Dugie’s Pensieve

Of recent there has been some discussion (both internally at work, on the web, and in the general community) on building Virtual Machine templates.  So I thought I’d jam out a quick (but sizable) blog entry on what works for me.

Anyway, I have two libraries I maintain:  “Sterile Golden Masters” and “Working Templates“.  My descriptions of each aren’t entirely accurate, but it works for me.  But before I get too much further, think of the Templates as copies of the Golden Master - but tweaked.

The Sterile Golden Masters

• Each VM is built from slipstreamed media, using a manual, next, next finish install.
• I use IDE drives within the VM for compatibility with VPC
• There are 16 VMs in the library covering every OS/Service pack combo from NT4 to 2003R2 (and now Vista)
• Each VM includes a copy of the i386 folder copied locally
• Each VM includes a copy of all my favourite stand alone Utitities and Sysinternals Tools (Key point is all tools are stand alone EXEs and do not need to be installed, eg: robocopy)
• Each VM includes a change log with all the settings to install the OS
• Each VM does not have patches installed
• The Virtual Machine Additions are not installed

I rarely use a copy of these images for testing (except under extreme circumstances with difficult vendors), they are rather a base for templates I build on top of.  Each Golden Master is a clean, sterile, reproducible build with no software or patches installed of any kind.  I zip each of the images up and burn them all to a double layer DVD.  I go back to them maybe once or twice a year.

So what are the Working Templates

• Are copies of the Golden Masters
• They all have the lastest production Virtual Machine Additions installed
• Each VM has auto-login enabled, BGinfo configured, and assorted shell tweaks for convenience
• Defragmented filesystem and pagefile
• Each template includes a change log with all the settings, changes and tweaks applied
• The Sysprep folder is pre-packed ready to go, but not applied (it’s there, just in case)
• Compacted with the precompactor iso

These guys are the templates that I take copies of and use everyday for testing and documenting “stuff”.  Although NT4 and 2000 support has officially ended, I still find myself using these templates every few months for something.  So I guess I’ll continue to use them until the need disappears.

My Lab-on-a-DVD

I’ve taken copies of the 2003 R2 Enterprise VM and created 4 new templates, DC, Exchange, SQL2000 and SQL2005 - all are members of LAB.VIRTUAL domain.  This combined set of 4 images are perhaps the templates I use the most.  The domain has some basic group policies, 1200 user accounts (half have mail boxes).  Zipped up this fits nicely on a DVD - but I prefer to keep copies extracted on my External USB drive for convenience.

So there we have it.  This is what I use for my day-to-day needs.  During the month I might find myself building/documenting/testing several projects.  This means a new environments with different requirements for each project — each new project I take a copy of the VMs I need, and typically I’m ready to go in under 10 minutes.  About the same time required to get a coffee :)

Well, that’s what works for me, and my needs are portability.  Fairly straight forward, could be more elegant, but brutally functional!  Any questions, drop me a comment :)

Australian Exchange and Unified messaging guru, Johan Kruse is blogging!

I saw his post “Outlook Voice Access, maaaaate“, and thought I’d share some of that the Exchange 2007 lovin’:

“Do I have to put up with that North American accent in Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging?  Can it please sound Australian? “

I’m happy to say that answer is no and yes!  No you don’t have to put up with a North American accent, and yes it can sound Australian!

There is an Australian English language pack available for download at:

• x64 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=34aa9cce-4576-43c6-9f5c-d161acdec1c5&displaylang=en
• i386 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=53399722-fbd6-443a-be61-072f4371f1bd&displaylang=en

And a whole bunch of other languages are available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2007/downloads/langpacks.mspx

 

I have this niggling “istartedsomething” feeling, I’m about to see a few visitors looking for Virtual Machine tips and tricks :)

As well as all the tips over at my other blog, Virtual Machine [shameless plug], here’s a nifty list-of-lists that James Manning has jammed together:

• http://www.andrewconnell.com/blog/articles/SqeezePerformanceOutOfVirtualPCs.aspx
• http://blogs.virtualserver.tv/blogs/dugie/articles/How_to_build_and_optimize_a_Virtual_Machine_Guest.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/05/02/414187.aspx
• http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Tuning-Virtual-PC-Performance.html
• http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,097ce75a-838a-4511-a858-d6de8e8e78a9.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/08/18/453174.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2006/03/20/555917.aspx

As well as some [of my] other miscellaneous posts of interest:

• First impressions of Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows
• Fedora Core 6 with Virtual Machine Additions for Linux 1.1
• First Impressions of the 2003 R2 VHD Testdrive.
• Heavy duty Virtual Machines with Virtual PC w/ Ken Schaefer
• VirtualPC 2007 - the fast facts
• Using Virtual Machines without TCPIP on the host
• Combining VirtualPC with Vista ReadyBoost
• Using Virtual Server VHDmount.exe
• First impressions of Invirtus VM Optimizer 2.5 with Virtual PC

*grins*

Hope everyone finds something in that list !

A fortnight ago I blogged about the “WinXP IE7 readiness Toolkit VPC“, which shortly after disappeared.  …and shortly after I got a bunch of e-mails asing where it was and telling me the links were broken  :)

Well I did some searching and found an update on PeteL’s blog, “IE6 VPC Update“.  A snippet is below :

When are we going to release the [IE VPC] image?
As soon as humanly possible. The image is done, we’re just working through some time bombing issues right now. We can’t ship an untime bombed image, as that would be effectively shipping a full fledged OS. The image has been submitted, and it’s being worked through right now. After having just shipped Vista, and the Thanksgiving holiday, a lot of the important folks are out this week, so we haven’t been able to make it happen.

Will I be announcing the release of the [IE VPC] image here?
ABSOLULTELY! As soon as it’s up, I’ll get a blog post up. We’ll also make an announcement on the IE blog. If you’re not familiar with the IE blog, you should check it out. It’s THE place for info about what is going on on the IE team. It’s a communal blog, so anyone on the team can post to it, and it’s open for comments.

How will we be able to download it?
It’s going to be available on the Microsoft download center. It’ll be about a 550meg download, so certainly not small, but not huge either. The image itself is about 1.5gigs, but through some compression techniques, we were able to compress it down to just over 500megs.
 

I wonder if the image will end upon the VHD test drive site as well?

I had to ride past the Gabba today on the way to a client site.  The Ashes is a Test cricket series, and this year it is held at The Gabba here in Brisbane.

There were people EVERYWHERE (included the pubs) and it was only 9:30 in the morning.  I saw lots of weird things.  Everything from boonie dolls, real life boonie look alikes, and even some guys wearing watermelon hats (like this cat)

Anyway, I couldn’t get a photo of the people in hats, but I did get a photo of the Gabba (and for those that know my mode of transport it was a challenge):

The iSCSI Software Initiator has been updated to version 2.03 (Build 3099).  I haven’t tried this latest build with host clustering yet.

You can get the latest initiator from Microsoft Downloads, and a snippet is below:

1. Change to not increase the ExpStatSN if ITT is reserved value for Nop-IN.
2. Fix for system bugcheck in certain conditions after completing error recovery for 5 consecutive lun resets.
3. Change to include Microsoft MPIO version 1.17 binaries in iSCSI initiator 2.03
4.  Fix for memory leak which occurs in the Wmiprvse.exe process when a program calls an instance of the
    “CWin32_TerminalService::ExecQuery” function in Windows Server 2003
5. Fix for stop error 0xDA on some x64 hardware implementations.
6. Validate Max Connections parameter in LoginTarget.
7. Allow logout from Boot Session in case booted from Alternate device.
 

 

I don’t have anything new to report (with tech value) been busy with Virtualization stuff.  One of the things I’m spending time on is a list of “things” that work with the VHD standard in some way. 

It’s a pretty big list, and there is a few odd items I’m working through.  (eg using the VHD test-drive images with the VM Importer Converter).  It’s a long story so I’ll post more soon.  Just letting everyone know I’m still around :)

UPDATE:   Sorry Dave, I meant Converter old habbits die hard  :)

Now that the RTM of Vista  is in MSDN, I just had to try it out in VPC.  The good news is Vista just installs. No messing around. Put the CD, I mean DVD in, and click, next, next, finish:

8:00 AM Start Virtual PC 2007 Beta and create a Vista VM with 768 Meg Ram
8:01 AM Boot from DVD
8:03 AM Click next to regional settings
8:03 AM enter key
8:05 AM Select disk and ok
9:00 AM reboot
9:01 AM Regional settings
9:04 AM Checking performance
9:07 AM Preparing Desktop
9:15 AM Voilia, the Vista desktop
9:20 AM VMadditions install finished, reboot.

Installing the additions requires a few extra clicks now with UAP enabled.

Vista is reasonably smooth and snappy. Sound works nicely, animations fade in and out - but more importantly my dynamic screen size works as expected, and using RDP from my Vista Host to Vista Guest gives me Aero Glass  :)    

Currently my host is running 32 bit Vista - my next step is to try it all again with a 64 bit host.

Rodney Buike posted an interesting article on an interesting problem.  The [very] shortened story is SM Internet Solutions have a customer running their production SBS servers in VMs.  These production VMs are hosted by Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1.

I highly recommend reading the post (takes about 10 minutes) “From the Trenches - Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 Beta 2″ and some snippets are below:

• A small (15 user) Private Wealth Management client with very aggressive growth plans for the next 3-5 years
• They required Enterprise grade data protection, business continuity and disaster recovery, along with ease of use but at a SMB price
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 64bit for the host OS
• in addition to the host OS, up to 4 virtualized Windows 2003 Server instances on the same physical server. 
• Being able to spread the payments for all software purchased under the Open Value Licensing program over 3 years made for easy purchase approval.
• Purchasing Small Business Server under Open Value Licensing, along with Software Assurance, also allowed for the software purchase price to be spread over 3years
• By purchasing under Open Value Licensing along with Software Assurance the client will also be able to take their old server and use is as an offsite dark spare

I know everyone (including me) has blogged about Microsoft at VMworld this year.  So here’s something different, a photo of the booth  :)

I wasn’t at VMworld so I’m not entirely sure what the “blue lights” on the booth are for.  But it kind of makes the booth look like the Tardis?  (Or is it just me?)