We recently bought a new rack and set of servers for it, we want to be able to redeploy these boxes as build servers, QA regression test servers, lab re-correlation servers, simulation servers, etc.
We have played a bit with VMWare, VirtualPC, VirtualBox etc, creating a virtual build server, but we came across a lot of issues when we tried to copy it for others to use, having to reconfigure every new copy of the VM.
We are using Windows XP x86/x64 and Windows Vista x86/x64, so I had to rename the machine, join the domain etc for every new copy.
Ideally we just want to be able to add a new box, deploy a thin boot strap OS (Linux is fine here) to get the VM up an running, then use it.
One other thing we have limited to no budget, so free is best.
I would like to understand others experiences in doing the same thing.
FYI, I am not in systems IT, this we are group of software engineers trying to set this up.
Any links to good tutorials would be great.
The problem you're running into is the machine SID must be unique for each machine in a domain. Of course by copying an image you now break that unique constraint.
I'd suggest that you read the documentation for Sysprep in the reskit and Vista System Image Manager - your friends for XP/Win2k3 and Vista/Win2k8 respectively.
These tools enable to "reseal" your configured instance of the OS such that the next time it boots - it can prompt for information such as network configuration, machine names, admin user ID's, run scripts etc.
Also be aware that the licencing restrictions for Windows desktop clients are generally per image - not per server.
Using these tools with HyperV we created complete preconfigured instances of Win2k3 & Win2k8 that boot to finish installing Sharepoint - going further we used the diffing disks to overlay Visual Studio so our devs could use the production images for their work. It has radically changed our development process.
At this point our entire public website is run on HyperV with of 5 boxes running 15 images for a mix of soft and hard redundancy - they take several hundred million page views per week.
Another option for dealing with the SID probelm is NewSID. This is a simpler tool than sysprep, in that all it does is rename the machine and reassign the SID; if you don't need all the other features of sysprep this is a much easier tool to use.
Related
After a strong battle, I managed to set up MS Azure Account, set up Windows VM, install Chrome, install VS 2022, and VSCode. Also, I managed to connect from Desktop RDP and also from the Browser using the Bastion feature. This means I can now connect to the Azure VM using the Browser and no need for an RDP Desktop client. All such features are free based on a credit I got which will end after I utilize the remaining balance. I am also trying to have the same setup using AWS, but still struggling.
I thought this approach will allow me to connect to my local dev environment and no need to worry about updating my laptop to work with such technologies.
Now I can work on my Java and C# Projects from the Library Desktop computers and no need to carry my laptop with me, or this is what I am hoping at least. I realized after many years of working with different laptops, I have to upgrade it one day, and maintaining my laptop is very cumbersome.
I am wondering if anyone has been through such a setup and if it is worth it, and if you recommend using AWS or MS Azure. And, probably paying for the cloud subscription fee is more cost-effective compared to the cost of updating and maintaining your laptop.
I appreciate your feedback.
We're testing a cloud version of our core product which is fundamentally a windows machine running a small vm instance of a heavily modified old OS (QNX6.5) as the core of a suite of our applications. Workspaces is perfect for our use case (allowing a lot of operators using a variety of clients in easily). However we're having real trouble creating this nested VM which is fundamental. There doesn't seem to be a way to activate hypervisor but it's still present which means that VMware won't run. Is there any solution to getting this up and running or is workspaces a non-starter? the required resources are very light. Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks
We have multiple windows server 2016 running, will automatic updates on. I want to change the Windows Update mode to Manual.
The problem is when instance is created, out software installation fails many times due to running updates installation. I tried to set instance metadata 'disable-agent-updates' to TRUE. But it doesn't seem to be working.
Please help on how to modify windows update mode on creation and start of instance.
The quick answer is you cannot with Google provided Windows images.
You can create a Windows VM, configure as you desire and then create a new image that you use to launch new instances. This will accomplish your goal with some effort. This is standard practice for companies that manage/control patches and updates.
Note: I do not recommend disabling Windows Update from installing security patches on startup unless you understand the implications.
I was wondering about the best way to deliver private web service instances to lots of users, so the user would always be able to connect to their own offline version of a service, just like running a web service from visual studios while debugging. I was struggling with setting this up in VS2013 even with the many online tutorials, but I am not sure if its not working because it was never supposed to work this way.
I have provided this in-depth explanation of my issue as i am not sure i am going about this in the right way and would appreciate feedback:
Background:
I have a web service to interface with an engine. This deals with the front-end and builds a set of commands for how to make a CAD model. These commands are for controlling the 3rd party CAD software's API. Therefore the engine can be seen to have two main functions -
Build the CAD's API instructions, which can be saved for later
Execution, where it catches the instance of the CAD software
running on the same computer and it builds the model.
The second part is restricted for the general public. Only our in-house users should be able to use it. However, they want to have an otherwise identical front-end and user experience.
The problem is, if they connect to the same engine as the public, which exists on our main server, then the engine will be looking for an instance of the CAD package on the same machine as itself - i.e the server, as stressed in the emboldened point above. What should happen is the engine finds the CAD instance running on the machine that the controlling UI is based on and it uses that for its target. I have spoke to the CAD API support and they say they do not know how to do that.
And so we get to my solution of providing an offline stand alone of my web service on each of the employees computers. This means the front-end will check at the start of the session if a localhost connection is available. If not it will use the main address, which takes it to my server. Otherwise it uses the local engine which will look perform the default behavior of looking for a CAD package on the same machine as itself. Because its locally installed that is now the right machine and it will find the CAD instance of the user successfully.
Final points:
The engine cannot be accessed by the UI directly as i am using
Unity3D for the front-end and there is .Net compatibility issues.
I need a completely self contained version of the software in the
future anyway, so eventually i have to deal with having the engine
accessed locally
I ended up using IISExpress. I got the user to install this and then get them to call a batch file installer i made which sets up the config file and moves my web project to the correct directory.
We have the need to perform tests on localized platforms that put some burden on our hardware resources because for just a few weeks we might need plenty of servers and clients (Windows 2003 and Windows 2008, Vista, XP, Red Hat, etc) in multiple languages.
We typically have relied on blades with Windows 2003 and VMWare, but sometimes these are overgrown by punctual needs and also have the issue that the acquisition and deployment process is quite slow if the environment needs to grow.
Is Amazon EC2/S3 usable in the following scenario?
Install VMWare (Desktop because we need the ability to have snapshots) on an Amazon AMI.
Load existing VMWare images from S3 and run them on EC2 instances (perhaps 3 or 4 server or client OSes on each EC2 instance.
We are more interested in the ability to very easily start or stop VMware snaphsots for relatively short tests. This is just for testing configurations, not a production environment to actually serve a user workload. The only real user is the tester. These configurations might be required for just a few weeks and then turned off for a few months until the next release requires them again.
Is EC2/S3 a viable alternative for this type of testing purpose?
Do you actually need VMWare, or are you testing software that runs in the VMWare VMs? You might actually need VMWare if you are testing e.g. VMWare deployment policy, or are running code that tests the VMWare APIs. Examples of the latter might be you are testing an application server stack and currently using VMWare to test on many platforms.
If you actually need VMWare, I do not believe that you can install VMWare in EC2. Someone will correct & enlighten me if this is not the case.
If you don't actually need VMWare, you have more options. If you can use one of the zillion public AMIs as a baseline, clone the appropriate AMIs and customize them to suit your needs (save the customized version as a private AMI for your team). Then, you can use as many of them as you like. Perhaps you already have a bunch of VMWare images that you need to use in your testing. In that case, you can migrate your VMWare image to an EC2 AMI as described in various places in Google, for example:
http://thewebfellas.com/blog/2008/9/1/creating-an-new-ec2-ami-from-within-vmware-or-from-vmdk-files
(Apologies to the SO censors for not pasting the entire article here. It's pretty long.) But that's a shortcut; you can always use the documented AMI creation process to convert any machine (VMWare or not) to an AMI. Perform that process for each VMWare VM you have, and you'll be all set. Just keep in mind that when you create an AMI, you have to upload it to S3, and that will take a lot of time for large VMs.
This is a bit of a shameless plug, but we have a new startup that may deal with exactly your problem. Amazon EC2 is excellent for on-demand computing, but is really targeted at just a single user launching production servers. We've extended EC2 to make it a Virtual Lab Management environment, with self-service, policies and VM sharing. You can check it out at http://LabSlice.com and see if it meets your needs.
Amazon provides a solution themselves now: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/12/amazon-vm-import-bring-your-vmware-images-to-the-cloud.html