Sniper-V

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V Best Practices and Tuning

HollisWms — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:17:08 GMT

Thanks again to Roger Osborne for compiling a list of some common best practices when deploying production Hyper-V servers. Of course the Hyper-V will run for you right out of the box but depending on your environment, the information below can dramatically increase scalability and performance in your environment, thanks Roger!!

Disclaimer: As with all Best Practices and Tuning, not every recommendation can – or should – be applied. Best Practices are general guidelines, not hard, fast rules that must be followed. As such, you should carefully review each item to determine if it makes sense in your environment. If implementing one (or more) of these Best Practices seems sensible, great; if it doesn't, simply ignore it. In other words, it's up to you to decide if you should apply these in your production environment after thorough testing.

GENERAL (HOST):

* Use Server Core if possible, to reduce OS overhead, reduce potential attack surface, and to minimize reboots (due to fewer software updates)

* Hyper-V services should be configured to start automatically, to ensure uninterrupted VM services after reboots. (Verify in Administrative Tools à Services):

Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service (To set to auto: sc config vmms start=auto)
Hyper-V Networking Management Service (To set to auto: sc config nvspwmi start=auto)
Hyper-V Image Management Service (To set to auto: sc config vhdsvc start=auto)

* Ensure hosts are up-to-date with recommended Microsoft updates, to ensure critical patches and updates – addressing security concerns or fixes to the core OS – are applied.

* Ensure all applicable Hyper-V hotfixes and Cluster hotfixes (if applicable) have been applied

* Install the latest PowerShell version (currently 2.0) on each Hyper-V host

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=2560

* Download and install the Hyper-V PowerShell Management Library

http://pshyperv.codeplex.com/

* Ensure hosts have the latest BIOS version, to address any known issues/supportability

* Host should be domain joined, unless security standards dictate otherwise. Doing so makes it possible to centralize the management of policies for identity, security, and auditing. Additionally, hosts must be domain joined before you can create a Hyper-V High-Availability Cluster.

* RDP Printer Mapping should be disabled on hosts, to remove any chance of a printer driver causing instability issues on the host machine.

Preferred method: Use Group Policy with host servers in their own separate OU)
- Computer Configuration à Administrative Templates à Windows Components à Remote Desktop Services à Remote Desktop Session Host à Printer Redirection à Do not allow client printer redirection à Set to "Enabled"

* Set host power plan to Maximum Performance, to ensure maximum CPU performance.

Preferred method: Use Group Policy with host servers in their own separate OU)
- Computer Configuration à Preferences à Control Panel Settings à Power Options
  - Once there, create a new Power Plan (using the Vista or higher selection) and assign it "High Performance"

* Do not install any other Roles on a host besides the Hyper-V host

When the Hyper-V role is installed, the host OS becomes the "Parent Partition" (a quasi-virtual machine), and the Hypervisor partition is placed between the parent partition and the hardware. As a result, it is not recommended to install additional roles, services, etc.

* The only Features that should be installed on the host are: Failover Cluster Manager and Multipath I/O. However, both are only needed if the host will be part of a cluster. (See explanation above for reasons why installing additional features is not recommended.)

* Anti-virus software can be installed, if desired; however, be sure to exclude Hyper-V specific files using KB 961804:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961804
- Default virtual machine configuration directory (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V)
- Custom virtual machine configuration directories, if applicable
- Default virtual hard disk drive directory
- Custom virtual hard disk drive directories
- Snapshot directories
- Vmms.exe (Note: May need to be configured as process exclusions within the antivirus software)
- Vmwp.exe (Note: May need to be configured as process exclusions within the antivirus software)
- Additionally, when you use Cluster Shared Volumes, exclude the CSV path "C:\ClusterStorage" and all its subdirectories.

* Default VM path and VHD path should be set to a non-system drive, due to this can cause disk latency, as well as create the potential for running out of disk space.

* Enable iSCSI Service TCP-In (for Inbound) and iSCSI Service TCP-Out (for outbound) in Firewall settings on host (Port 3260), to allow iSCSI traffic to pass to and from host and SAN device. Not enabling these rules will prevent iSCSI communication.

* Periodically run performance counters against the host, to ensure optimal performance.

Recommend using the Hyper-V R2 SP1 performance counter that can be extracted from the (free) Codeplex PAL application:

http://pal.codeplex.com/
Install PAL on a workstation and open it, then click on the Threshold File tab.
- Select "Microsoft Hyper-V R2 SP1" from the Threshold file title, then choose Export to Perfmon template file. Save the XML file to a location accessible to the Hyper-V host.
Next, on the host, open Server Manager à Diagnostics à Performance à Data Collector Sets à User Defined. Right click on User Defined and choose New à Data Collector Set. Name the collector set "Hyper-V Performance Counter Set" and select Create from a template (Recommended) then choose Next. On the next screen, select Browse and then locate the XML file you exported from the PAL application. Once done, this will show up in your User Defined Data Collector Sets.
Run these counters in Performance Monitor for 30 minutes to 1 hour (during high usage times) and look for disk latency, memory and CPU issues, etc.

* If server has more than 32 physical cores, do not enable Hyper Threading, as it creates more logical cores than Hyper-V supports on Server 2008 R2. (Max is 64.)

PHYSICAL NICs:

* Ensure NICs have the latest firmware, which often address known issues with hardware.

* Ensure latest NIC drivers have been installed on the host, which resolve known issues and/or increase performance.

* Consider disabling Chimney Offload, as it has been found to cause slowness of virtual machines.

* Jumbo frames should be turned on and set for 9000 or 9014 (depending on your hardware) for CSV, iSCSI and Live Migration networks. This can significantly increase throughput while also reducing CPU cycles.

End-to-End configuration must take place – NIC, SAN, Switch must all support Jumbo Frames.
You can enable Jumbo frames when using crossover cables (for Live Migration and/or Heartbeat), in a two node cluster.
To verify Jumbo frames have been successfully configured, run the following command from your Hyper-V host(s):
- Ping sanIP –f –l 8000
  - This command will ping the SAN sanIP (e.g. 192.168.1.130) with an 8K packet from the host. If replies are received, Jumbo frames are properly configured.

* NICs used for iSCSI communication should have all Networking protocols (on the Local Area Connection Properties) unchecked, with the exception of:

Manufacturers protocol (if applicable)
Internet Protocol Version 4
Internet Protocol Version 6.

Unbinding other protocols (not listed above) helps eliminate non-iSCSI traffic/chatter on these NICs.

* When creating virtual switches, uncheck the Allow management operating system to share this network adapter, in order to create a dedicated network for your VM(s) to communicate with other computers on the physical network.

* Recommended network configuration when clustering:

Min # of Networks on Host	Host Management	VM Network Access	CSV	Live Migration	iSCSI
5	“Management”	“Production”	“CSV”	“LiveMigration”	“iSCSI”

** CSV & Live Migration Networks can be crossover cables, if you are building a 2 node cluster **

VIRTUAL NETWORK ADAPTERS (NICs):

* Legacy Network Adapters (a.k.a. Emulated NIC drivers) should only be used for PXE booting a VM or when installing non-Hyper-V aware Guest operating systems. Hyper-V's synthetic NICs (the default NIC selection; a.k.a. Synthetic NIC drivers) are far more efficient, due to using a dedicated VMBus to communicate between the virtual NIC and the physical NIC; as a result, there are reduced CPU cycles, as well as much lower hypervisor/guest transitions per operation.

DISK:

* Disks should be Fixed or Pass-Through in a production environment, to increase disk throughput. Differencing and Dynamic disks are not recommended for production, due to possible data loss (differencing disks) and increased disk read/write latency times (differencing/dynamic disks).

See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc720381(v=WS.10).aspx for more information

* Disable snapshots from all production VMs. Snapshots can cause disk space issues, as well as additional physical I/O overhead.

Set the snapshot path for each VM to a non-existent location, so user gets an error if they attempt to create a snapshot
If snapshots are required, the snapshot location should not be the host OS drive.

* The physical format of hard disk drives used for hosting VMs should be 512-byte sectors, to prevent compatibility issues (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2515143).

It is not recommended to use 512e formatting for disks that will house VHDs, due to internal testing has shown a performance degradation of around 30% for most workloads.

Regarding 4K Disks:

“The VHD driver in Server 2008 R2 assumes that the physical sector size of the disk to be 512 bytes and issues 512 byte IOs, which makes it incompatible with these disks. The VHD stack fails to open the VHD files on physical 4kB sector disks for this reason.”

Taken from: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2515143

Side-Note: Windows 8 fully supports 4K disks out of the box.

* Page file on Hyper-V Host should be set to a fixed size (4GB max) on the system drive, since most Hyper-V implementations have large amounts of physical memory, and, by default, the page file is the same size as the physical amount of memory.

Can be placed on a SAN drive, if desired
Should not be on a VM volume, to reduce possible disk latency if page file is being used by host

MEMORY:

* Set reserved Hyper-V Parent Host memory, to ensure memory is set aside for the host, itself.

To determine minimum host memory reserve, follow these guidelines:
- Use the following calculation:
  - 384 + (30 * Physical Memory)
  - For example: 384 + (30*48) = 1824GB min reserve recommendation on host with 48GB memory
To set memory reserve, change the following:
- Registry Key:
  - HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization\MemoryReserve
    - Value is set in Decimal, and is in megabytes (e.g. 4096)
    - Requires a reboot to take effect
2-4 GB Minimum on average

* Use Dynamic Memory on all VMs (unless not supported. (e.g. Lync).

Dynamic Memory adjusts the amount of memory available to a virtual machine, based on changes in memory demand using a memory balloon driver, which helps use memory resources more efficiently.

* Guest OS should be configured with (minimum) recommended memory

2048GB For Windows Server 2008, including R2 (e.g. 2048 - 4096 Dynamic Memory)
1024GB For Windows 7 (e.g. 1024 - 2048 Dynamic Memory)
1024GB For Windows Vista (e.g. 1024 - 2048 Dynamic Memory)
256MB For Windows Server 2003 (e.g. 256 - 2048 Dynamic Memory)
128MB For Windows XP (e.g. 128 - 2048 Dynamic Memory)

* Ensure Integration Components (IC) have been installed on all VMs (Pre 2008/Pre Win 7/Other OS). IC's significantly improve interaction between the VM and the physical host.

Enlightened OS's (Server 2008 or higher, Windows 7 or higher) don't need IC installed.

CLUSTER:

* Set preferred network for CSV communication, to ensure the correct network is used for this traffic

The lowest metric in the output generated by the following PowerShell command will be used for CSV traffic
- Get-ClusterNetwork | ft Name, Metric, AutoMetric, Role
  - This will return a listing of networks used by the host, as well as the metric assigned
In order to change which network interface is used for CSV traffic, use the following PowerShell command:
- (Get-ClusterNetwork "CSVNetwork").Metric=900
  - This will set the network named "CSVNetwork" to 900

* Set preferred network for Live Migration, to ensure the correct network(s) are used for this traffic:

Open Failover Cluster Manager, Expand the Cluster then Expand Services and applications
Under Services and applications, click once on any of the VMs listed in the left pane
Next, in the middle pane (under the title “Virtual Machine”), right click your VM and choose properties
Click on the Network for live migration tab
- Use the Up / Down buttons to list the networks in order from most preferred (at the top) to least preferred (at the bottom)
- Uncheck any networks you do not want used for Live Migration traffic
- Select Apply and then press OK
Once you have made this change, it will be used for all VMs in the cluster

* The Cluster Shutdown Time (ShutdownTimeoutInMinutes registry entry) should be set to an acceptable number

Default is set using the following calculation (which can be too high, depending on how much physical memory is installed)
- (100 / 64) * physical RAM
- For example, a 96GB system would have 150 minute timeout! (100/64)*96 = 150
Might suggest setting the timeout to 10 or 15 minutes, depending on the number of VMs
- Registry Key: HKLM\Cluster\ShutdownTimeoutInMinutes
  - Enter minutes in Decimal value.
  - Requires a reboot to take effect

* Each node in the cluster requires an identically named (case sensitive!) virtual switch. Failovers and Live Migrations will fail without identically named switches

If any changes are made to the virtual switch – on any node – you must refresh the virtual machine configuration (Failover Cluster Manager à <Cluster Name> à Services and applications à <VM name> à More Actions (in right pane) à Refresh virtual machine configuration). Repeat this process for each VM listed in Services and applications.

* Run Cluster Validation periodically to remediate any issues

NOTE: If all LUNs are part of the cluster, the validation test will skip all disk checks. It is recommended to set up a small test-only LUN and share it on all nodes, so full validation testing can be completed.

VITRUAL DOMAIN CONTROLLERS (DCs):

* It is recommended to partially disable the time synchronization between the VM DC and the host (using registry change). This enables the guest DC to synchronize time for the domain hierarchy, but protects it from having a time skew if it is restored from a saved state:

On the virtual DC, enter the following from an elevated command-prompt:

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\VMICTimeProvider /v Enabled /t reg_dword /d 0

Once done, you can leave the "Time Synchronization" enabled on Integration Services, under the DC's Hyper-V Settings

* DC VMs should have "Shut down the guest operating system" in the Automatic Stop Action setting applied (in the settings on the Hyper-V Host)

* If VHDs are IDE/ATA drives, ensure disk write caching is disabled, to reduce the chance of AD corruption.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Resources

HollisWms — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:06:47 GMT

The following great list of resources was compiled by my good friend Roger Osborne. Roger will soon become a regular contributor on Sniper-V providing more great content like the information listed below, thanks Roger!!

GENERAL HYPER-V LINKS:

Hyper-V Update List for Server 2008 R2:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1349.hyper-v-update-list-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008 (NOT R2):

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=183322

Planning for Hyper-V Security:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc974516.aspx

Running DCs in Hyper-V (Best Practices):

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/virtual_active_directory_domain_controller_virtualization_hyperv(WS.10).aspx

Anti-Virus Exclusions KB for Hyper-V:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/961804

Host Memory - Set Reserve for Host:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/virtualpfe/archive/2011/08/29/hyper-v-dynamic-memory-and-host-memory-reserve-setting.aspx

How to enable Windows Server Backup support for the Hyper-V VSS Writer:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/08/20/how-to-enable-windows-server-backup-support-for-the-hyper-v-vss-writer.aspx

Page File Size:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mghazai/archive/2011/05/26/what-s-the-story-of-pagefile-size-on-hyper-v-servers.aspx

CLUSTER RELATED LINKS:

Failover Clusters - Recommended Hotfixes & Updates - Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545685

Failover Clusters - Windows Server 2008 R2 (NOT R2 SP1):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980054

Failover Cluster Links (Many!):

http://ramazancan.wordpress.com/tag/failover-clustering/

List of Cluster Hotfixes for Windows Server 2008 R2:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2008.list-of-cluster-hotfixes-for-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

Extending a Microsoft Hyper-V R2 Cluster Shared Volume:

http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2011/08/extending-a-microsoft-hyper-v-r2-cluster-shared-volume/

Clustering and High-Availability Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/

NETWORK & NIC TEAMING RELATED LINKS:

Network Configuration Guide for Clusters:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff428137(WS.10).aspx

Designating a Preferred Network for Cluster Shared Volumes Communication:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff182335(WS.10).aspx

Set Network Metrics for CSV network (uses PowerShell):

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446679(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_manageCSVnetworks

Microsoft Support Policy for NIC Teaming with Hyper-V

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968703

Enable Jumbo Frames on Intel NICs:

http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2012/02/hyper-v-server-enable-jumbo-frames-on-intel-nics/

MPIO Setup:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee619752(v=WS.10).aspx

VM Queue:

Using Virtual Machine Queue:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg162704(v=ws.10).aspx

Enabling VM Queue:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg162696(v=ws.10).aspx

SCVMM RELATED LINKS:

Recommended hotfixes for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2397711

SCOM RELATED LINKS:

Recommended hotfixes for System Center Operations Manager 2008 R2:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2009/01/27/which-hotfixes-should-i-apply.aspx

FOR LAB ENVIRONMENTS ONLY:

Excerpt From The Road Warriors Survival Guide Part 1 of 2 "The Laptop Build":

http://blogs.technet.com/b/hollis/archive/2012/01/20/the-road-warriors-survival-guide-part-1-of-2-quot-the-laptop-build.aspx

Excerpt From The Road Warriors Survival Guide Part 2 of 2 "Networking the Lab":

http://blogs.technet.com/b/hollis/archive/2012/01/23/excerpt-from-the-road-warriors-survival-guide-part-2-of-2-quot-networking-the-lab.aspx

Configuring Hyper-V for multiple subnets with only one NIC:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/letsdothis/archive/2012/01/08/configuring-hyper-v-for-multiple-subnets-with-only-one-nic.aSpx

Microsoft iSCSI Target Software:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=19867

DEMOS:

Disaster Recovery Cluster Deployment & Demo - Multi-Site Failover Clustering:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/disaster-recovery-cluster-deployment-demo-multi-site-failover-clustering

Understanding Hyper-V VLANs:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adamfazio/archive/2008/11/14/understanding-hyper-v-vlans.aspx

MISCELLANEUS:

Convert from Vmware to Hyper-V:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mbaher/archive/2012/04/13/vmware-to-hyper-v-conversion-mvmc.aspx

Using Virtual Machine Connection (Stand-alone):

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/04/22/using-virtual-machine-connection-stand-alone.aspx

Accessing USB Drives in a Hyper-V VM:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/hollis/archive/2012/02/21/accessing-usb-drives-in-a-hyper-v-vm.aspx

Disable Disk Write Caching on Domain Controllers:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd941847(v=ws.10).aspx

Supported Guest Operating Systems:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794868(WS.10).aspx

Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957006

RSAT Tools for Windows 7 (SP1):

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=7887

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977556.aspx

Server Virtualization ROI Calculator:

http://servervirtualization.cloudapp.net/

Remote Desktop Connection Manager:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=21101

Virtualization ROI Tool:

https://roianalyst.alinean.com/microsoft/virtualization/

Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/cedward/archive/2012/03/07/hyper-v-management-pack-extensions-rtm-released.aspx

Script to Recover a Hyper-V Guest

http://blogs.technet.com/b/carlh/archive/2010/12/15/script-to-recover-a-hyper-v-guest.aspx

Accessing USB Drives in a Hyper-V VM

HollisWms — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:14:01 GMT

Even if you don't work in a highly secure environment, you likely have a USB stash of utilities just as I do. Sure, I could copy the data from my USB to the VM or host but that takes time and unnecessary disk space or network bandwidth. Instead, I use a method suggested to me by one of my mentors, Mark Ghazai, to pass the USB drive through to the VM directly. This gives me instant access to the data without the extra network or disk space usage!

Target: Access USB drive from Hyper-V VM

Kill Shot: Use disk Pass-through method to present the USB drive directly to the VM

After you plug in your drive, open up disk management so you can take the USB drive offline

Right-click on the drive and select Offline

The drive should appear offline as seen below on your Hyper-V host where the VM is located

Now open up the settings on the VM you want to have access your USB drive. (note, you must have a SCSI controller available to add a drive to a running VM)

Click Add and select Physical hard disk: then choose your USB drive in the drop down. Click Ok

Now, log into the VM and open Disk Management. You should see the drive listed as offline. Right-click and select Online

You should now see the disk listed as online and accessible (note, my file system shows unknown because my drive is encrypted!)

If you open windows explorer, you should now see your USB drive listed

Special Thanks to Mark Ghazai for suggesting this!

Excerpt From The Road Warriors Survival Guide Part 2 of 2 "Networking the Lab”

HollisWms — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:04:00 GMT

Once I got my base image configured – and in order to be a good corporate citizen running my Microsoft IT approved Windows 7 BitLocker image (See Part 1) – I ran into the issue of having to be wired to a network in order to provide Internet access to my VMs. Should your customer have a secure environment, plugging your laptop into their network isn’t going to happen; even if it does, plugging in to their network most likely won’t get your VMs access to the Internet. With that in mind, I needed a way to get my VMs connected – regardless of if I used a wired or wireless connection and the solution below is how I got it done!

Target: Provide seamless internet access over wired or wireless to my lab environment

Kill Shot: Enable and Configure RRAS on my Hyper-V host to NAT VM traffic

Create an Internal Virtual Network in Hyper-V Manager

1) In Hyper-V Manager, right click on the server name and choose Virtual Network Manager. In the far right window pane, below Create virtual network, Select Internal and click Add.

2) Name the New Virtual Network “EXT-LOOPBACK” and click OK

Configure the EXT-LOOPBACK

1) Open the Network and Sharing Center and click on Change Adapter Settings. Right click on the new adapter that shows EXT-LOOPBACK under the “Local Area Connection XX” name.

2) Rename the adapter to EXT-LOOPBACK; then click enter. Right click on the EXT-LOOPBACK adapter and select Properties then select the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click on Properties.

3) You need to specify an IP address and subnet mask as shown above. In this environment we used 172.16.1.1 as the IP address and 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask. Do not populate any other field. Click OK

Add RRAS Role to Server Manager (on Host)

1) In Server Manager, Right click Roles and select Add Roles. Click Next

2) Next, check Network Policy and Access Services and click Next

3) Check Routing and Remote Access Services and click Next. Click Install and then click Close.

Enable RRAS to Support the internal network

1) In Server Manager, right click Routing and Remote Access Server and select Configure and Enable Routing and Remote Access

2) Select Custom Configuration

3) Select NAT and LAN Routing then click Next and Finish

4) Select Finish; then click Start service, when prompted

5) Expand IPv4 and select NAT then right click and select New Interface

6) Chose the Wireless Network Connection. (you can aslo select your host Local Area Connection or add multiple external NAT connections by repeating these steps)

7) Chose Public interface and check the Enable NAT on this interface and click OK

8) Next, right click on NAT again, select New Interface and select the EXT-LOOPBACK interface

9) Leave it at its default, Private interface connected to private network and click OK

10) You should now see the screenshot below:

Modify the VM to support the new "EXT-LOOPBACK Network"

1) Select the VM in Hyper-V Manager

2) Go to the settings of the VM and select EXT-LOOPBACK for the Network: option on the VM's Network Adapter screen and click OK

Modify VM with Private IP Addressing Scheme

In this environment the network communicating with the VM is 172.16.1.0/24, which gives you a usable address range of 172.16.1.1-254 and a default gateway of 172.168.1.1. Any VM connected to this network with an IP on this range and using the default gateway IP assigned to the host should have Internet access. Remember to configure DNS settings as well for the VMs! You can setup your own DNS VM or point to a known public one.

Testing Connectivity from the VM

1) From the VM connected to the EXT-LOOPBACK network, try to ping the default gateway (Hyper-V host). If this fails verify your IP addresses on the VM and the Host. If you change the IP on the host, you may want to restart the RRAS service.

2) From the same VM, you should also be able to ping external resources such as www.Bing.com

Hope this helps you road warriors out there! Feel free to leave comments and suggestions. Again a special thanks to Roger Osborne and Joe Quint for getting this streamlined and documented!!

Excerpt From The Road Warriors Survival Guide Part 1 of 2 "The Laptop Build”

HollisWms — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:42:00 GMT

As I stated in my welcome post, I work pretty heavily with Microsoft Hyper-V and our Datacenter products. Since my work often takes me into very secure places, it can be quite a challenge to demo things like guest clustering, virtual networking, or other virtualization concepts when you don’t have Internet access to reach a remote lab. Now add the fact that Microsoft, like most corporations, has specific image requirements before you can be considered a good "corporate citizen," and quickly I found myself having to choose between adhering to the corporate image and serving my customers…

So my question became, How can I have a reliable lab on the go and still comply with the latest IT policies? Well, thanks to a group of fellow road warriors, and hours of trying out different configurations, I now have a base framework to be a good corporate citizen and still have a pretty dynamic lab on-the-go. The solution involves dual-booting between my corporate image (Windows 7) and my lab image (Windows 2008 R2). I'm also using boot from VHD to help reduce my dependency on the weakest link in the hardware chain: the hard drive.

In part one I'll cover how you can build your base laptop image, step-by-step. In part two, I add some extra networking steps that will help ensure your lab VMs have internet access over wired and wireless!

Target: Highly flexible laptop configuration for my corporate image and lab on the go

Kill Shot: Dual boot to VHD with lab environment spinning on external disk

Getting Started – The Boot Options

Look at each choice below and choose the correct boot option based on your desired image.

A. To install from PXE boot (this assumes you have a PXE server in your environment of course)

1) PXE boot and hit F12

2) Select a Win7\Server 2008 R2 install image that does not use OSD wizard ( you need to get to the default windows install screens)

B. To install from DVD

1) Verify the BIOS is configured to boot from DVD

2) Boot from DVD and allow files to load until you get to the default windows installation screen

C. To install from USB

1) Verify the BIOS is configured to boot from USB

2) Boot from USB and allow files to load until you get to the default windows installation screen

Create the First Virtual Hard Disk – Windows 7

The first OS installed should be Windows 7, or your corporate image. While there haven’t been any issues noted in installing Server 2008 R2 first, the majority of testing has been done with this configuration.

1) At the Windows Install Screen hit SHIFT+F10

2) Type Diskpart and hit Enter

3) Type List Disk and hit Enter

4) Type Select Disk # and hit Enter (where # is number of the disk where you want to create your VHD)

5) Type Clean and hit Enter (warning, this will remove references to the data on the disk. Only do this if you are creating the first VHD on a new Drive)

6) Type List Disk and hit Enter (you should see the disk you selected with all of the disk space free)

7) Type Create part pri and hit Enter

8) Type format fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter

9) Type List Vol and hit Enter (you should see a new volume created and selected formatted NTFS)

10) Type Select Volume # (where # is number of the volume where you want to create your VHD)

11) Type Assign and hit Enter

12) Type List Vol and hit Enter (a drive letter should now be assigned to the volume)

13) Type Create vdisk file=”c:\win7.vhd” maximum=40000 type=fixed and hit Enter (drive letter and file path should match your configuration. Drive size is optional but should be set to FIXED in order to support Bitlocker)

14) Type select vdisk file=”c:\win7.vhd” and hit Enter

15) Type Attach Vdisk and hit Enter

16) Type Create part pri and hit Enter

17) Type format fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter

18) Type List vol and hit Enter (you should see the VHD volume without a drive letter)

19) Type List Disk and hit Enter (you should see the VHD disk in addition to your physical disk)

20) Type Exit and hit Enter to end the diskpart utility

21) Type Exit and hit Enter to bring you back to the Windows install (if you reboot before the install you have to hit SHIFT+F10 again to reattach the VHD via diskpart so that it is an option during install)

Install the First Operating System – Windows 7

After exiting out of the command window, you should be back at the Windows install screen where you can proceed with installing Windows 7.

NOTE: The next set of steps may vary based on your install media. If you are using a custom install package, you may not see the same set of options during install.

1) Accept License Agreement, select locale, and click Next

2) If prompted, select Custom (Advanced) Install

3) If prompted, select Operating System and click Next

4) Select the Disk that matches the size of the VHD you created and attached in the previous section then click Next

(NOTE: You may see an error that states “Windows cannot be installed to Disk # Partition #”, you should still be able to proceed.)

5) Allow the Windows installation to complete

Create the Second Virtual Hard Disk – Windows Server 2008 R2

Please refer back to the section above on Boot options to select the desired Windows Server 2008 R2 image

The first OS, Windows 7, should already be installed. Now we will create the second VHD to install Windows Server 2008 R2. Once you have followed the boot process described earlier in this document, based on your desired image, proceed with the steps below.

1) At the Windows Install Screen hit SHIFT+F10

2) Type Diskpart and hit Enter

3) Type List Disk and hit Enter

4) Type Select Disk # and hit Enter (where # is number of the disk where you want to create your VHD)

5) Type List Disk and hit Enter (you should see the disk you selected, free space may show 0G available)

6) Type List Vol and hit Enter (note the drive letter assigned to the volume where you want to create the VHD)

7) Type Select Volume # and hit Enter (where # is number of the volume where you want to create your VHD)

8) Type Create vdisk file=”c:\Srv2K8R2.vhd” maximum=40000 type=fixed and hit Enter (Drive letter and file path should match your configuration. Drive size is optional but should be set to FIXED in order to support Bitlocker. Under some testing, the Server 2008 R2 image blue screened when not set to fixed after enabling Bitlocker.)

9) Type select vdisk file=”c:\ Srv2K8R2.vhd” and hit Enter

10) Type Attach Vdisk and hit Enter

11) Type Create part pri and hit Enter

12) Type format fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter

13) Type List vol and hit Enter (you should see the VHD volume without a drive letter)

14) Type List Disk and hit Enter (you should see the VHD disk in addition to your physical disk)

15) Type Exit and hit Enter to leave the diskpart utility

16) Type Exit and hit Enter to bring you back to the Windows install (if you reboot before the install you have to hit SHIFT+F10 again to reattach the VHD so that it is an option during install)

Install the Second Operating System – Windows Server 2008 R2

After exiting out of the command window, you should be back at the default windows install screen where you can proceed with installing Windows Server 2008 R2.

NOTE: The next set of steps may vary based on your install media. If you are using a custom install package, you may not see the same set of options during install.

1) Select Locale and click Next

2) Select Operating System and click Next

3) Check License agreement and choose Custom Install

4) Select the Disk that matches the size of the VHD you created and attached and click Next (NOTE: You may see an error that “Windows cannot be installed to Disk # Partition #”, you should still be able to proceed.)

5) Allow the Windows installation to complete

Enable Bitlocker for Windows 7 and Verify TPM (optional)

In order for your machine to pass network security health scans, connect remotely via VPN, or connect remotely via direct access, your corporate environment may require you to have Bitlocker, with TPM, enabled. Follow the steps below to enable Bitlocker.

You must be connected to your corporate network (remotely or internally) to enable certain Bitlocker features. This is required if you have, or your administrator has, decided to store the Recovery Key in Active Directory. Given the nature of this build, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you keep your recovery key readily available

1. Open Control Panel>All Control Panel Items>Bitlocker Drive Encryption

2. Click “Turn on Bitlocker” and follow the wizard to configure Bitlocker

Enabling Bitlocker will take a while; the time is proportional to the virtual disk size.

Enable Desktop Experience and Wireless LAN Services for Windows Server 2008 R2

There are several additional features that can be installed to provide more productive functionality while running Windows Server 2008 R2 in your lab environment. Two examples are Desktop Experience and Wireless LAN Services. To enable these features, follow the steps below.

Note: You will likely need to install wireless drivers to complete the following steps. (Hint: if you cant find Server 2008 R2 drivers, try the x64 WIndows 7 drivers)

1. Open Server Manager and click on Features

2. Click Add Features

3. Select Desktop Experience and Wireless LAN Services (if any prerequisites are needed, you will be prompted to install these also.)

4. Click Next and confirm installation items

5. Click Install and when the installation is complete, click Close and Yes to reboot.

Enable Hyper-V for Windows Server 2008 R2

If you chose to enable Bitlocker on your Windows 7 machine, once it is completed, you can now enable Hyper-V. Ideally, you want to have an additional drive large and fast enough, to hold and run your VHDs. For optimum performance you can add an additional drive if you have an extra bay or use a USB 3.0 port. The external drive allows you to have multiple environments without the limitation or performance hit of storing VHDs inside of VHDs. To install Hyper-V, follow the steps below.

1. Open Server Manager and click on Roles

2. Click Add Roles

3. Click Next on the Before You Begin screen (if not skipped) and then select the Hyper-V server role

4. Follow prompts to complete Hyper-V installation

Articles and Authors Referenced to Create this Document

My journey to find the exact solution that worked for me was aided by the efforts of many others. I definitely want to give credit to the resources that help me pull it together.

Dual Boot Your Windows 7 into a VHD Steve Walkers Blog - http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Blogs/SharePointing/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=22
Windows 7 – VHD Boot – Setup Guideline, Knom’s developer corner - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/knom/archive/2009/04/07/windows-7-vhd-boot-setup-guideline.aspx
Dual Boot from VHD Using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Keith Combs - http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/22/dual-boot-from-vhd-using-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx
Installing Windows Server 2008 x64 on the Lenovo ThinkPad W500, Keith Combs - http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithcombs/archive/2008/10/18/installing-windows-server-2008-x64-on-the-lenovo-thinkpad-w500.aspx

Welcome to the Sniper-V Blog!

HollisWms — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:28:00 GMT

Since most of my activities revolve around Hyper-V, most of my daily challenges involve getting the most stable, highest performing, and cost effective solutions running in my customers' environments. As such, you will find on this site random specific solutions that I've used to get the "kill shot" and restore peace to the world of inexpesive enterprise virtualization!