My math my be a little off or may not account for every factor involved, but my point is to be close enough to demonstrate that the disk/array/LUN design is can be the culprit more times than not.

When I started this post I emailed for some help. I asked for a sanity check from some storage experts. I’ve been reasonably happy with my own answer until now, but I figured I do some research before adding the content to VM /ETC. I got back a single reply that I am paraphrasing: “Sounds about right. Let me think about it some more and if I can stump you with anything else I’ll let you know.” He never did so I’ll take that as a positive confirmation meaning “yes VM moron, it is that simple.” Good enough for me! If anyone can point out any other factors I am not properly accounting for please leave a comment.

The following is part of my email for help. It not only explains my test scenario but it illustrates the problem and resolution as well. At the end of this post I make some suggestions for bettering the time it takes to clone a VM.

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In VIRTUMANIA Episode 6 we take on the topic of virtualization backups once again, but this time we focus on full image virtual machine backups in a more detail with the guys from Veeam. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 6 - The Mean Green Veeam Team. Hosted by Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC. Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com co hosts and guests are Doug Hazelman (@vmdoug) and David Siles (@dsiles) of Veeam. Veeam’s blog can be found at www.veeammeup.com. The discussion starts with Veeam’s Surebackup technology details and then moves on to several VM backup topics such as using VSS in full VM image backups, tips about designing virtual infrastructure for VM backups, options when backing up VMs hosted on blade servers, whether there is still a need for backup agents in a VM, and general information about being a virtualization ISV. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) for this Infosmack Production.

Help us out and be sure to ask @VMDoug when the on location podcasts in St. Petersburg, Russia will happen.  For Veeam customers, listen for the new licensing announcement to get the new Surebackup feature at no additional cost!

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

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Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the VM Backup topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 6:

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I created a Windows 7 virtual machine in VMware Player, ran it for a while on my Windows notebook, and then decided to move it to one of my Ubuntu machines and host it in VirtualBox. I had no problem copying the folder and files between the different host based hypervisors. VirtualBox can use a virtual disk in the VMware .vmdk format so it was just a matter of file transfers between computers. VirtualBox has it’s own Guest Editions (or host tools) to add functionality and improve performance, so I needed to make that switch inside the VM too. My problem was that I did not remove the VMware Tools before I moved the VM.

When I went to uninstall VMware Tools after powering the VM on Ubuntu and in VirtualBox I received a message that “no VMware Products were detected”. Luckily, I quickly figured out I wasn’t the first to attempt this move and experience this hurdle. The post Uninstalling VMware tools when not running on a VMware host tells the same tale and provides the answer.

“I added the VMware Tools ISO to that VM and opened a command prompt. Then I found the “setup.exe” or “setup64.exe” files on the cd. Run those in the cmd window with a /c switch. (example:  ”setup64.exe /c” )  This will remove the Tools.  I installed the VirtualBox additions and then reboot.  On my Windows 2008 server it crashed on first reboot, then then I tried again and it loaded up just fine.  Network works and everything! Yay!”

On my Windows host with VMware Player installed (VMware Workstation has a similar location) the windows.iso file was found at C:\program files(x86)\VMware\VMware Player\windows.iso. Your path needs to be adjusted based on whether you have a 32 bit or 64 bit OS obviously. Mine was a 64 bit host even though the directory was at c:\program files(x86), by the way.

I’ll let you figure out your preferred method on how to copy the windows.iso file to the Ubuntu host, but once you do you can:

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I’ve had my share of difficulties with the HP Server Utilities after a P2V migration. Granted, when you are building a new server the SmartStart CD makes life easy for completing the “Setup and installation for HP ProLiant ML and DL 300, 500 and 700 series and HP ProLiant BL Servers and supported server options”, but when that server restarts as a VM with the HP software still installed and running it is sluggish and slow. Extremely sluggish and slow in my experience.

After having to boot several VMs in Windows Safe Mode in order to prevent the various HP utilities and drivers from attempting to load I finally got a clue and made sure I disabled all HP Services before running the P2V conversion. That made the start up as a new VM better, but I still had to spend some quality time with Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel to uninstall all of those HP programs!

You may be thinking “OK. You should just uninstall all the HP Programs and Drivers before the P2V.” I could, but there goes my safety net, fall back plan. I want the physical server to remain operational exactly as it was in case something unexpected prevents the P2V from succeeding. It’s rare, but if it does happen I want to be able to power back on the physical server. Maintenance windows are short and I’m not one to make my night longer than necessary.

Looks like one of my GestaltIT Tech Field Day brothers has made my next late night date with HP server migrations a little easier. Simon Seagrave’s post VMware P2V – Easy Method to Remove HP Agents and Utilities is about the HP Proliant Support Pack Cleaner v1.1 utility available from ctxadmtools.musumeci.com.ar – a site self described as full of “FREE Tools for Citrix, Microsoft and VMware Administrators and Consultants.”

I haven’t tried this utility myself yet, there doesn’t appear to be any documentation for it, and Seagrave doesn’t mention how/when he uses the utility, so I’ll have to figure out later if my process of disabling all the HP services works with this Support Pack Cleaner. I imagine it’ll work fine. I’ll just run it after I boot the migrated VM for the first time.

Sorry Windows Control Panel and Add/Remove Programs, we’ve spent a lot of time together over the years but it’s time for me to move on. Thanks Simon!

Seagrave has also previously posted about a script to do the same job. Check out both of his posts!

After VMware P2V (physical to virtual) migrations and VMTools installs the resulting new virtual network adapters of the virtual machines (VMs) often have to be manually reconfigured because the TCP/IP settings of the source servers were not preserved. I was reading comments on a post by Scott Lowe about the process for switching vSphere VMs to use the new paravirtualized network driver (VMXNET3) as well as a new paravirtualized SCSI driver (PVSCSI) when I found the following helpful use of netsh to export and later import back TCP/IP configs explained:

From a comment by Dave O. on Scott Lowe’s post vSphere Virtual Machine Upgrade Process

“To dump the IP config using netsh from a command line:

netsh interface ip dump > c:\ipconfig.txt

Since Windows will most likely see the new NIC as “Local Area Connection 2″ (or something similar) you have to modify the above text file and change the NIC name to match the new NIC’s name. Or change the new NIC’s name on the host to match what’s in the file above. Either way works. “

Here’s a screen shot of the output of the command on my desktop. Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody talks about running VMware ESX on VMware Workstation, but how come we don’t see more about running ESX on VMware Server 2.0? I’ve tried and been semi successful. This post is sort of a “how to” and kind of “need help” post about this topic.

First, Duncan Epping over at yellow-bricks.com made a quick post to remind himself of the configurations necessary to run ESX/ESXi 3.5 on VMware Workstation 6.5. There are numerous other posts about how to do this, but the post ESX in Workstation contains just the basic information to remember. If you’ve never done this before and you need pictures and a good explanation then I recommend the .pdf from Xtravirt.com titled VI 3.5 in a box.

Trying to take this a step further, I have moved the ESX 3.5 VMs I created on Workstation 6.5 to a VMware Server 2.0 running on a 64 bit Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop. I can start the ESX server VMs just fine, but unfortunately I can’t run the VMs (hosted on the ESX VMs). It’s still a convenient option for learning, testing and configuring the latest builds and features even without running VMs.

Using basically the same configuration settings I’ve also been able to install and run Citrix XenServer 5.0 and Microsoft Hyper-V on both VMware Workstation and VMware Server 2.0. Here is a screenshot of my VMware Server Summary tab. Click on it for a larger view. Read the rest of this entry »

PCQuest has published a performance comparison of popular virtualization platforms from Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware. In the report titled Virtualization Platforms Compared, the testing measures various CPU and graphics card benchmarks of the VMs running on the different platforms. Check the report out for yourself, but the testing details explained in the report left me confused. Since there is no option for comments at PCQuest I am posting about it here at VM /ETC.

Here’s the test setup info from the report: Read the rest of this entry »