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Windows Server 2008 r2 on XenServer 5.5

dravidmilo

04-04-2015, 05:30

You are correct with Plesk 9, but our distro does not have GRS installed by default on this distro. The problem is we did offer it on Plesk 8, so if you run the upgrade to 9 then you do get this issue.

kenzacm

24-01-2010, 15:58

Originally Posted by brgroup

Here's an alternate config page to try:
OVH Bridge Client settings

FYI regarding Kimsufi: Personally, I've had nothing but trouble with Kimsufi and VM's using Virtual Macs from OVH, including slow connection and dropouts on one Q1T server, and a QT that completely does NOT connect to the internet or the host in any instance. Both are failures for us and will not be renewed. Be care ful if you have one and plan to use this setup in a production environment.

And don't count on getting quick support response in regards to the Virtual Mac feature. As they say, it's in beta and not reliable. Look around in the DediForum for more threads and user experiences regarding this.

Otherwise, on the EG series server that we have, this setup as well as the Debian setup I posted works great.

im on EG-Max at the moment, do you have MSN or Skype so i can pick your brains?

brgroup

24-01-2010, 15:48

Here's an alternate config page to try:
OVH Bridge Client settings

FYI regarding Kimsufi: Personally, I've had nothing but trouble with Kimsufi and VM's using Virtual Macs from OVH, including slow connection and dropouts on one Q1T server, and a 2T that completely does NOT connect to the internet or the host in any instance. Both are failures for us and will not be renewed. Be care ful if you have one and plan to use this setup in a production environment.

And don't count on getting quick support response in regards to the Virtual Mac feature. As they say, it's in beta and not reliable. Look around in the DediForum for more threads and user experiences regarding this.

Otherwise, on the EG series server that we have, this setup as well as the Debian setup I posted works great.

kenzacm

24-01-2010, 03:07

tried repeatedly but server did not connect to the internet

brgroup

01-01-2010, 02:17

REMOTE DESKTOP
It's important to get out of the XenCenter Console asap to do some real adminstrating.

Click START | CONTROL PANEL | SYSTEM
Click REMOTE SETTINGS on the Left
UNCHECK Remote Assistance
Check ALLOW from Network Level RD's (more secure)
Click OK
Close the control panel window

Windows Firewall (Windows Server 2008 R2)
Double check your firewall settings for RDC. Windows should've created a rule for you opening the port when you activated RDC. If not, you'll have to open the ports for RDC to work.

Run START | CONTROL PANEL
Under System and Security, Click "Check Firewall Status"
Choose "Allow a program through firewall" on left panel
Make sure remote desktop is checked for both Public and Home/Work networks

NOTE: you may have to disable the Windows firewall if you can't get connected via RDC.

On your Windows local machine fire up Remote Desktop and lets see if we can connect.

Go to START | ALL PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES | REMOTE DESKTOP CONNECTION
Click the OPTIONS drop down box
Add your IP in Computer: 123.123.123.123
Add your username that you created during setup of your Windows Server
Click Save and Connect

If all went well, you should see the connection configuring and a login prompt should appear for you to insert your password.

XEN-TOOLS update
By default, OVH's xen-server kernel uses slower non-optimized drivers for video and networking. We are going to update our VM with xen-tools to get the latest drivers. A very documented problem is that xen-tools breaks the networking on Windows, which is why I had to connect via RDC to make sure everything is working before installiing the Xen-Tools update. One big problem is that the Citrix network driver creates a second "Local Area Connection" which conflicts with the original one. The static IP's conflict so we'll remove the Static Ip from "Local Area Connection" before we upgrade.
OK, here we go:
In XENCENTER:

Highlight your RUNNING Windows Server VM
From the top toolbar choose VM | INSTALL TOOLS
Click OK when it asks if you want to add xen-tools to the virtual DVD drive

In your WINDOWS SERVER RDC session: Open Windows Explorer from the taskbar dawn below.
[list][*]Click COMPUTER from the left[*]Double Click on the CD drive to install XENSETUP.EXE[*]When finished DON'T reboot. Choose manually later.

We need to fix the static IP issue before rebooting

Click START | CONTROL PANEL | NETWORK AND INTERNET
Choose "View Network Status"
At Connections, click LOCAL AREA CONNECTION to see the properties
Click PROPERTIES
Highlight IPV4 and click PROPERTIES to edit the IPV4 settings
Click the 'OBTAIN ADDRESS AUTOMATICALLY" radio button
Click close 2x to get out of it

The Remote desktop session will seem to freeze. That's because the internet connection to the VM has been severed.

Restart from Xencenter
Go back to your CONSOLE in XenCenter
and choose RESTART from the red button at the bottom right.

Give it a few minutes and Reconnect with Remote desktop and your good to go!

That's it! be sure to activate Windows Server with a license before using it as a production server!!!

brgroup

01-01-2010, 02:14

Now time to add the NFS share so it's accessible to XenCenter.
On your Windows machine, go to XenCenter.
If you don't have XenCenter yet, you can get it here: XenCenter
Here's an install guide in case: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118531

Highlight your main server (not an active VM)
Click on STORAGE | NEW STORAGE REPOSITORY
For Type, choose NFS ISO at the bottom
Create a Name for your NFS share
Type in the share name:
server:/path/to/your/ISO/share (ie;xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:/home/vps_iso - Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is your NFS server IP address)
Choose Finish

Your Xencenter should connect and a Storage repository should be created and show on the left side of Xencenter under your Server.

Time to create a Windows VM in your Windows XenCenter control panel. Hit next after each section

Choose New VM
In the Template section choose Windows server R2 x64 or Windows 7
Create a Name for the VM
In Location, click the ISO radio buttion and make sure your "Windows_Server_2008_r2.iso" is chosen from the drop down.
Choose yur CPU and Memory options
Highlight the existing virtual disk and create a disk size you like
In Virtual Network Interface, replace "AutoGenerated" mac address with the Mac address you created for this VM in OVH manager. (IMPORTANT)
UNCHECK "Start VM automatically" and Click Finish to create your VM.

Click on the Console tab of your VM to finish setting Windows up.

Xen and Windows 7 Hang at initialize workaround
For some reason there was a documentedproblem with Windows 7 freezing at setup on Xen-Server 5.0 and 5.5. Here's a work around we'll perform before we create our VM's just in case.
NOTE: I didn't have to do this for Windows Server 2008.
In XenCenter:

Highlight your Windows 7 VM install
In the General Tab, look for your VM's UUID
Highlight and Right-Click | Copy the UUID

SSH connect to your Host server via Putty and type the following command as root, entering your UUID where indicated. NO QUOTES or SPACE after "=":

Code:

xe vm-param-set uuid="Insert vmuuid Here" platform:viridian=false

Close Putty

XENCENTER and WINDOWS!
Be patient for the next half-hour or so, because the Console is extremely slow in rendering the Windows graphics. This is because XenCenter uses a really slow version of vnc to give you a GUI in the console.So Mouse moves and clicking are very very slow. Youve been warned From now on, the goal is to get Windows installed, fix the networking and activate Remote Desktop to manage the VM with a faster GUI.

I mean it, it's really slow and very annoying.

In Xencenter, highlight your Windows VM

Right-Click and Start your VM
Click on the Console Tab and wait for the GUI

Installation Observations

Be sure to choose "Custom Install" and not Upgrade, otherwise, the installer will tell you to start setup from an existing Windows session and you'll have to start all over.
Depending on your Windows version, install should be very familiar.
Once Windows begins installing, the VM may shutdown and reboot into setup. I had the ramdom disconnect problem more in Windows7 64Bit and it's one of the reason I went to Win7 32bit. Just wait a few minutes and restart the VM in xenCenter. Once you are reconnected, go back to the VM's Console and continue.
You'll have to create an Administrator password before logging in.

Your shiny new Windows Server desktop will load up. In Windows Server 2008 R2, you may be presented with the Server Manager Console. If so, you can Adjust your IP address, and turn on Remote Desktop from there. If not then:

Networking
Windows creates a DHCP networking connection by default. We need to change the properties of the network interface "Local Area Connection" to use our static IP associated with the Virtual MAC address we created earlier otherwise we won't be able to connect remotely.
Step By Step:

Click START | CONTROL PANEL | NETWORK AND SHARING CENTER
At Connections, click LOCAL AREA CONNECTION to see the properties
Click PROPERTIES
UNCHECK the IPV6 connection we won't use that
Highlight IPV4 and click PROPERTIES to edit the IPV4 settings
Click the 'USE THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS" radio button
Insert your IP Address info (note that the IP and gateway are the same!!):
Code:
```
IP Address: 123.123.123.123
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 123.123.123.123
```
Click "Use the Following DNS Servers"
Insert your chosen DNS servers. I use Google:
Code:
```
Preferred DNS= 8.8.8.8
Alternate DNS= 8.8.4.4
```
Click apply and close 2x to get out of it all.

At this point Windows should find your IP address and get you connected to the internet. One way to check is the bottom RH corner by the clock. Hover your mouse over the network connection. and it should say something like "Unidentified Network -Internet Access"

brgroup

01-01-2010, 02:14

REQUIREMENTS
VT capable OVH server (All OVH & Kimisufi except C-05g)
Host must have enough RAM and HD for Windows minimum requirements
Working install of XenServer installed on Host
NFS ISO Server/repository - Static IP Linux VPS or server with 10-50gb free space
Access to Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 setup ISOs
Local Windows XP pro, Vista Pro or Win7 local computer to run Citrix XENCENTER control panel software and Remote Desktop
Access to OVH Manager admin account to assign failover IPs

After successfully creating Debian VPS slices on my XenServer, I decided to try getting some Windows flavors going on my slices. Here's a tutorial on how I managed to get a Windows server 2008 R2 VM slice runnning using OVH's Alpha version of XenServer in conjunction with XenCenter for Windows management client. Like most, I was excited to see the Windows templates available in XenServer after installation, only to find that they are empty containers. I got the "No Boot Device" Error after creating my Windows VM's. So I searched around for some answers.

I have also gotten a 32 Bit Version of Windows 7 Enterprise going as well which is a personal copy that I uploaded to my NFS ISO server. I'm sure many have been able to do this as well, and I look forward to any suggestions on how I could streamline and simplfy my Windows installs. But since I haven't seen many tuts here, I decided to add my experience. Follow along carefully, because even one step missed could lock up the whole process!!

ASSIGN Virtual MAC addresses
Before starting this project, it's wise to assign your failover IP's new mac addresses and names in your OVH manager. Since we are using XenServer

WINDOWS ISO's
Since OVH and Xenserver don't have ISO versions of Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 in the Xen ISO repository, we'll have to get copies for ourselves. Many versions of Windows are freely available to download from M$ themselves.
Of course you'll have to purchase a serial key in order to activate the software. Although I can't help that portion of this tutorial, I will say that Google and the nice folks at Win7Vista are of immense help in undestanding all of it.

NFS server
Once you have working ISO versions of Windows server 2008 or Windows 7 available, you'll create an ISO NFS share on 2nd linux computer or VPS share. It must have it's own IP address.. I found that I had to create one outside of the server domain controller in the folder: /var/opt/xen/iso_import, because I quickly ran out of space.
I also tried to create an NFS server in my Windows 7 local computer, but couldn't get the configuration down. The software created for NFS use is clunky and difficult to use. I settled on sharing a portion of a spare Debian 4 VPS I had available. Here's what I did..

On the Debian VPS that I'm creating the NFS server

Code:

mkdir /any/share/directory/for/ISOs

example: /home/vps_iso

Then I install NFS server and it's dependencies:

Code:

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

NFS Server Configuration
NFS exports from a server are controlled by the file /etc/exports. Each line begins with the absolute path of a directory to be exported, followed by a space-seperated list of allowed clients.

Code:

nano /etc/exports

Edit the file according to the example format

Code:

/home/vps_iso xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(rw) www.first.com(ro)
/usr xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(ro)

Where /home/vps_iso is the share
Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the computer you'll be connecting from (The Host where Windows will reside). In this case I was connecting through my Kimsufi host server that I was running XenServer 5.5 on..
Where "" is an OPTIONAL second client server that needs access to the NFS share. You can use an IP address as well.
Where "ro" is Read-Only and "rw" is Read-Write Access to the directory.

Code:

Crtl+X, Y and enter to CLOSE and SAVE

Force NFS to reread the config file

Code:

exportfs -r

Now I had to get my ISOs to my share on the NFS server. The easiest way i found was to use wget.
On my NFS server:

Code:

cd /home/vps_iso
wget http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/7/5/E/75EC4E54-5B02-42D6-8879-D8D3A25FBEF7/7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso

Or via FTP

Code:

wget ftp://username:password@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/FTP/Path/To/Windows_Server_2008_r2.iso

Once it's finished, I rename it to something more manageable:

Code:

mv 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso Windows_Server_2008_r2.iso