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Vkvm Option Gone?


heise
28-01-2015, 22:35
See signature

cstanley
28-01-2015, 19:20
Quote Originally Posted by Neil
Hi

If you are using vKVM still (and have access to it) it will only work with Windows Server 2003, it will not work with 2008 or 2012 (including R2).
I am using Kimsufi KS-4
I really would like the ability to utilize vKVM so that I can install vanilla CentOS 7 - I am unable to partition the drive like I want to. With the control panel I am unable to create a volume group and add logical partitions to it. Therefore I would like to use KVM to install CentOS over again.

Neil
25-03-2014, 11:45
Quote Originally Posted by Jpnock
Hello,

Although this thread is old this method slightly works for me. I am running Windows Server 2012 and on boot it says "The server needs to restart. Error code: 0x0000005D". Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can fix this problem as I have looked and it seems to be a problem not of the server but of qemu.
Hi

If you are using vKVM still (and have access to it) it will only work with Windows Server 2003, it will not work with 2008 or 2012 (including R2).

Jpnock
25-03-2014, 08:02
Hello,

Although this thread is old this method slightly works for me. I am running Windows Server 2012 and on boot it says "The server needs to restart. Error code: 0x0000005D". Does anybody have any suggestions on how I can fix this problem as I have looked and it seems to be a problem not of the server but of qemu.

Myatu
08-09-2013, 00:30
P.S: You can compile the latest version of QEMU and use that - just ensure that you configure it to not use dynamic library loading (static only).

P.P.S.: The problem with crashing on boot was because of specifying "/dev/sda -boot c", but not "-drive" (and then SCSI type), so that /dev/sda was actually setup correctly.

AndyS
07-09-2013, 23:36
I don't get it... Post #33 tells you exactly how to do it.

It works for everything but Hypervisors.

gregoryfenton
07-09-2013, 23:22
I wonder if a few of us can do something similar and VM our servers to provide the same functionality.. it shouldn't be that difficult to do using rescue mode on the broken server and issuing a command to boot from another server.
I understand that trust would be an issue doing it ourselves.
Thoughts?

chostwales
06-09-2013, 20:33
Quote Originally Posted by gregoryfenton
Hi
Has there been any further consideration from OVH on bringing back the VKVM system?
Spoke to OVH a few weeks about (about 2) and they said it was gone for good. Personally alot has been changing with this company recently and unfortunately, not for the better.

OVH was once an asset. Now its a liability. A big Liability. I guess a lot of loyal regular customers will soon be jumping ship.. We're considering it.

gregoryfenton
06-09-2013, 17:38
Hi
Has there been any further consideration from OVH on bringing back the VKVM system?

gregoryfenton
20-08-2013, 21:26
Bring back vkvm. I have spent hours today trying to figure out whether I have a dodgy hard drive (it won't even reinstall, constantly fails at partitioning).

I could have a much better idea of what is going on if I could watch the bootup sequence.

Linux.

Myatu
03-08-2013, 00:51
I just gave it a try, and it does work. Well, at least tries to. In my case, it crashed right at the point its supposed to bring up a login prompt and I didn't bother to check why

It has a very old version of Qemu though, and so could do with an upgrade (and probably use the newer KVM instead). The principle is very simple though, so easy enough to improve upon.

If you want to have a go at this yourself, I've uploaded it to Dropbox (with a nod to K.Kode for providing it). Then just follow the outline as given by Neil in the other thread; after you've set netboot to "rescue-pro" and have rebooted the server (thus receiving your temporary password), just run:

32-bit:
Code:
ssh root@your.server.ip.here -L 5900:localhost:5900 'wget -O- https://www.dropbox.com/s/1jkob1ogrv34e8z/kvm.tgz | tar xzf - -C / && /bin/qemu /dev/sda -boot c -vnc 127.0.0.1:0'
64-bit:
Code:
ssh root@your.ip.goes.here -L 5900:localhost:5900 'wget -O- https://www.dropbox.com/s/1jkob1ogrv34e8z/kvm.tgz | tar xzf - -C / && /bin/qemu-system-x86_64 /dev/sda -boot c -vnc 127.0.0.1:0'
If you get disconnected whilst stuff is still running on the server, just use:

Code:
ssh root@your.ip.goes.here -L 5900:localhost:5900
Obviously replace the "your.ip.goes.here"

Again, YMMV. But it does work. Kinda. Sort of.


TheBritoid
02-08-2013, 12:21
Quote Originally Posted by RikT
I tried this, but I just get a black screen on VNC.

RikT
02-08-2013, 11:30
try this post about vkvm

http://forum.ovh.co.uk/showpost.php?...0&postcount=34

TheBritoid
02-08-2013, 11:17
Quote Originally Posted by theatheist
Thnx, keep us posted
I'm hoping someone with better knowledge on Qemu can pitch in. If we had more of the original vKVM resources I could look to see how OVH was starting it.

theatheist
01-08-2013, 20:07
Quote Originally Posted by TheBritoid
I've been trying to get it working, this is what I've got so far.

tar zxf kvm.tgz
cd bin
./qemu-system-x86_64 -vnc XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:0 -drive file=/dev/sda -monitor stdio -m 1024 -smp 2 (replace XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX with your servers IP)
With your VNC client, connect to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXXX:0

But it does not properly work yet.


Thnx, keep us posted

TheBritoid
01-08-2013, 18:44
Quote Originally Posted by theatheist
Thnx for teh heads up.

Could you give brief details on how to use the file please, Maybe a cmd list on how to launch it?

Thnx
I've been trying to get it working, this is what I've got so far.

tar zxf kvm.tgz
cd bin
./qemu-system-x86_64 -vnc XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:0 -drive file=/dev/sda -monitor stdio -m 1024 -smp 2 (replace XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX with your servers IP)
With your VNC client, connect to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXXX:0

But it does not properly work yet.

theatheist
31-07-2013, 19:23
Quote Originally Posted by IainK
It's still possible to use it by booting rescue mode and running the tar.gz package that the vKVM software uses to boot. I've successfully performed this many times.

Unfortunately my web server is offline at the minute but if anybody is interested I could upload the .tar.gz somewhere?

Edit: An un-official link to the vKVM software still exists on an internal OVH server, but this has been known to disappear so please download a copy yourself: http://87.98.218.102/kvm.tgz
If this disappears before you get the chance then let me know and I could upload elsewhere.
Thnx for teh heads up.

Could you give brief details on how to use the file please, Maybe a cmd list on how to launch it?

Thnx

chostwales
31-07-2013, 15:36
Quote Originally Posted by K.Kode
Thanks for this. Any ideas then how we can get a server to boot into VKVM with this?

Thanks

K.Kode
27-07-2013, 15:09
http://www.emfiremusic.com/kvm.tgz

dan
27-07-2013, 14:51
Quote Originally Posted by IainK
Edit: An un-official link to the vKVM software still exists on an internal OVH server, but this has been known to disappear so please download a copy yourself: http://87.98.218.102/kvm.tgz
If this disappears before you get the chance then let me know and I could upload elsewhere.
Can someone reupload this file somewhere?
Itīs offline now.

theatheist
17-07-2013, 21:50
+1 for the return of vKVM!

chostwales
14-07-2013, 20:06
Quote Originally Posted by rickyday
Some great comments here, it seems to be unanimous! When can we expect the return of this feature?
+∞ at this comment

rickyday
11-07-2013, 10:44
Some great comments here, it seems to be unanimous! When can we expect the return of this feature?


Thelen
09-07-2013, 07:55
Quote Originally Posted by Vmlweb
Exactly, the more tools we have to debug and fix our servers ourselves the less time and effort the OVH staff will need to put into fixing them for us.

Better uptime for us, less work for OVH, everyone wins.
+111 to this.

I recently had to reinstall 2 servers (disk dead on one, new server the other), and when I tried updating to mainline kernel (not ovh grs), they failed to come back. I then re-reinstalled, left the normal OVH kernel as it was recent enough, mainly wanted to upgrade to be in line with my other servers, but yea, had no idea why it wouldn't boot (maybe something to do with GPT and fedora make-grub thingy).

Anyway, having console access is certainly valuable in situations like this, but honestly I wouldn't need/want/use a (v)KVM more than once a month, if that. As such, I wouldn't want to pay 15GBP a month for professional, so if SP range and above (ie not kimsufi, and that makes sense too from OVH perspective given their public statements about kimsufi not being designed for any professional usage, instead just personal type stuff), uhm yea maybe 1 KVM for 3 hours per month free, then bill on top of that.

I don't know how that will work physically, maybe just having them attached 24/7 would be cheaper (in bulk vKVM can be had for under $25, in other words basically nothing), instead of OVH techs having to go connect them (both a labour pain, and a customer time pain, ie customer needs it NOW, not in an hour..).

Anyway just my 2 cents.

Oh and I have servers from lots of different providers, and unfortunately only 2 of them provide IPMI/iLO out of the box (and for free in this case), and of the remaining ones less than half of them have such a feature on request, although of those that don't they all offer a OS (re)install option, so not all lost...

Anyway, , I'd regard vKVM (and one that works properly as well btw, the current/old OVH one didn't work properly with bios/hardware raid configuration (speaking of, I just used the mega CLI thing on the new server install to change from raid1 to raid0, so no need for KVM in that instance) as one of the nice things to have, like the anti-DDoS.

cartwright118
08-07-2013, 23:25
I used vKVM on a number of occasions when I had a windows server, one occasion was because I stupidly disabled the network card (yes, I know - don't ask). But I used vKVM to re-enable it. I mean, can you imagine what tech support would have said if I told them I had disabled the network card and wanted their help.

Another occasion that comes to mind was a failed windows update, which was stuck on the installation screen. I diagnosed and fixed that using vKVM.

KVM is just far too expensive for the very odd occasion it is needed. Will be nice to see OVH use the new intel V chips, which have the hardware level remote access.

BRING BACK vKVM!

Christian

macole111
08-07-2013, 19:24
It was in the netboot options.
chostwales cheers for that.

Seeing as it seemed exist anyway I can't see the costs of implementation being that high.

-macole111

Vmlweb
08-07-2013, 18:29
Quote Originally Posted by macole111
I do think it could be really useful for diagnosing those startup issues, it would really save OVH engineers loads of time.
-macole111
Exactly, the more tools we have to debug and fix our servers ourselves the less time and effort the OVH staff will need to put into fixing them for us.

Better uptime for us, less work for OVH, everyone wins.

chostwales
08-07-2013, 17:15
Quote Originally Posted by macole111
I have never used it as I thought it wasn't on Kimi servers, I just checked the manager and I couldn't see a button so I assume it has gone like everyone else, if it was there in the first place.

I do think it could be really useful for diagnosing those startup issues, it would really save OVH engineers loads of time.

-macole111

It was in the netboot options.

macole111
08-07-2013, 17:08
I have never used it as I thought it wasn't on Kimi servers, I just checked the manager and I couldn't see a button so I assume it has gone like everyone else, if it was there in the first place.

I do think it could be really useful for diagnosing those startup issues, it would really save OVH engineers loads of time.

-macole111

rickyday
08-07-2013, 14:15
I use Windows Servers and I think this is even more essential than for Nix/BSD users!

Bring it back please!!

chostwales
08-07-2013, 13:02
Hi Marks,

Spoke to you earlier this morning, as promised this is how we used the VKVM.

We found the VKVM extremely useful and worked perfectly on linux OS's (all flavours, centos, ubuntu etc). (never could get it to work on 2k3). It was a great tool for self diagnose.

i.e should we reboot the server and after 10 minutes no response we could simply boot it into VKVM and see what was going on. Most of the time it was doing a check scan, but it was good to have the tools to hand to go and check.

It was also handy should we ever want to virtualise a server as we have to boot into the live server image and then run the commands to convert it.

Another extremely useful feature was that as long as a disk image was *somewhere* on the ovh network... i.e either on one of our servers or on mirror.ovh.net we could lood/boot our own custom disk images. (great for R&D)

Overall I hope the VKVM does come back as it was a great tool for self diagnostics (which is extremely important for OVH customers) and also make tasks which could be difficult/impossible via the rescue mode.

Also don't forget those accidental SSH/IPtable lockouts/blocks

I hope OVH you take the users feedback here and bring it back. It was a very very good and useful tool. The reason why maybe you never heard so much of it was because maybe OVH customers used their logic to boot it into VKVM, see whats going on and then fix their issue. It was a tool that was especially useful we found on the Kimsufi ranges as it means we can fix issues without OVH interference and even though your technitians are good when it comes to interventions, sometimes its just a simple case we need the tools to put it right.

Fingers crossed OVH you can bring this back.

**EVERYONE** Please tell us how you used VKVM to help persuade OVH to bring it back.

Kind Regards,

marks
08-07-2013, 11:34
ok, we're checking to give you some more information about the removal of the vKVM option in the netboot.

meanwhile, we were not aware of many customers using vKVM lately. It was an option developed mainly for troubleshooting Win2003 servers. Could you guys gives some description of the sort of tasks you used vKVM for, please? They'll always be good to push for this option to be brought back if it's necessary.

Thanks

Thelen
08-07-2013, 05:01
Any hints on how to use it?

IainK
07-07-2013, 12:58
It's still possible to use it by booting rescue mode and running the tar.gz package that the vKVM software uses to boot. I've successfully performed this many times.

Unfortunately my web server is offline at the minute but if anybody is interested I could upload the .tar.gz somewhere?

Edit: An un-official link to the vKVM software still exists on an internal OVH server, but this has been known to disappear so please download a copy yourself: http://87.98.218.102/kvm.tgz
If this disappears before you get the chance then let me know and I could upload elsewhere.

theatheist
07-07-2013, 04:01
They removed this about a month back

makno
06-07-2013, 10:42
Quote Originally Posted by Vmlweb
Are they trying to get us to buy the KVM option?
that seems to be the trend around here lately so wouldn't be surprised

Vmlweb
06-07-2013, 09:04
Are they trying to get us to buy the KVM option?

Thelen
06-07-2013, 05:14
I saw this somewhere, maybe a news thing somewhere, but yea it sucks.

I think some ranges now come with it by default, others cannot get it.

EG and below i think cannot, MG above can.

makno
05-07-2013, 22:50
i hope it's just a bug...

JakeMS
05-07-2013, 22:37
Just checked one of mine, on a pro-usage server the KVM is still fully accessible (under services). However the one under netboot no longer exists.

chostwales
05-07-2013, 20:32
Also nothing in status.ovh.net either about it..... hope this is not permanent.

Myatu
05-07-2013, 20:27
How about that, it's gone indeed. Can't remember seeing news about that, and a search for it yields nothing. Hmm.

chostwales
05-07-2013, 19:41
Hi All,

Came to do a bit of work on my server today via the VKVM and noticed that its disappeared from the netbook options? Also we cannot order a KVM also... Any ideas?

Has OVH removed both the VKVM and KVM features from it's servers?

Kind Regards,