Virtualization Nation,
If you’re trying to run Virtual Server R2 SP1 on Window Server 2008 Beta 3, it does work. However, there are three steps for success. You need to:
Since the first step, adding the IIS role, requires specific settings to be enabled, I thought I’d cover this first step in detail. The second and third steps are straightforward and require nothing special. So, below I’ve provided step-by-step instructions for configuring IIS, the correct settings and included screen shots.
These installation instructions are for running Virtual Server R2 SP1 on a full installation of Windows Server 2008 Beta 3, not a server core installation. I'll cover that in a future blog.
Cheers,
-Jeff
--------CONFIGURING IIS IN WINDOWS SERVER 2008 FOR VIRTUAL SERVER BELOW---------------------------------
To Enable IIS and the right settings here are the steps you need to take.
1. Go to the Start Menu and select Server Manager.
2. Under Roles Summary click Add Roles.
3. You will now be presented with the Select Server Roles screen. Select Web Server (IIS).
4. Click Next.
5. A dialog will be displayed telling you that IIS has dependencies that need to be installed as well. Click Add Required Features.
6. You will now see a screen called Select Role Services where you can select which IIS services you want enabled. Here are the required IIS services for Virtual Server.
Under Common Http Features enable:
Under Application Development Features enable:
Under Health and Diagnostics enable:
Under Security enable:
Under Performance Features enable:
Under Management Tools enable:
7. Once you’ve enabled all of the settings above, click Next.
8. You’ll be presented with the confirmation screen. Click Install and the installation will begin.
9. After about a minute, the role has been added and you’ll see that the installation was successful. You can click Close.
10. After closing the last window you’ll now see that the Web Server (IIS) appears in the Roles Summary.
Greetings! An important heads up about Black Hat next week in Las Vegas. For those of you who don’t know what Black Hat is, Black Hat bills itself as a security convention that puts you face to face with people on the cutting edge of network security. Microsoft is an active sponsor in this event and we’re sending one of our lead security developers in the Windows kernel, Brandon Baker, to Black Hat to discuss on Windows Server virtualization security.
The abstract to Brandon’s presentation is here: http://blackhat.com/html/bh-usa-07/bh-usa-07-speakers.html#Baker and in summary, Brandon will discuss:
· Windows Server virtualization and Windows Server 2008 architecture and components
· How Windows Server virtualization virtualizes the CPU and enforces virtual machine isolation
· Best practices for Windows Server virtualization deployment
· Hardware futures [e.g., TXP from Intel, SVM from AMD, IOMMU]
· And more…
I got a chance to see what Brandon is presenting and for folks in the security field (who will undoubtedly be at Black Hat) this is a session you don’t want to miss!
In my first couple of blogs, I wanted to remind everyone of the recent release of Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. I received feedback asking about some of the differences between the two and compatibility of virtual machines between the two. So, here are the answers…
Q: I’m interested in evaluating Microsoft virtualization, which should I use, Virtual PC or Virtual Server?
A: The answer to this question really depends on your application and usage. Both Virtual PC and Virtual Server are powerful, easy to use products that offer unique features and functionality. For example:
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Q: From a virtual machine perspective, what are the differences between a Virtual PC virtual machine and a Virtual Server virtual machine? Are they compatible?
A: Yes, virtual machines with either product are compatible, but when using Virtual Server and Virtual PC together, there are several points to consider:
Sound cards: Virtual Server does not include an emulated sound card in its virtual machines, while Virtual PC does. If you plan on using a virtual machine with both Virtual Server and Virtual PC, you should disable the emulated sound card in Virtual PC. This will prevent the sound card's Plug and Play capability from causing errors on the virtual machine that you created with Virtual Server.
SCSI support: Virtual Server provides SCSI support while Virtual PC does not. If you create a virtual machine with virtual SCSI disks on Virtual Server, the SCSI disks will be ignored if you move the virtual machine to Virtual PC. This can lead to negative consequences in many situations, for example if the virtual machine page file is on the SCSI disk or if you are trying to use a SCSI disk as the startup disk. If you plan to regularly move virtual hard disks between machines created with Virtual PC and Virtual Server, we recommend that you attach the virtual hard disks only to a virtual IDE bus in Virtual Server.
CD-ROM drives: Although Virtual Server allows for virtual machines with multiple CD-ROM drives, Virtual PC supports virtual machines with only one CD-ROM drive. If you are moving virtual machines between the two products, you should use the default setting which is a single CD-ROM drive on the virtual machine attached to secondary channel 0.
Saved States: Save-state (.vsv) files between Virtual PC and Virtual Server are incompatible. When moving a virtual machine between products, be sure to completely shut down the guest operating system.
Networking: When moving virtual machines between Virtual PC and Virtual Server, the virtual machine’s network will be disconnected. You will need to configure the virtual machine’s network connectivity appropriately.
If after reading everything above you still don’t know which product to use, start with Virtual PC because of its local interface. As a reminder,
Virtual PC 2007 can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx
Virtual Server R2 SP1 can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/eval/virtualserver/default.mspx
In my last post, I reminded everyone about our very successful Virtual PC 2007 release and for this post, I wanted to alert you to the recent release of Virtual Server R2 SP1. While there’s a lot of attention right now on Windows Server Virtualization, let’s not forget that we have a free, solid, production ready technology in Virtual Server that’s even better with the new Virtual Server R2 SP1 release. In fact, our own Microsoft IT uses Virtual Server with over 1200+ virtual machines in production environments every day. Yes, read that again: over 1200 virtual machines in production environments every day.
If you want to know more about Microsoft using Virtual Server in production, check out this interview with Devin Murray here:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9020679&pageNumber=1
As for the new release of Virtual Server, we released Virtual Server R2 SP1 on Monday June 11th and you can download it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/eval/virtualserver/default.mspx
Here’s a list of some of the new features:
1. Support for hardware-assisted virtualization technology (AMD-V and Intel VT). Hardware assisted virtualization technology support greatly improves the performance for installing operating systems and substantially improves the overall performance of non-Microsoft operating systems such as Novell Suse Linux.
2. Support for greater than 64 virtual machines on x64-based hosts. Virtual Server R2 SP1 now supports up to 256 GB of physical memory and can run up to 512 virtual machines concurrently.
3. VHD Mount command-line tool and APIs. This allows you to mount a virtual hard disk (vhd) so you can easily add/remove files in a virtual machine without having to instantiate a virtual machine.
4. Interoperability with Volume Shadow Copy Service. By integrating with Volume Shadow Services, Virtual Server now supports industry standard Microsoft Volume Shadow Service technology so you can take a snapshot of a Virtual Server host and ensure you create consistent snapshots of the virtual machines as well. For example, the current beta of System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 includes Virtual Server VSS support today.
5. Support for additional guest and host operating systems. This release includes support for Windows Server 2003 SP2 as host and guest operating system as well as Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10. For a full list, see the release notes.
6. Host clustering white paper. If you’re interested in being able to quickly migrate virtual machines from one server to anther for free, we’ve included all of the step-by-step instructions. I’ll be discussing this in depth in a future blog.
7. Larger default size for dynamically expanding virtual hard disks. Virtual Server now defaults to creating 127 GB virtual hard disks by default.
8. And, yes there more, just check out the release notes…
Finally, to our millions of customers who have downloaded Virtual Server and Virtual PC, a huge THANKS. It’s your feedback that drove this Service Pack Release and the feature set for Windows Server 2008 virtualization.
Greetings!
I’m Jeff Woolsey, a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft focused on Microsoft Virtualization. I’ve worked on virtualization technology for over ten years such as Virtual PC for Mac, Virtual PC for Windows and Virtual Server. These days I spend most of my time on Virtual Server and our new hypervisor based virtualization (codename “Viridian”) which will be a key technology of Windows Server 2008.
I have the pleasure of regularly meeting with customers and partners and one bit of feedback I receive often is that folks want to hear more about what we’re doing in terms of virtualization. With this in mind, I thought I’d take some time to start blogging about Microsoft virtualization. The focus of my blogs will be Virtual Server and our new hypervisor based virtualization in Windows Server 2008, but for this first article I thought I’d remind folks about one of our hottest downloads, Virtual PC 2007. Virtual PC 2007 was released in February 2007 and within the first 60 days had over 1.8 million downloads. We’ve hit well over 2 million downloads now and still climbing…
Virtual PC 2007 can be freely downloaded from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx
1. Support for hardware-assisted virtualization. Virtual PC 2007 includes support for virtualization technology from Intel and AMD. By default, hardware-assisted virtualization is enabled if the feature is enabled on the physical computer. You can turn this assistance on or off for each virtual machine by modifying the virtual machine settings.
2. Support for Windows Vista. Virtual PC 2007 includes support for Windows Vista as a host and guest operating system within Virtual PC.
3. Support for 64-bit host operating systems. This release of Virtual PC 2007 supports 64-bit host operating systems. However, there is no support for 64-bit guest operating systems.
4. Network-based installation of a guest operating system. The virtual machine network adapter includes support for performing a PXE boot. This means that when the appropriate network infrastructure is in place, you can perform a network installation of a guest operating system without using a PXE boot floppy disk.
5. Running virtual machines on multiple monitors. Virtual PC 2007 includes support for viewing virtual machines on multiple monitors of a physical computer. If you have more than one monitor attached to your physical computer, you can view a virtual machine on one of the monitors, in either window mode or full-screen mode.
6. For more details, check out the release notes…
Generally, I’m going to focus on server virtualization so I’ll be discussing Virtual Server and Windows Server virtualization. I may touch on Virtual PC now and then, but Ben Armstrong (VPC GUY) has done such a great job blogging on Virtual PC, that I’d rather point you to his excellent blog here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/default.aspx
Finally, to our millions of customers who have downloaded Virtual PC, a huge THANKS. It’s your feedback that drove this release.