Category: Hyper-V

The Exchange Server 2010 Setup On Hyper-V Fails With 2147504141 Error

Thanks to Dutch Exchange MVP, Jetze Mellema, for raising this one.  Jetze is doing a lot of Exchange 2010 work over in the Netherlands.  He tweeted today about something he’d seen.

When you try to set up Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on a Hyper-V Virtual Machine, the setup process may fail. Additionally, you receive the following error message:

"An error occurred with error code ‘2147504141’ and message ‘The property cannot be found in the cache.’"

KB980050 discusses the solution:

To resolve this problem, disable time synchronization in the Hyper-V Manager console. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Hyper-V Manager console.
  2. Locate and Right-click the virtual machine on which you want to install Exchange Server 2010, and then click Settings.
  3. Click the Management section in the Settings tab, and then click Integration Services.
  4. Click to clear the Time synchronization check box, and then click OK.
  5. Install Exchange Server 2010 on the virtual machine.
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High Level Document On W2008 R2 Hyper-V and Live Migration

I just stumbled upon a very high level document on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, featuring Live Migration.  It’ll be useful to newbies to Hyper-V and those wanting to learn a bit about Live Migration.  However, if you’re a tech and need to present to your boss, this might not be a bad start.

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KB978560: VMM 2008 R2 Rollup Package

This rollup package for VMM was released by Microsoft last night.  It is made available via Windows Update.  It contains a number of fixes:

Issue 1

Consider the following scenario:

  • A user is a member of the Self-Service User role.
  • A new virtual machine is created, and the user is assigned the owner of the virtual machine.

In this scenario, the user cannot connect to the virtual machine by using the Self-Service Portal.

Issue 2

Consider the following scenario:

  • A highly available virtual machine is offline.
  • Quick Storage Migration is used to move the offline virtual machine to another storage location that is in the cluster.

In this scenario, the virtual machine does not migrate to another node that is in the cluster by using Quick Migration or Live Migration after Quick Storage Migration is used.

Issue 3

VMware virtual machines are not listed in the Virtual Machine Manager console if there are duplicate custom named tags in VMware Virtual Center.

Issue 4

Consider the following scenario:

  • A new virtual machine is created, and the owner of the virtual machine is a member of the Self-Service User role.
  • While the create virtual machine job is running, a user is added or removed from the Self-Service User role.

In this scenario, the user is not added or removed from the Self-Service User role because the create virtual machine job is running.

This rollup also includes the resolutions that are documented in the following article for a Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 hotfix rollup package KB976244.

Thanks to fellow MVP Артём Александрович Проничкин for the heads up.

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That Was The First Security Fix For Hyper-V

By the way, when I posted about the security fix for Hyper-V last night, I should have mentioned that it was the first such on for the hypervisor itself in the 18 or so months since it RTM’d in Windows Server 2008.  Not bad!

There’s some debate about how important it is.  Basically, if someone can log into a VM running on a host and has admin rights in that VM, then they can run a DOS attack on the hypervisor on that host.  Most scenarios will probably be safe enough.

I would guess that most companies that deployed virtualisation are running it for internal server virtualisation purposes.  The people who log into those machines are trusted administrators and extremely unlikely to go postal.

Funny phrase that.  I once worked with a guy who was the son of post employees and he didn’t know what it meant.  He got highly offended!

Virtualised “terminal services”, or to put it correctly using the current phrase, Remote Desktop Services Session Hosts *gasps for air*,  will likely only have users logging in with limited rights so they will be safe.

Some VDI implementations will have users logging in with administrative rights.  That means that they are vulnerable.  And those operating cloud services (server hosting) based on Hyper-V are vulnerable.  Those operating private clouds with large numbers of unknown administrators also face a risk.  It’s inevitable that someone will write an attack script/program for this.

I fall into one of those vulnerable scenarios so our normal patching process was put to one side today.  The update was approved in WSUS for all groups, not just our testing group.  Using Operations Manager and VMM we put clustered hosts into maintenance mode.  This allows VMM to use Live Migration to move VM’s from the host that will be worked on to another host.  If you don’t have VMM then you need to Live Migrate each of the VM’s, one by one.  OpsMgr maintenance mode prevents false alarms.  This is done in turn with all hosts in the cluster.  No customers have down time and the security fix gets deployed.  Nice and tidy.

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KB977894: VERY Important Hyper-V Security Update

One of the patches released by Microsoft is a critical security fix for Hyper-V.  It affects all installation types on both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

“This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. The vulnerability could allow denial of service if a malformed sequence of machine instructions is run by an authenticated user in one of the guest virtual machines hosted by the Hyper-V server. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally into a guest virtual machine to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users”.

Basically, if a person has rights to log into a VM hosted on a vulnerable server, then they could cause a Denial-of-Service (DOS) attack. 

The update is supplied via Windows Update.  Check your updates either on the host, Configuration Manager, WSUS or whatever your update service is.

I’ll be pushing it out first thing tomorrow morning.  Live Migration with VMM 2008 R2 maintenance mode makes it really easy to update clustered hosts.  Standalone hosts will have some downtime for their VM’s.  Most VM’s will be set up to go into a saved state when the host shuts down.  That limits interruption to them in a way.

Run ESX In VMware Workstation

I’m looking at maybe doing some VMware labs with VMM at home in the future.  My worry was hardware.  We know we can run Hyper-V on just about any machine (the h/w requirements are pretty basic).  It runs nicely on my Dell Latitude E6500.  But ESXi and ESX have a pretty limited HCL and my old white boxes probably don’t fall into it.  I don’t want to waste money on PC’s.

So I did a little searching and it seems like there is a solution.  You can run ESX and ESXi in VMware Workstation.  You can get a trial of Workstation for any temporary lab work and run VMware in there.  Add another VM and you can run the VMware management.

All you need do now is point your lab VMM server at them and take control.

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First 5000 Downloads Free: Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines

I’d normally post this one in the evening after work but it is a limited time offer.  I just got an email and the contents were:

“Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines is out.

Now all IT administrators have a great chance to have Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines for FREE – currently we’re announcing this giveaway for up to 5000 copies.

It is a special version of our Linux/DOS bootable environment that contains fully functional Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional. It is optimized to work with virtual disks of any virtualization software vendor √ backup/restore virtualized systems, re-partition and clone virtual disks, fix boot problems, optimize performance of NTFS and FAT file systems, etc.

The software and user manual can be downloaded from here.

Please, note that it requires registration”.

It is for non-commercial use only.

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I Prefer Working With VM’s

Today I was working with one of my colleagues to upgrade an application we are running on some physical servers.  We’re both working from home with a VPN connection into the data centre.  Reboots were required.  This is the bit I hate … a continuous ping times out for what feels like an eternity.  Eventually that first response appears and the tightening of the chest relaxes 🙂

VM reboots are so quick because there is no hardware to POST.  I could also take a copy of the VM to test the upgrade process before hitting production.

Hyper-V Linux Integration Components V2.0 With RedHat Support

Microsoft released version 2.0 of the Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V on the 29th of January.  They include support for installing on not only SUSE Enterprise Linux (10 SP1 and 10 SP2) but also RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.

Now I’ve got to expand the possible Linux OS’s I would run on my Hyper-V farm.  Remember, I’m monitoring using Operations Manager 2007 R2.  It can support RHEL 4 and RHEL 5.  Hyper-V now has supported integration components for RHEL 5.

That means I can now run SLES 10 SP1 or RHEL 5 on my Hyper-V farm and be able to monitor the internal goings-on of those VM’s using Operations Manager 2007 R2.  I’m more likely to go with RHEL.  It appears to me to be more accepted and has more documentation in the blog-o-sphere that SLES.

Using VMM 2008 R2 For V2V

It is possible using Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 to migrate virtual machines from one hardware virtualisation platform to another.  This is known as Virtual to Virtual or V2V.  The possible migrations you can do are:

  • Migrate from Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 to Hyper-V
  • Migrate a VMware Virtual Machine from the VMM Library to Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 or to Hyper-V
  • Migrate a VMware Virtual Machine from a VMware host to Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 or to Hyper-V

This is a one-way process.  You cannot go from Hyper-V back to the original host platform.

Supported V2V VM Operating Systems

Just like with P2V, there is a matrix of supported operating systems:

Operating System

VMM 2008

VMM 2008 R2

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4) or later

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4 or later

Yes

Yes

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later

Yes

Yes

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition SP2 or later

Yes

Yes

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (32-bit x86)

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (32-bit x86)

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86)

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 x64 Standard Edition

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition

Yes (Requires SP1 or later.)

Yes (Requires SP2 or later.)

Windows Server 2003 Web Edition

Yes

Yes

Windows Small Business Server 2003

Yes

Yes

Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Yes

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Yes

Yes

Windows Server 2008 Standard 32-Bit

Yes

Yes

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 32-Bit

Yes

Yes

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter 32-Bit

Yes

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Standard

Yes

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Yes

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

Yes

Yes

Windows Web Server 2008

Yes

Yes

Windows 7

No

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows 7

No

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

No

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

No

Yes

64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

No

Yes

Windows Web Server 2008 R2

No

Yes

Not Got VMM?

There is a manual process to convert Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 VM’s to Hyper-V if you do not have VMM.  There are 3rd party and free tools for this.  There are also 3rd party and free tools you can use to V2V from VMware to Hyper-V without VMM.  However, these would be very manual processes and VMM makes that all the much easier through it’s job process.

Destination Host Requirements

The destination machine should have the disk and the RAM to cater for the VM.  MS actually recommends RAM of the VM + 256MB for the conversion process.  The host should also be in a network that allows all necessary communications with the VMM server.

Original VM Requirements

Before you migrate any VMware machine to a Microsoft platform you must uninstall the VMware additions/tools.  That’s the VMware equivalent of the Microsoft integration components/services.  You also need to remove any checkpoints.

Library V2V

There are then two possible ways to do the conversion.  As I stated earlier, you can copy a VMware VM into the library and V2V the VM from there.  To do this in VMM, choose to use the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard.  You cannot V2V a VMware VM that uses raw disks (same idea as pass through disks).  You need access to the .VMX file (describes the VM) and the VMDK file(s) (the virtual hard disks).  Each VMDK will be converted into a VHD.

Host V2V

If your VM is on another host, e.g. Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 or VMware, then make sure the source host is being managed by VMM.  You can then use an offline migration, i.e. power off the VM, right-click the VM and Migrate it.  Make sure the hosts filter is adjusted to show your destination Microsoft virtualisation host.

Integration Components

When the job is completing, you’ll see that VMM will install the integration components/services for Hyper-V.  That will optimise the performance of the VM and cuts down on the manual labour.

Linux VM’s

Interestingly, Microsoft says you can V2V a Linux VM.  However, any OS not in the above table will not get the integration components.  And remember, only certain enterprise versions of SUSE (no IC’s) and RedHat (no IC’s) are supported.  If you V2V a supported SLES VM you will have to manually install the Linux integration components.