Category Archives: Hyper-V

Remotely managing disks on Windows 2008/Hyper-V Server R2

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As I’m mooting some hardware upgrades to my bash’n’crash Hyper-V server, I wanted to check out a few things with regards to it’s performance and general health.  I duly fired up Server Manager, but was thwarted when I tried to use Disk Management and got the message of RPC Server is unavailable.  I checked the Firewall, and the requisite rules (see below) were enabled.  I recycled the Virtual Disk Service and still had no luck.

After hunting around a while I found a Technet Forum post that covered this.  You have to enable the necessary inbound rules both on the server being managed and the managing computer.  Once I had done this, and restarted Server Manager, I could access Disk Management.

For reference, the two rules that need to be enabled are:

Remote Volume Management – Virtual Disk Service (RPC)

Remote Volume Management – Virtual Disk Service Loader (RPC)

As per the Technet post, I found that you don’t need the Remote Volume Management (RPC-EPMAP) rule enabled.  Needless to say, I only enabled both rules for the Domain firewall profile.

Automatically Loading PSHyperV Library

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Late last year I wrote about getting the Powershell Management Library for Hyper-V (PSHyper-V) up and running on my Hyper-V installation. Although a newer version of the library was released in January, I simply hadn’t gotten around to updating my server.  If I’m honest, beyond the occasional restart following an update (or powercuts – thanks for nothing EDF Energy) all of the Hyper-V servers under my care tend to sit the corner and are generally forgotten about.  Far more attention is paid to the Virtual Machines than the actual host upon which they rely.

One change between the versions of PSHyperV has been the change from a standard script to a powershell module.  As I prefer for the library to be automatically loaded, this required a change to the user’s powershell profile.  The slight fly in the ointment is that I had forgotten how to do this, so here is a quick reprise for my own memory.

1.  Open Powershell.  If you are within a command prompt, type cmd /c start powershell to open a new powershell window.

2.  In Powershell, type $profile.  This will get you the full path to where your profile is stored.  Your profile is a powershell script that executes whenever a Powershell prompt is opened.  The profile will look something liek this:

C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

3.  Your profile file may or may not exist.  If you have not already used it elsewhere, the chances are that it doesn’t.  To create a new profile file, enter new-item $profile -itemtype file -force in Powershell.

4.  Now open the profile file.  If you are using Server Core or Hyper Server R2, you can still use Notepad (it is present, but missing a few features).  So enter notepad $profile in Powershell.

5.  Within Notepad, enter the Import-Module command for PSHyperV.  If you install PSHyperV using the supplied install.cmd, this path should be like

Import-Module “c:\Program Files\modules\hyperv\hyperv.psd1”

6.  Once done, save the file and exit Notepad.

7.  To test, open a new Powershell prompt and type Get-VM.  If everything has gone as planned, you will get a list of all of the VMs present on your Hyper-V server.

This process will only work for the current logged on user.  If you have multiple user accounts on Hyper-V, you will need to repeat this process for all that require access.

Finally, if you have not already done so you will need to set the execution policy for Powershell.  I’ve found that all you require is RemoteSigned.  To set this, enter set-executionpolicy remotesigned within Powershell.

Powershell Tip #1
In Powershell, type $profile.

PS C:\Program Files\Microsoft\AxFuzzer> $profile
C:\Users\mengli\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

That points to where your profile is stored at.  This is a powershell script that executes upon the start up of any powershell prompt for the current user.  Go ahead and make the file.  In my case, I made a new file at the location by typing this:

new-item $profile -itemtype file -force

Now, open the file and you can put in things like this:
set-executionpolicy unrestricted
. \\meng\shared\powershell\hyperv.ps1
set-executionpolicy remotesigned

Every new powershell prompt that you

Getting Powershell Management Library for Hyper-V (PSHyper-V) up and running

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One of the great capabilities of Powershell is the ability to extend its’ functionality through new libraries. One I am currently playing with is the Powershell Management Library for Hyper-V, or PSHyper-V. For Server Core and Hyper-V Server users, the cmdlets contained within this library add a new dimension of functionality and capabilities, and enable admins to reduce their reliance on Hyper-V manager to perform otherwise simple tasks.

Although you can load the library upon demand, there is another method available whereby it may be preloaded as part of your windows profile.

  1. Download the latest recommended release of PSHyper-V from http://www.codeplex.com/PSHyperv
  2. Copy the contents of the ZIP archive onto your Hyper-V server. In my instance, these were to a folder called c:\powershell
  3. To get your profile path, type the following from with a Powershell prompt:

    $profile

    You will typically get something like:

    C:\Users\your_user_name\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

  4. The file Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 is the Powershell script that is executed upon the startup of any Powershell prompt for your user account. In most circumstances, this script doesn’t exist, so you will need to create it (it is worth checking first). To create the script, enter the following into a Powershell prompt

    new-item $profile -itemtype file -force

  5. Now edit this file and add the path to PSHyper-V.ps1 into it. In my example, this is as follows:

    . c:\powershell\PSHyper-V.psq

    Note the dot-space prior to the file path. This is required to execute the script.
    (Editing this file on server core or Hyper-V server can be a bit of trial. In the end, I did it remotely.)

  6. That’s it. To test it, either start a new Powershell prompt. If all is well, a list of the loaded PSHyper-V cmdlets will be shown.

Thanks to the author of the Technet blog post from which I have sourced most of the information for this.

Virtual Server to Hyper-V: Parallel port driver service failed to start error

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I’m currently migrating a substantial number of virtual machines (VMs) from Virtual Server to Hyper-V server.  Although this is a fairly painless process, a common error for Windows VMs relates to the parallel port service.  The system eventlog error goes something like:

The parallel port driver service failed to start due to the following error:  The service cannot be started, either because it was disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

The reason for this is quite simple:  Virtual Server supported parallel ports, whilst Hyper-V doesn’t.  Typically, any basic VM created through VS will incorporate a virtual parallel port even once the Hyper-V integration components includes in the new HAL are installed.

There are two options here, you can either manually hack your way through Windows removing all traces of the parallel port, or much simpler, completely disable the parallel port service.  The latter is somewhat easier, and may be accomplished in a matter of minutes:

  1. Backup your registry
  2. Open Regedit
  3. Go to HKLM > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > ParPort
  4. Change the start parameter value to 4.
  5. Restart your server – optional, but I do this to confirm this has worked.

That’s it.  Upon the next restart, you should not get any service  alert for the parallel port.

Virtualization

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I’ve been a fan of virtualization for a while and have played with extensively evaluated a number of different solutions over the last couple of years in both the desktop and server arena.  A few early incarnations did leave a lot to be desired in terms of overall functionality and reliability.  For the most part, however, they have all now become viable solution.

So what is Virtualization? Well, there already reams and reams of article, whitepapers and blog entries explaining this out there.  Inevitably some are very good, whilst others are biased towards one solution or another.  Some of the latter can descend almost into pure vitriol (VMWare & Microsoft blogs?).  The water is muddied somewhat further by the almost inevitable multiple usages and definitions of the term Virtualization.  WikiPedia has an entire page listing the varying types of Virtualization available.

From my perspective, the best way to describe and explain virtualization is by the typical end-product: the more efficient and manageable usage of IT resources.  There are lots of other advantages – hardware independance (aka separating runtime code from physical hardware), perceived increased resilience, snapshots, easier backups  – but what normally makes the case is greater efficiency and utilisation of IT resources.  In other words, the dreaded Return on Investment (ROI).

Consider this:  one of the most common forms of Virtualization is that of Platform Virtualization where the operating system is separated from the hardware upon which it is running. Instead of adopting the traditional route of installing an operating system directly onto the computer’s hard disk, it is installed into a software container known as Virtual Machine (VM).  This virtual machine is hosted by a piece of software called a HyperVisor.  The Hypervisor sits between the VM and the physical hardware of the host computer.  Instead of allowing the VM direct access to the host computer’s hardware, it provides a virtual hardware infrastructure upon which the Virtual Machine runs.  You are not limited to one Virtual Machine per Hypervisor.  In Platform Virtualization, you may have several Virtual Machines all running concurrently.

So why is this of any use?

I’ve had this question quite a few times, and this is best explanation I have come up with so far for Platform Virtualization.  It is a bit vanilla in nature, but I feel that it is a good general explanation:

Organisation A has three identical servers, all of whom never utilise more than 30% of their total resources.  In essence, 70% of the capacity of each server is wasted.  With Virtualization, all three servers could be converted to three Virtual Machines and then hosted on one physical server.  Doing this will save the organisation both money and space:  they will only be paying for the running costs of 1 physical server instead of three and they will only require the space of one server.

I use Platform Virtualization extensively.  Typically I have 3 or 4 virtual machines running at any one time, two of which run permanently. Whilst the majority are for testing, the latter two are crucial to my day-to-day operations as one is my Spam Filter and the other is a monitoring server.

As both a developer and a sysadmin, Virtualization has made the process of testing and evaluation a whole lot easier.  If I look back to the heady days of 2000/2001, the company I was then working for maintained an extensive suite of computers of varying vintages running a multitude of operating systems (side note:  I’m still trying to work out why we were testing a multimedia CD on a Sun Sparc).  When you figure in the space required, power usage and time required to manage and maintain such a setup, the costs do start to add up.  For me, the arrival of virtualization has all but nullified this requirement.  Instead of having a stack of PCs lying around, I now have a stack of Virtual Machines.

What do I use?

As I mentioned above, I have evaluated a substantial number of solutions, including amongst others VMWare Server, Microsoft Virtual Server and  Sun VirtualBox.  After going through all of these, and taking into consideration my internal requirements – I’m not a datafarm remember – I have chosen to use Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

My choice of Hyper-V is not because I am some sort of evangical Microsoft user.  Truth be told, whilst I tend to use MS products the most of the time, my operating decisions are based on the sound engineering principle of using the right tool for the job in hand.  Consequently, two of my production Virtual Machines are running Ubuntu Linux, not Microsoft Windows.  I would be lying if I didn’t say that the cost – Hyper-V is free – was a factor, but at the end of the day I cannot justify the capital expenditure of VMWare’s equivalent operation for my own uses.

To date, I am very impressed with Hyper-V, even more so considering I am running the Release Candidate of Hyper-V R2.  It has been rock-solid it terms of reliability.  The only problems I have really experienced have been with Microsoft Hyper-V Manager, but these were more down to Window’s security systems than anything else.  It’s not a perfect solution – there is no local GUI so all management has to be done via a remote tool (Hyper-V Manager) or via the command line, but for the price and feature set, I’m not complaining.

As I expand my usage of Hyper-V, I will post further details of what happens especially with regards to Linux Virtual Machines and ongoing management.