Hyper-V

Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian and formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems. Hyper-V exists in two variants: as a stand-alone product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, and as an installable role in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 (the former containing the later release of Hyper-V).

Hyper-V on a Familiar Operating System

Unlike some other server virtualization systems that are hosted on the Linux operating system (VMware ESX) or proprietary host systems, Hyper-V runs right on a familiar Microsoft Windows Server operating system. Network administrators do not need to learn a new operating system, management system, or specialized tools. Early adopters of Hyper-V, even without documentation or training, have been able to install the Hyper-V server role, finding it just like installing any other server role (such as installing domain name service [DNS], media services, Internet Information Services [IIS] web services, and the like). The administrative tools for Hyper-V are also just like any other administrative tool in Windows. Therefore, the creation of virtual guest sessions, the monitoring of those sessions, and the administration of guest sessions is a familiar process for IT administrators. The ease of learning, using, and supporting Hyper-V has been a huge factor in organizations adopting Hyper-V for their virtual server environments.

Hyper-V Support More Than Just Windows Guest Sessions

With the release of Hyper-V, Microsoft made a concerted effort to ensure that Hyper-V not only supports Windows guest sessions (like Windows 2003 and Windows 2008), but also non-Windows guest sessions running Linux. By providing support for a variety of guest sessions, Microsoft is enabling organizations to consolidate both their Windows and non- Windows server systems onto fewer Hyper-V host servers.

NOTE

Hyper-V in Windows 2008 is supported only on x64-bit systems that have hardware assisted virtualization support. Therefore, an organization cannot load up the 32-bit version of Windows 2008 and try to set up virtual guest sessions on the 32-bit host version of Windows.

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This post will help you go through a simple but elementary checklist of all the actions that you need to perform prior to installing the Hyper-V role on your Windows Server 2008 R2 machine.

These are the settings and changes that need to be made prior to installing the Hyper-V role on your machine:

1. Make the necessary BIOS changes.
2. Install Windows Updates
3. Change the default Host Name.
4. Configure the host’s product key and activate it.
5. Change the IP to static addresses.
6. Enabled RDP support.
7. Join the host to a domain.
8. Configure Remote Management.
9. Enable remote disk management.

1. BIOS changes

You must enter the BIOS setup of the server and make sure that “Virtualization Technology” and “Execute Disable” are both set to Enabled.  In most cases, the required BIOS settings can be found in these BIOS sections (actual names may differ, based upon your server’s BIOS settings.

• Security > Execute Disable (set to On)
• Performance > Virtualization (set to On)
• Performance > VT for Direct I/O Access (set to On)
• Performance > Trusted Execution (set to Off)

2. Install Windows Updates

By default, a Windows Server 2008/R2 machine will receive IP address and other settings automatically from a DHCP (if there is one).With these settings, in most cases, it will be possible for you to access the Internet. If that is correct, one of your first tasks would need to be installing all critical Windows Updates.

This can be done through several methods including the UI and the command line, but in this article I’ll describe the most common method – through the UI.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “Configure Updates”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Download and install updates”.

On the Start menu – type “Update”, then click “Windows Update”.

You will need to reboot the server once the updates were installed.

3. Host name

By default, a Windows Server 2008/R2 machine will receive an automatically-generated host name. In most cases, we will want to change this host name to something more meaningful to us.

It is possible to change the host name through several methods including the UI and the command line (the NETDOM command), but in this article I’ll describe the most common method – through the UI.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “Change System Properties”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Provide computer name and domain”.

On the Computer icon – right-click and select “Properties”, then click “Change Settings”.

Enter a descriptive computer name (try to limit it to 15 characters if possible) and click “Ok”.

You will need to reboot the machine in order to continue.

4. Product key and activation

Not required if server will be used for a short-period testing, however, in a production environment, you must activate the server.

Unlike older OSs, Windows Server 2008 R2 does not ask you for the product key during the setup. You need to provide it after the setup has completed.

To enter the product ID you can use the UI or the command line (using SLMGR.VBS command, which is useful for Server Core and remote installations). I will use the UI in this example.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “Activate Windows”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Activate Windows”.

On the Computer icon – right-click and select “Properties”, then click “Activate Windows”.

Enter the correct product key and click on “Next”.

5. Static TCP/IP settings

By default, a Windows Server 2008/R2 machine will receive IP address and other settings automatically. To add the server to a domain and to access it remotely you need to properly configure an IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway and DNS Server IP. These can be configured through DHCP, but since this is a server, you’d probably want to manually configure them.

To do so, you can use the UI or the command line (the NETSH command). I will use the UI in this example.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “View Network Connections”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Configure Networking”.

On the tray area – right-click the network icon and select “Open Network and Sharing Center”, then click “Change adapter settings”.

On the Start menu, type “ncpa.cpl” and press “Enter”.

In the Network Connections window, right-click the network adapter(s) that’s connected to the network and select “Properties”.

Click to select “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)” and click on “Properties”.

Type in the assigned IP address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, and DNS settings.

Note that you will need to make sure you properly configure the host’s DNS settings in order to add it to a domain.

6. Enabled RDP support

Once the server has an IP address it’s most likely you’ll want to continue the configuration work remotely. To do so, we need to enable Remote Desktop.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “Configure Remote Desktop”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Enable Remote Desktop”.

On the Computer icon – right-click and select “Properties”, then click “Remote Settings”.

7. Join the host to a domain

Hyper-V hosts are best managed if they’re a member of a domain. Domain membership is also required for other tasks that you might want to perform in the future (such as SCVMM 2008 R2 installation and others).

Like name changing, it is possible to add the host to a domain through several methods including the UI and the command line (the NETDOM command), but in this article I’ll describe the most common method – through the UI.

Use one of the following methods:

Open Server Manager – Click “Change System Properties”.

In Initial Configuration Tasks – Click “Provide computer name and domain”.

On the Computer icon – right-click and select “Properties”, then click “Change Settings”.

Enter the domain name and click “Ok”.

You will be asked to type your user name and password for the domain.

Once you are successfully joined to the domain, you will be prompted to restart your computer. You must restart your computer before the changes take effect.

8. Configure Remote Management

Remote Desktop is ok, but sometimes you do not need a full desktop to make a change or two, and you can use Server Manager or any other type of remote-connection MMC-snap-in (Note that in Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Manager can finally be used remotely).

To do so, open Server Manager – Click “Configure Server Manager Remote Management”.

To let this computer to be managed remotely by using Server Manager, select “Enable remote management of this server from other computers”. Click “Ok”.

9. Enable remote disks management

This should be done in order to allow you to remotely connect to the host’s disk subsystem and manage it. In order to connect to the disk subsystem remotely you need to set the Virtual Disk Service (VDS) to Automatic, and start it. Then you need to enable the remote-volume-management firewall exception.

To do so, follow these steps:

Open a Command Prompt window and type the following command:

sc config vds start= auto

Next, type:

net start vds

Next, type the following command to enable the remote-volume-management firewall exceptions:

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”Remote Volume Management” new enable=yes

Very important note: Although this may not seem logical, you MUST also enable the same firewall exceptions on the machine you’re connecting FROM!!! Otherwise, you’ll get a “RPC Service Unavailable” message when you attempt to connect to the server’s disk subsystem remotely.

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Installing Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2

To install Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2 you can use one of the following approaches. Note that all methods require a reboot after completion.

Method #1 – Through the GUI

Probably the easiest for this specific role. I would use this method.

1. Open Server Manager, wait for it to load.

2. Click on “Roles”, wait for it to load.

3. On the “Before you begin” page, click “Next”.

4. In the “Select Server Roles” page, click to select the Hyper-V role. Click “Next”.

5. Click “Next”.

6. Select all the Network Interface Cards (NICs) that you wish to assign for the Virtual Machines. Make sure you leave one NIC un-selected for host management. If you only have one NIC, select it, but make a note that it is best to have at least 2 NICS – one for the host and one for the VMs. These settings can be changed later.

7. In the “Confirm Installation Selections” page click “Install”.

8. Once finished, you will need to reboot the server. Click on the “Close” button, and then click “Yes” when you are prompted to reboot the server.

9. When the server reboots, log back into the server and the Server Manager should automatically load and resume the installation process.

After about a minute, you should see a message telling you that Hyper-V has installed successfully. Click “Close” to complete the wizard.

Note: Make sure you do not forget to enable the CPU Virtualization Mode and the Execute Disable bit as mentioned in prepare windows server 2008R2 for Hyper V role blog. If you fail to do so, you will receive an error when attempting to start a VM.

Method #2 – Using the Command Prompt

Using the servermanagercmd.exe command is easy, and only requires 3 words… A reboot is required at the end of the installation (which can also be added to the command, making it 4 words…). However, Hyper-V network connections will need to be changed after the installation.

1. Open a Command Prompt window with elevated permissions.

2. Type:

servermanagercmd -i Hype-V

If you want to automatically reboot the server when the installation is finished, type:

servermanagercmd -i Hyper-V -restart

Easy and simple. This is probably why Microsoft decided to deprecate the usage of servermanagercmd.exe.

Method #3 – Using PowerShell

In Windows Server 2008 R2, PowerShell is installed by default. However, in order to install roles with it, you need to import the Server Manager module.

1. Open a PowerShell window and type:

Import-Module servermanager

2. Once imported, type:

Add-WindowsFeature Hyper-V

If you want to automatically reboot the server when the installation is finished, type:

Add-WindowsFeature Hyper-V -restart

Easy and simple, but here too, Hyper-V network connections will need to be changed after the installation.

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Once you install the Hyper-V role on Windows Server 2008, a new console will be installed on your machine, and it is called the Hyper-V Manager. Everything related to Hyper-V is done using this MMC console.

To open Hyper-V, click on Start > Administrative Tools > Hyper-V Manager

The first time you open Hyper-V, an End User license Agreement (EULA) page will open, take a moment to read it and then enable the checkbox beside I have read and agree to the terms of this EULA, then click on the Accept button. If you clicked on the Cancel button, then you will not be able to connect to any server running Hyper-V until you accept the EULA, which will keep popping up whenever you open Hyper-V or even try to connect to a server that has the Hyper-V role installed on.

The Hyper-V Manager console will open

From the right side pane, under Actions, click on Connect to Server . Hyper-V is installed locally on the machine you are working with, so keep the default selection on Local Computer (the computer this console is running on) and then click on OK.

The server name will be displayed in the left side pane, and now we have more Actions to select from the right side pane

To Create a new virtual machine, From the right side pane, click on New > Virtual Machine

On the Before You Begin page, click Next

On the Specify Name and Location page, type a meaningful name for your Virtual Machine, as for the location where the virtual machine will be stored, either keep the default location as shown, or change it to another path and then Click Next.

On the Assign Memory page, specify the amount of memory to allocate to this virtual machine. This depends on how much memory is installed on your system. Either keep the default displayed memory, or increase it. As I’m going to install Windows Server 2008, I am going to set the memory to be 2 GB. Click Next

Select a Virtual Network from the drop down list on the Configure Networking page. You can keep the virtual machine disconnected by not selecting any Virtual Network, Click Next

For Every Virtual Machine, you will need to connect it to a Virtual Hard Disk, on the Connect Virtual Hard Disk page, we will need to create a new virtual hard disk, as we do not have any existing virtual hard disk ( you can use existing virtual hard disk if you already have created virtual hard disk before , or if you have downloaded a virtual hard disk from Microsoft site )

On the Installation Options page,  you have multiple options to choose from where you are going to install the operating system, or you can even postpone this operation by choosing Install an operating system later. Insert the Windows Server 2008 DVD inside the DVD Drive, and select to install an operating system from a boot CD/DVD-ROM, if you have multiple DVD Drives, make sure to select the one which has the Windows Server 2008 DVD into it. Click Next

On the Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard, take a moment to review your selections and then click Finish. If you need the virtual machine to be automatically started after it is created, then select the checkbox Start the Virtual Machine after it is created

Windows Server 2008 files will start to load

Select the language to install, Time and currency format and the keyboard language, and then click Next

Click on Install Now

Enter the product key, and keep the checkbox Automatically activate Windows when I’m online to activate your Windows copy when you are online, if you wish not to activate it, as this might be a test lab on your Hyper-V, then deselect this option and then click Next

Accept the license terms and click Next

Click Custom (advanced), on the Type of installation page

Select the drive / partition you want to install Windows Server 2008 on it and then click Next.
If you want to divide the virtual hard disk into two partitions, you can do this by selecting the drive , and then clicking on the Drive options (advanced) option

To divide the drive into different partitions, click on the New option, enter the new partition size, then click on the Apply button

Once you are done with creating the partitions, select the one that you want to install Windows Server 2008 on it, and then click on Next

Installation will start

The machine will reboot several times until the installation is completed.

One last note, in step # 10 , if you did not select to start the virtual machine after it is created, then to start and connect to the virtual machine, right click on the Virtual machine name inside Hyper-V Manager and click on Start, this will turn on the Virtual machine

Then right click on the Virtual machine name and click Connect, this will open the Virtual machine window.

Summary:

This article,shows you how to use Hyper-V Manager to create your first Virtual Machine, and then to install Windows Server 2008 as a guest operating system.  Start using a virtualized computing environment to improve the efficiency of your computing resources by utilizing more of your hardware resources. Enjoy Hyper-V !

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CONVERTING VM IN VMWARE TO HYPERV

Performing a Virtual to Virtual Migration of Guest Images

A strategy for migrating older images to Hyper-V is to do a virtual to virtual image migration.Via VMM, an administrator can select a running virtual machine (running VMware,XenServer, Virtual Server 2005, or the like) and choose to migrate the image to Hyper-V. This process extracts all the pertinent server image information, applications, data,Registry settings, user settings, and the like and moves the information over to a target Hyper-V host server. Once migrated, the Hyper-V integration tools can be installed, andthe image is now clear and ready to be supported by Hyper-V or VMM.

Following are the steps to convert a VMWare VM to Hyper-V VM

1. First you need to uninstall the VM tools from your VM
   
2. Then shutdown the VM
   
3. After that add a new IDE disk drive to your VM.
   
4. You need to boot up your virtual machine with both of the drives that is connected and check that it detects your new IDE drive. You can see the new drive as “not initialized” in Disk Management.
   
5. Then power off the virtual machine and remove the newly created IDE disk from the VM. Do not power on VMware Machine again.
   
6. Now you need to convert your VMDK file to VHD format by using the newest Vmdk2Vhd utility.
   
7. After that you can now uninstall the VMware Server and then install Hyper-V + on the current Windows Updates on your host server
   
8. Then create a new Virtual Machine in the Hyper-V.
   
9. On the Power and Install the “Integration Services” and reboot when prompted
   
10. Assign the original IP address to the new network card.
    
11. Then you can check the device manager
    
12. Then reboot
    
13. After that check all your applications and services are running
    
14. Finally done.
    

Note: If you have Win2008 VM’s then it’s not necessary to add a temporary IDE disk during migration but you might want to copy the relevant KB949219 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949219) update package to your VM before converting it. Otherwise it will start up with three warnings in the Device Manager for “Microsoft VMBus Video Device”, “Microsoft VMBus HID Miniport” and “Microsoft VMBus Network Adapter” – hence you will have no network access

Converting Vmware files to Hyper-V-compatible files by using VMDK to VHD converter tool:

Open the VMDK file, as shown below

Once the file is open, select a destination for the new VHD file and provide a file name.

Select destination and name VHD file. Click to start Conversion.

The above mentioned method is for converting guest operating systems in VMWARE to HYPER-V. The guest operating systems can be both windows and Linux based systems.

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Top 10 Linux Virtualization Software

Virtualization is the latest buzz word. You may wonder computers are getting cheaper every day, why should I care and why should I use virtualization? Virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources such as:

1. Platform Virtualization
2. Resource Virtualization
3. Storage Virtualization
4. Network Virtualization
5. Desktop Virtualization

This article describes why you need virtualization and list commonly used FOSS and proprietary Linux virtualization software.

Why should I use virtualization?

• Consolidation – It means combining multiple software workloads on one computer system. You can run various virtual machines in order to save money and power (electricity).
• Testing – You can test various configuration. You can create less resource hungry and low priority virtual machines (VM). Often, I test new Linux distro inside VM. This is also good for students who wish to learn new operating systems and programming languages / database without making any changes to working environment. At my work place I give developers virtual test machines for testing and debugging their software.
• Security and Isolation – If mail server or any other app gets cracked, only that VM will be under control of the attacker. Also, isolation means misbehaving apps (e.g. memory leaks) cannot bring down whole server.

Open Source Linux Virtualization Software

1. OpenVZ is an operating system-level virtualization technology based on the Linux kernel and operating system.
2. Xen is a virtual machine monitor for 32 / 64 bit Intel / AMD (IA 64) and PowerPC 970 architectures. It allows several guest operating systems to be executed on the same computer hardware concurrently. XEN is included with most popular Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, Fedora and many others.
3. Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure. KVM currently supports native virtualization using Intel VT or AMD-V. A wide variety of guest operating systems work with KVM, including many flavours of Linux, BSD, Solaris, and Windows etc. KVM is included with Debian, OpenSuse and other Linux distributions.
4. Linux-VServer is a virtual private server implementation done by adding operating system-level virtualization capabilities to the Linux kernel.
5. VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, developed by Sun Microsystems as part of its Sun xVM virtualization platform. Supported host operating systems include Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp, Windows XP or Vista, and Solaris, while supported guest operating systems include FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, OS/2 Warp, Windows and Solaris.
6. Bochs is a portable x86 and AMD64 PC emulator and debugger. Many guest operating systems can be run using the emulator including DOS, several versions of Microsoft Windows, BSDs, Linux, AmigaOS, Rhapsody and MorphOS. Bochs can run on many host operating systems, like Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux and Mac OS X.
7. User Mode Linux (UML) was the first virtualization technology for Linux. User-mode Linux is generally considered to have lower performance than some competing technologies, such as Xen and OpenVZ. Future work in adding support for x86 virtualization to UML may reduce this disadvantage.

Proprietary Linux Virtualization Software

• VMware ESX Server and VMWare Server – VMware Server (also known as GSX Server) is an entry-level server virtualization software. VMware ESX Server is an enterprise-level virtualization product providing data center virtualization. It can run various guest operating systems such as FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Windows and others.
• Commercial implementations of XEN available with various features and support.
  • Citrix XenServer : XenServer is based on the open source Xen hypervisor, an exceptionally lean technology that delivers low overhead and near-native performance.
  • Oracle VM : Oracle VM is based on the open-source Xen hypervisor technology, supports both Windows and Linux guests and includes an integrated Web browser based management console. Oracle VM features fully tested and certified Oracle Applications stack in an enterprise virtualization environment.
  • Sun xVM : The xVM Server uses a bare-metal hypervisor based on the open source Xen under a Solaris environment on x86-64 systems. On SPARC systems, xVM is based on Sun’s Logical Domains and Solaris. Sun plans to support Microsoft Windows (on x86-64 systems only), Linux, and Solaris as guest operating systems.
• Parallels Virtuozzo Containers – It is an operating system-level virtualization product designed for large-scale homegenous server environments and data centers. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers is compatible with x86, x86-64 and IA-64 platforms. You can run various Linux distributions inside Parallels Virtuozzo Containers.

Personally, I’ve used VMware ESX / Server and VirtualBox.

METHODS FOR MIGRATION OF VM’S IN LINUX HOST TO WINDOWS HOST

In Linux the virtualization tool used can be one of the above mentioned. Let us take the case of VIRTUAL BOX. The guest in VBOX will have an extension “.vdi” and in WINDOWS HYPER-V it will be “.vhd”. The steps for converting .vdi to .vhd are given below:

There are times when you use Virtualbox and for some reason need to convert over to VMWare or Hyper-V (or other).

Finding this process on the Internet is tedious, and usually involves using QEMU, an open-source Virtualization product to perform the .raw –> .vmdk step. However, if you are running on Windows, the QEMU Windows port will not perform the conversion without failure (at least on Windows 7!). So with that, I decided to go another route with a handy tool that I’ve used for years in some variation or another, WinImage.

Tools you’ll need:

. Sun VirtualBox – http://www.virtualbox.org. WinImage (Shareware) – http://www.winimage.com

Requirements:

Free disk space should be around 2 times the size of the .vdi disk image file size.

For the sake of this document, we will use .vmdk as our output file, but the conversion steps are the same when it comes to .vhd.

Convert .raw disk image to .vmdk format using WinImage

• Open WinImage, click on ‘Disk’> ‘Convert Virtual Hard Disk image…’
  
• Next to the ‘File name:’ field, click on the file type drop-down and select ‘All files (*.*)’.
  
• Navigate to the location where you stored your outputted .raw disk file and double-click it.
  
• Choose whether you wish to ‘Create Fixed Size Virtual Hard Disk’ or ‘Create Dynamically Expanding Virtual Hard Disk’ (I typically pick the latter) and click ‘OK’.
  
• Navigate to a folder where you wish to store the newly converted image to. Next to ‘Save as type:’ (for the sake of this How-to) choose ‘VMWare VMDK (*.vmdk). and click ‘Save’.You should see a ‘Reading disk’ progress indicator giving you the status of the conversion process. I’ve converted 30Gb images in about 10 minutes or less…but I have no firm numbers.
  
• Once the conversion is complete, you’ll see a dialog box that will ask you if you wish to connect to the partition. Click ‘OK’ if you wish to view the content.
  

Import your disk images into your existing Virtual Infrastructure

Now that the files are converted, copy or move your converted disk image files to your virtualization software’s datastore/disk storage folder.

Once moved/copied, you should now be able to create a new Virtual Machine and utilize the disks you just converted.

Note that you will need to install the proper guest additions/tools to the virtual machine when you get it booted, so you will likely not have network access right off the bat.

Conclusion

Indeed, that was a quick How-to, but it’s an important process that gets easily overlooked. The WinImage step makes quick work of converting the .raw image…and it is easy!

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