BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer
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@BRRABill said:
I was really surprised at
a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebootingI thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.
Rebooting for security updates has never been a railing point for any sys admin.
A lot of updates don't require the host to be reboot, think of Debian and CentOS. You can patch on the fly.
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In XenServer:
When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?
For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.
And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?
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@BRRABill said:
In XenServer:
When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?
For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.
And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?
Correct, the size of the virtual disk in this instance is the max size the disk can grow.
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@BRRABill said:
In XenServer:
When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?
For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.
And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?
that depends on the option you picked earlier.
Remember you started your datastore over because Scott suggested that you pick thin provisioning.
Unlike Windows, it's all or nothing so it appears on XS. All VMs are thin provisioned on a disk, or none.
So in this case you don't need to be asked. The expectation is you know the setting of your data store, and that setting will be applied.
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Well the BMR test actually went pretty well. Up until boot time, that is.
I am getting this error:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from selected boot disk."Hoping I just need to edit a file somewhere...
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@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day. -
@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day.What chu talkin bout Willis?
I've found almost every BMR I've ever done has issues.
I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day.What chu talkin bout Willis?
I've found almost every BMR I've ever done has issues.
I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.
I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.
I use Appassure as my backup product.
To do a bare metal restore I have to options: PXE boot or boot from CD/iso.
Then pull the backups down...sometimes the restore process will allow me to provide storage drivers which it will then inject into the new VM. Otherwise I have to boot from the install media and do a repair and provide the storage drivers.
Additionally, I've had recoveries where the system didn't set the boot disk to active so the system would even try to boot.
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@Dashrender said:
To do a bare metal restore I have to options: PXE boot or boot from CD/iso.
PXE Boot has nothing to do with it directly. it simply a remote ISO instead of CD/DVD/USB plugged in directly.
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@Dashrender said:
I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.
Datto is a NAS and ShadowProtect is a software.
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@BRRABill said:
I was really surprised at
a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebootingI thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.
Not when updating the hypervisor. Not sure if there is any hypervisor yet that can be updated without restarting. Is there any product like that out? If there is any, seems like it would be VMware and I don't think that they do this yet.
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@DustinB3403 said:
@BRRABill said:
I was really surprised at
a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebootingI thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.
Rebooting for security updates has never been a railing point for any sys admin.
A lot of updates don't require the host to be reboot, think of Debian and CentOS. You can patch on the fly.
It is, but traditionally from the AIX world. Big Iron systems rarely reboot for updates even going back decades.
Linux does not need to reboot even for kernel updates but most of us don't configure it that way, rebooting is a normal part of systems administration and working hard to never have to do it has diminishing returns. but Linux has offered on the fly kernel replacement for a while now.
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@BRRABill said:
In XenServer:
When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?
For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.
And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?
Dynamic is the wrong term. Thin Provisioned is the real one. Dynamic is a Microsoft only term for thin provisioned. Thin Provisioned is the name of the technology across the board, Dynamic is a term for the use of Microsoft's LVM technology that allows for thin provisioning. So no, using this won't install a Windows LVM, but it will be thin provisioned
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@BRRABill said:
I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.
Isn't that how it is supposed to be restored? When I look at their vendor's guide that's what it says to do.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.
Datto is a NAS and ShadowProtect is a software.
Datto is a backup appliance build on ShadowProtect. It's an all in one much like Unitrends but unlike Unitrends, Datto buys the backup software from StorageCraft instead of making it themselves.
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So it was a partition issue in BOOT.INI.
The partition was originally set to (2). I set (0) and got an NTOSKRNL error.
I set it to (1) ... and the server booted. Or, it is is appearing to boot. We shall see.
I also ran the XenServer "fixup" program. Anyone know if that is officially needed, or only if you run into problems? (I definitely needed it when importing the VHD.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
Isn't that how it is supposed to be restored? When I look at their vendor's guide that's what it says to do.
They have their own Datto branded recovery environment you are supposed to use. But, it never seems to work.
Me being on Server 2003 causes issue too, I think.
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Well, now there is another issue, but I know how to fix this one. (Had the same issue on a BMR of my other failed server.)
Strangely enough, there is a post on SW about this error (that was not fixed) but the posted posted a picture of his monitor, which was the old fashioned type. (This was in 2009.)
@scottalanmiller said:
"So that is what a CRT looks like. Are you working in a museum? ;)" -
That issue is now fixed!
Good thing I remembered that!
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/b3f18d7a-8c95-42dc-a0bd-3ca81e26d669/error-on-boot-stop-c0000135-unable-to-locate-component-csrsrvdll-not-found-reinstalling-the?forum=winservergenWell after a few blips, it seems to have worked.
Should I install XenTools?
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Yes, you always need the PV drivers for any hypervisor that you want to use (including Hyper-V) or you get crappy performance.
