ADVANCED SERVER VIRTUALIZATION VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data center phần 10 ppt

Microsoft will generally not provide any support for its operoper-ating systems running in these virtual machines unless the problem can be reproduced on a physical server... Unicenter

Related Products and Open Source Projects „ 661

Th e core strength of the way that BOCHS has been developed is that it

has been written in C++ By doing this, Kevin Lawton, the original author of

BOCHS, laid down a great deal of portability Th ere is usually a price for

por-tability and this case is no exception BOCHS does not provide a

high-perfor-mance platform, which does not make it a good candidate for the enterprise

BOCHS delivers poor performance from nearly all aspects; however the fact that

it can run almost any x86 operating system may outweigh the poor performance

in certain situations.

Applications where BOCHS may be an excellent solution include support

of very old operating systems that require outdated legacy hardware or

develop-ment environdevelop-ments that are used for things such as hardware device driver

de-bugging, simulation of hardware or operating system development Th e ability

to add custom virtual hardware monitoring hooks into the source code is

some-thing that may be incredibly valuable Another incredible feature is the ability to

simulate certain events, such as hardware faults occurring through custom code

Th is will provide information that would be very diffi cult and time consuming

if it was attempted with physical hardware.

All in all, BOCHS is a project to watch as it is being advanced daily and is

making considerable strides in adding additional functionality and options.

QEMU

Th e QEMU (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu) project is an open source

emu-lator providing the ability to run on a wide variety of platforms by doing

dy-namic translation of native CPU instructions (see Figure 28.6) Th e dynamic

translation enables QEMU to provide a fast and effi cient emulation by

break-ing down the processor instructions into small blocks of atomic instructions

Th ese instructions are then processed, cached in a buff er, and then the responses

returned as if the native processor had acted upon them Th is project may not

Figure 28.6 QEMU.

662 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

seem to fall into the virtualization camp; however there are two outside factors

that have been taken into consideration.

Th e fi rst factor is that additional work has been done to speed up the

per-formance of QEMU in an attempt to match the speed and perper-formance of

sev-eral of the commercial products available Th e heart of this project is called the

QEMU Accelerator Module and it is an additional virtualization layer Th is

vir-tualization layer provides a signifi cant performance increases and brings QEMU

into the fold as a player in the virtualization space Th is also shows that the

combination of technologies from several of these sources can provide

comple-mentary benefi ts if implemented properly.

Th e second factor, which builds on the fi rst, is the fact that Win4Lin Pro also

leverages the same QEMU Accelerator Module that the QEMU project uses

Th is shows that even a thin virtualization layer can have multiple uses in the

commercial space It is important to note that the QEMU Accelerator Module

is given away free to individuals, but is actually proprietary or closed source

Developed by Fabrice Bellard in France, the author of QEMU, Bellard licensed

the QEMU Accelerator to Win4Lin and is at present willing to license the

tech-nology to other commercial entities based on negotiated terms.

Th e QEMU Accelerator Module actually passes through many of the

com-mands that are normally dynamically translated Th is provides the same strength

and similar technical implementations to that of the VMware and Microsoft

virtualization solutions Th e weakness of this solution is the lack of support by

the commercial vendors and the mixed compatibility depending on what host

and guest operating system is used.

User-Mode Linux and VServer

User-Mode Linux (http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net) and VServer

(http://linux-vserver.org) are more of isolation mechanisms than complete

com-puter isolation style virtualization Th ey simply off er a way to install and protect

several diff erent distribution instances of Linux from each other Both provide

equivalent functionality and performance Th e advantage is packing on a great

deal of Linux installations onto a single server, which is incredibly advantageous

for entities such as hosting providers Th e disadvantages are primarily the

in-ability to run Microsoft Windows-based operating systems or other operating

systems not Linux-based Another disadvantage is the requirement that all

ver-sions of Linux must support the native hardware confi guration and processor to

run and operate properly.

Xen

Th e Xen (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen) project started

out at Cambridge University in the UK (see Figure 28.7) Xen is a

hypervisor-Related Products and Open Source Projects „ 663

based technology, otherwise known as a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) Like

VMware’s ESX Server, Xen runs on the bare metal hardware with no supporting

operating system beneath it Unlike VMware’s ESX Server however, Xen uses a

solution called paravirtualization.

Paravirtualization diff erentiates itself from standard virtualization in that

in-stead of adjusting the virtualization platform to support diff erent guest operating

systems and their behaviors (specifi cally the processor instructions they invoke),

the guest operating systems themselves are altered to support the virtualization

platform beneath them Th ere are several advantages to this approach; the fi rst is

the ability to get at or near physical hardware performance inside of the virtual

machines themselves Th e second is the rapid portability that this provides—

there are no special circumstances to deal with, all guests operate the same Th e

downside is also pretty signifi cant Because of its need for changes to the guest

operating system, it can only support Linux and BSD variants at this time Th ere

are other ports taking place, however the major guest operating system,

Micro-soft Windows, cannot be altered in this fashion because it is closed source.

Xen is planning to off er many new capabilities in their new release

includ-ing full SMP support, live virtual machine migrations, scalability to 8TB of

memory, performance improvements, and support for more QoS (Quality of

Service) functions Xen is poised to become a major player in the

virtualiza-tion space To date Xen has been able to also leverage the work of several other

projects including BOCHS and QEMU By leveraging these technologies, Xen

has been able to implement many performance optimizations already created by

these two projects.

Summary

Th ere are many virtualization solutions available in both the commercial and

open source areas, however each has limitations If consideration is being given

Figure 28.7 Xen.

664 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

to one of these solutions over the two standards, VMware and Microsoft’s

vir-tualization solutions, then it is important to learn as much as possible through

thorough investigation, research, and testing, before making any decisions Th e

most promising solutions on the commercial side are Win4Lin and Virtual Iron,

however as of today, Virtual Iron VFe appears to be getting the most press

al-though it has not been released Win4Lin Pro is released and has been around

for a while and is generally not well known Th e most promising solutions on

the open source side are BOCHS, QEMU, and Xen Xen has a commercial

as-pect through a newly funded company named Xen Source that appears to have

a chance at doing for Xen what Red Hat has done for Linux.

All of these solutions are unsupported by Microsoft as of this time Th erefore

it is not recommended that any of these virtualization solutions listed above be

used for a production data center to run Microsoft Windows-based guest

oper-ating systems Microsoft will generally not provide any support for its operoper-ating

systems running in these virtual machines unless the problem can be reproduced

on a physical server.

Chapter 29

Other Virtualization

Resources

In addition to the products and projects described in chapter 28 and throughout

the book, there are also some third-party products and services, both large and

small, available to address niche areas of server virtualization Th is chapter

pro-vides a brief look at the resources provided by the major virtualization vendors

along with other resources being made available through the Internet that deal

with virtualization in one form or another

Product Vendor Resources

Microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx

Th e Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Web page provides some of the most

up-to-date information on the product (see Figure 29.1) It off ers a number of

relevant technical links along with links to numerous resource fi les Microsoft

provides many diff erent ways to research and fi nd answers to Microsoft Virtual

Server 2005 R2 technical questions Newsgroup support, a listing of the most

frequently asked questions (FAQs), a number of product and technical white

papers on the product, Web casts, online documentation and downloads that

include product updates and add-on software are also provided

Th ere are also several other valuable links created from Microsoft insiders

on their own personal blogs Th ese blogs represent a rich source of technical

information around Virtual Server It should be noted that this resource is not

offi cially sanctioned by Microsoft Many of these blog links can be found at

http://www.vmbook.info/links.

666 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

VMware

http://www.vmware.com/

Th e VMware Web site provides a tremendous amount of resources relating to

the various product off erings made by VMware (see Figure 29.2) Th ey off er

news and events that customers of their products will more than likely be

inter-ested in hearing about Th ey also off er the latest updates and security patches

for all of their products in a download section But perhaps the most important

area on VMware’s Web site is the VMware Technology Network (VMTN) page

Th is technical and community resource page provides links to documentation,

FAQs, technical resources in the form of news and white papers, and developer

resources in the form of code and SDK packages VMware is also a big

propo-nent for information sharing Th e VMTN page provides for a searchable

knowl-edge base as well as a discussion forum where users are able to post questions

and receive answers from other users as well as from VMware employees Th is

resource is probably the most likely place to fi nd answers to VMware product

questions Unfortunately, there can also be erroneous information posted by

end users that must be waded through in order to fi nd the correct answer to the

question.

Figure 29.1 Microsoft.

Other Virtualization Resources „ 667

Xen

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/

Xen is an open-source virtualization project that was created at the University of

Cambridge Th e Cambridge Web site makes a number of resources available for

the product (see Figure 29.3) It off ers the standard documentation and FAQ’s

for the product, along with source code, and papers and presentations

describ-ing Xen’s design and architecture Because the project is open-source, there are

already numerous user-owned Web sites covering the product and the support

Figure 29.2 VMware.

Figure 29.3 Xen.

668 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

community is quickly growing with the incorporation of Xen’s paravirtualization

technology into Red Hat Linux, SUSE, and other operating system vendors’

technology stacks A simple Google of “Xen virtualization” will unveil a plethora

of information and resources covering the product For an in-depth listing of

links and resources related to Xen, visit http://www.vmbook.info/links.

Computer Associates

http://www.ca.com/

Computer Associates off ers virtualization integration into their Unicenter

Net-work and Systems Management (Unicenter NSM) package (see Figure 29.4)

Unicenter NSM can now monitor the health and availability of virtual machines

running on VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Th e product also

pro-vides such features as policy-based automation, root-cause analysis, reporting,

and role-specifi c visualization Th is software tool would appeal to current users

of the Unicenter operations management software that are currently looking to

implement server virtualization into their organization

Dunes

http://www.dunes.ch/

Dunes enables IT personnel to perform what they do best by capturing and

automating repetitive, tedious, and error-prone tasks Th e software solution

they provide off ers a graphical interface used to program various operations into

a virtual infrastructure (see Figure 29.5) Dunes Virtual Service Orchestrator

(Dunes VS-O) is a virtual server software solution for VMware

VirtualCen-ter and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Dunes VS-O is about capturing best

practices and business policies to help make the data center more effi cient and

adaptive to changing business practices By utilizing one of their other products,

Dunes VS-M, a Microsoft Virtual Server environment can be centrally managed

from a single console Dunes VS-M gives a logical representation of the entire

Figure 29.4 Computer

Associates.

Other Virtualization Resources „ 669

Microsoft Virtual Server infrastructure Th e product is easily deployed without

the need for agents being required on the host servers Both products are

avail-able for installation on a Windows operating system.

IBM

http://www.ibm.com/

IBM is off ering several solutions around virtualization including the IBM

Vir-tual Machine Manager and the IBM VirVir-tualization Engine Suite (see Figure

29.6) Th e IBM Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is an extension to IBM

Director that provides management of both physical and virtual machines all

from a single console VMM allows for the management of both VMware ESX

Server and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 environments using IBM Director

To create an even more advanced virtual machine management environment,

VMM can also integrate VMware VirtualCenter with IBM Director Another

product off ering, the IBM Virtualization Engine, enables individual distributed

resources across the enterprise to function cohesively as a single pool or entity

Th e product allows for greater effi ciency when accessing and managing

resourc-es across the organization IBM is clearly hedging its bets by diversifying and

spreading their risk across multiple technologies Th ey have strategically aligned

themselves with most of the major virtualization platform vendors, including:

Figure 29.5 Dunes.

670 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

Microsoft, VMware, and Xen IBM is still one of the few companies around that

off ers a complete virtualization solution including hardware (server and storage),

software, and services.

Leostream

http://www.leostream.com/

Leostream is a vendor agnostic virtualization management software company

(see Figure 29.7) Leostream’s Virtual Host Desktop Controller is a

manage-ment product that attempts to solve a wide range of problems facing today’s data

centers: quality assurance, support, server consolidation, and disaster recovery It

contains features such as: performance monitoring and reporting, policy-based

access control, fail-over for virtual and physical machines, and disaster recovery

Th e product manages virtual servers running under VMware ESX Server,

VM-ware GSX Server for Windows, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and is also

compatible with VMware VirtualCenter Additionally, Leostream off ers its own

version of P2V aptly named P>V Direct 2.0 Its claim to fame is the ability to

perform a conversion directly from a running Windows server to a virtual server

without the need for a CD, fl oppy disk, or a reboot Its biggest drawback—it

Figure 29.6 IBM.

Figure 29.7 Leostream.

Other Virtualization Resources „ 671

can only convert Microsoft Windows operating systems so there is no support

for Linux.

Platespin

http://www.platespin.com/

Platespin currently has several virtualization products on the market that

at-tempt to bring optimization to the IT industry and help to bring automation

to the data center (see Figure 29.8) PowerConvert is a utility that attempts to

provide 100 percent automated conversions between physical and virtual

ma-chines running either a Windows or Linux operating system Th ey also off er the

Platespin Operations Management Center, a comprehensive physical and virtual

server management solution Th e product off ers automated discovery,

provi-sioning, management, and monitoring all from a single console To help round

out their product off ering, they present the PowerRecon product, a resource

measurement, data collection, and analysis tool designed to help a data center

plan for server consolidation projects According to Platespin, there have already

been over 600 companies that have used their PowerConvert product Th is is

signifi cant in that it not only shows that the product has gained traction in the

marketplace and has matured rapidly, but that the marketplace is also quickly

adopting virtualization as a platform

Surgient

http://www.surgient.com/

As an early adopter of server virtualization, Surgient was a pioneering company

becoming one of, if not, the fi rst companies to leverage virtualization as an API

Figure 29.8 Platespin.

672 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

platform for a software solution (see Figure 29.9) Surgient provides on-demand

applications that enable companies to increase the eff ectiveness of their direct

sales, online marketing, technical training, and QA/Verifi cation processes

Sur-gient has created its own virtualization vendor agnostic management interface

that not only provides a comprehensive management solution, but when

pack-aged with its application off erings, it enables the use of distributed enterprise

application environments by any user, on-demand, from anywhere at anytime

It eliminates the complexities of hardware confi guration and software

environ-ment provisioning Surgient is able to off er its products to its customers in the

form of a hosted solution as well as a licensed package.

Resources and Web Links

About Virtualization

http://www.about-virtualization.com/

Similar to Virtualization.info, this Web site attempts to cover all the latest news

and information about virtualization (see Figure 29.10) Th e Web site provides

an easy to read layout covering its news articles, and it also provides a number

of links to items such as: white papers, interviews, product updates and patches,

slide shows, and tools and utilities A user forum is also provided using the

popular phpBB software Bloggers with virtualization knowledge and experience

are welcomed to apply to provide content to the site

Figure 29.9 Surgient.

Other Virtualization Resources „ 673

ExtremeVM.com

http://www.extremevm.com/

Founded in 2004 and offi cially launched in 2006, ExtremeVM.com is a

com-munity-oriented virtualization magazine created by virtualization enthusiasts

for virtualization enthusiasts (see Figure 29.11) It sports a clean, easy-to-read

design and off ers articles, aggregated virtualization industry news, and

commu-nity resources It is an online-only magazine focused on fostering commucommu-nity

involvement in the development of new ideas, uses, and applications for all

vir-tualization technologies, including application virvir-tualization, desktop

virtualiza-tion, network virtualizavirtualiza-tion, server virtualizavirtualiza-tion, storage virtualization.

The MiniMe Project

http://www.vmts.net/minime.htm

Th is ambitious project is currently downloadable as a Beta release (see Figure

29.12) Th e project’s goal is to provide a windows GUI management console

that allows the management of VMware ESX, GSX and Microsoft Virtual

Serv-er through a single unifi ed intServ-erface Th e project is attempting to provide more

sophistication than just a simple management interface A current list of features

includes: hot backup and restore, standby clustering, dynamic REDO creation,

Figure 29.10 About Virtualization.

674 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

Figure 29.11 ExtremeVM.com.

detailed guest confi guration, and support for various authentication services

such as LDAP, Active Directory, and SMB Th e author is currently accepting

feature requests and comments about the project.

Virtualization.info

http://www.virtualization.info/

Th is blog site is a great place to obtain aggregated news on virtualization (see

Figure 29.13) It off ers a very nice design that is easy-to-read and has a

pleas-ant look-and-feel that is more unique than typical blog sites To its credit, the

site also off ers numerous links to other Web sites, blogs and wikis that also off er

news and information that pertains to virtualization Th e Web site is presently

operated by its creator, Alessandro Perilli

Other Virtualization Resources „ 675

Figure 29.12 The MiniMe Project.

Figure 29.13 Virtualization.info.

676 „ Advanced Server Virtualization

Virtual Strategy Magazine

http://www.virtual-strategy.com/

Th is is an online-only technical and news magazine that provides its readers with

news and technical information that focuses solely on virtualization (see Figure

29.14) In addition to providing news, the magazine also provides technical tips,

real-world experiences from virtualization users, and interviews with many key

individuals in the virtualization fi eld For members of the Web site, free

telecon-ferences and Web seminars are occasionally off ered.

VMbook.info

http://www.vmbook.info/

VMbook.info is the offi cial Web site supporting this book, Advanced Server

Virtualization, VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data Center

Any errata, additional supporting materials, and resources for this book will be

posted on the Web site Th e Web site can also be used to contact the authors, if

necessary, and provide any direct feedback.

VMware’s Back

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/

Th is Web site is operated by Ken Kato and provides a set of tools that Kato

him-self has written (see Figure 29.15) Two of the more popular downloads include

Figure 29.14 Virtual Strategy

Magazine.

Other Virtualization Resources „ 677

the Virtual Disk Driver and the Virtual Floppy Driver Th e Virtual Disk Driver

allows many versions of VMware’s virtual disk fi les to be mounted to a

Win-dows host machine and then used as a read-only or read-write disk drive Th e

Virtual Floppy Driver is a similar product, allowing a virtual fl oppy image to

be mounted to a Windows host machine and used as a virtual fl oppy drive Th e

contents of which can be accessed directly by either viewing, editing, renaming,

deleting, or creating fi les on a virtual fl oppy disk much like a real physical fl oppy

disk Th e site is available in both English and Japanese, and now off ers a user

forum powered by phpBB.

Summary

Server virtualization as a platform is starting to take hold and spread throughout

the IT community Its popularity and usefulness is evidenced by the numerous

third-party software packages that are being developed, sold, and downloaded in

addition to all of the news and information Web sites that are starting to appear

across the Internet Th e resources discussed in this chapter are but a brief look

at the many informational Web sites, and commercial and public projects and

products being off ered to help fully utilize and understand server virtualization

Th ese are only a select few of the server virtualization resources that are currently

available and the list is continuously growing Please visit http://www.vmbook.

info/ (see above) for a more complete and current list of available resources and

links.

Figure 29.15 VMware’s Back.

Part VIII

Appendices

Technical Constraints Requirements

Defi ned Constraints Project Limitations Time Limitations Scope Changes Inclusion of Use Case(s) Deployment Plan

Server Virtualization Platform Selected Hardware Compatibility

Host Operating System Support Guest Operating System Support Application Support

Capacity and Scalability Features, Manageability

682 Advanced Server Virtualization

Performance Support, Maintenance, Training Cost

Appendix II

File Extensions by

Virtualization Platform

Virtual machines are typically stored on a host server and are made up of a set of

fi les that are typically located in a directory created for the virtual machine Th is

chapter provides a simple view of commonly used fi le extensions sorted by server

virtualization platform and a short description of each (see Figure 31.1).

Microsoft Virtual Server

VHD

Th e vhd fi le is the virtual machine’s disk fi le, which stores the contents of

the virtual machine’s hard disk Th ere are a number of ways this fi le can be implemented

• Fixed size disk

Th e vhd fi le is pre-allocated when the virtual hard disk is created Th e host server must have enough free disk space to accommodate the size

of the fi le A fi xed size disk cannot be resized.

• Dynamically expanding disk

Th e virtual hard disk is created as a sparse fi le and the vhd fi le grows

as the virtual machine adds data to the virtual disk Virtual Server will send a warning if the virtual disk grows too large for the host fi le sys- tem.

• Diff erencing disk

A diff erencing disk sets up a parent and child relationship between tual hard disk fi les Th e diff erencing disk acts as the child, while the associated virtual disk acts as the parent While the diff erencing disks created on the host machine may contain multiple fi les, they will appear

vir-684 Advanced Server Virtualization

to the guest server as a single hard disk While the virtual machine is in use, it will read from both, the parent and the child disk fi les However, any changes or writes that occur will be written against and updated into the child disk fi le only

VMC

Th e vmc fi le is an XML fi le that stores metadata describing the virtual

machine’s confi guration information Th e fi le is created when a new

tual machine is created, and it contains the settings that make up the

vir-tual machine Th e contents can be modifi ed by using the virtual machine

settings editor or by using any third-party text editor.

VUD

Th e undo disk fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine

con-fi gured with Undo Disks is powered on When this feature is enabled, it

universally applies to all virtual hard disks that are attached to the virtual

machine While the virtual machine is running, any changes made to the

virtual disk are written to the vud fi le; reads occur from the original virtual

hard disk.

VSV

Th e vsv fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine is suspended

Th e fi le contains the entire state of the virtual machine Once suspended,

the virtual machine is in a hibernation state, similar to that of a laptop

computer Th e vsv fi le is then used to resume the virtual machine from the

CDROM Image ISO ISO ISO

Network Configuration N/A N/A VNC

CMOS/BIOS NVRAM NVRAM

-Snapshot N/A VMSN N/A

* ESX = VMware ESX Server, GSX = VMware GSX Server, MSVS = Microsoft Virtual Server

Figure 31.1 File Extensions At-A-Glance.

File Extensions by Virtualization Platform 685

VNC

Th e vnc fi le is an XML fi le that stores metadata describing the virtual

machine’s network confi guration information When a virtual network

is created, a virtual network confi guration fi le is created and by default placed in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Docu- ments\Shared Virtual Networks directory.

TXT

Virtual Server log fi les are stored in txt fi les An important log fi le to

re-member is the VSCrashLog text fi le It is created when a virtual machine stops responding When calling for support, Microsoft may request this

fi le to help troubleshoot the problem.

VFD

Th e vfd fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual fl oppy disk

Virtual Server can mount most fl at-fi le representations of a fl oppy disk, including fl oppy disks that are 720 KB or 1.44 MB in size.

ISO

Th e iso fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual

CD/DVD-ROM An iso fi le can be downloaded from the Internet or created with ISO imaging tools as described in chapter 27.

VMware ESX Server

DSK

Th e dsk fi le is a legacy virtual machine disk fi le Earlier versions of the

VMware ESX product used the dsk extension, however, to gain cross form parity, VMware ESX has moved to the vmdk format

VMDK

Th e vmdk fi le is the virtual machine’s disk fi le, which stores the contents

of the virtual machine’s hard disk VMware ESX disk fi les are fi xed in size, meaning it is pre-allocated to the full specifi ed disk size when the fi le is created.

CFG

Th e cfg fi le is a legacy virtual machine confi guration fi le created with

ver-sions of VMware ESX Server prior to the 2.0 release Virtual machine

con-fi guration con-fi les with a cfg extension can still be accessed by ESX versions 2.0 and later.

VMX

Th e vmx fi le is used to store virtual machine confi guration information

Th is fi le is created when a new virtual machine is created, and it contains the settings that make up the virtual machine Th e contents can be modi-

fi ed by using the virtual machine settings editor or by using any party text editor.

third-686 Advanced Server Virtualization

REDO

Th e redo fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine’s hard disk is

confi gured in either undoable or append mode While the virtual machine

is running, any changes made to the virtual disk are written to the redo

log fi le

VMSS

Th e vmss fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine is

suspend-ed Th e fi le contains the entire state of the virtual machine Th e fi le is

typically a few megabytes larger than the maximum amount of memory

allocated to the virtual machine Once suspended, the virtual machine is

in a hibernation state, similar to that of a laptop computer.

LOG

One such important log fi le is the virtual machine log fi le, vmware.log

Th is fi le contains key information about the virtual machine’s activity

When troubleshooting, this log fi le may prove useful to help diagnose

problems.

FLP

Th e fl p fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual fl oppy disk

VMware will mount virtual fl oppy disks with other extensions; however,

when browsing for virtual fl oppy disks, VMware looks for fl p fi les by

de-fault It is also important to note, fl p images should be 1,474,560 bytes

long.

ISO

Th e iso fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual

CD/DVD-ROM An iso fi le can be downloaded from the Internet or created with

ISO imaging tools as described in chapter 27.

NVRAM

Th e nvram fi le stores information about the virtual machine’s BIOS/

CMOS settings If the fi le is not found or becomes corrupted, it is easily

recreated by cycling the power on the virtual machine

VMware GSX Server

VMDK

Th e vmdk fi le is the virtual machine’s disk fi le, which stores the contents

of the virtual machine’s hard disk Almost all of a vmdk’s fi le content is

the virtual machine’s data; however, a small portion of the fi le is allotted

to virtual machine overhead Th ere are a number of ways this fi le can be

implemented

• Th e vmdk fi le can be pre-allocated when the hard disk is created Th e

host server must have enough free disk space to accommodate the size

of the fi le.

File Extensions by Virtualization Platform 687

• A vmdk fi le can also be created as a dynamic fi le In this case, the vmdk

fi le grows as the virtual machine adds data to the virtual disk.

• A virtual disk can also be made up of a number of vmdk fi les If the virtual disk is created with the hard disk split up into multiple 2GB

fi les, the number of fi les will depend on the size specifi ed for the virtual hard disk.

DSK

Th e dsk fi le is a legacy virtual machine disk fi le Earlier versions of the

VMware product used the dsk extension, however, to gain cross platform parity, VMware has moved to the vmdk format.

RAW

When the virtual machine is connected directly to a physical disk rather

than using a vmdk fi le, a raw fi le is created Th is fi le type stores a pointer and information about the partitions that the virtual machine can access.

PLN/DAT

Th e pln and dat fi les are a legacy virtual machine disk fi le In order to

create a virtual disk fi le outside of the VMware GSX console, VMware supplied a legacy utility named “plainmaker.exe” Th e pln fi le contains information about the virtual disk while the actual virtual machine data is found in a series of dat fi les.

VMX

Th e vmx fi le is used to store virtual machine confi guration information

Th is fi le is created when a new virtual machine is created, and it contains the settings that make up the virtual machine Th e contents can be modi-

fi ed by using the virtual machine settings editor or by using any party text editor.

VMX.BAK

Th e vmx.bak fi le is a backup fi le for a virtual machine’s confi guration If

the vmx fi le becomes corrupted or gets deleted, the vmx.bak fi le can be used in its place.

CFG

Th e cfg fi le is a legacy confi guration fi le used by earlier versions of

VM-ware GSX Server.

REDO

Th e redo fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine either has a

snapshot taken or is powered up in the independent-nonpersistent mode

While the virtual machine is running, any changes made to the virtual disk are written to the redo log fi le If there are multiple fi les, VMware GSX Server will add a unique suffi x to avoid a duplicate fi lename problem Th e new fi le will take on the form of redo_xxxxxx.

VMSS

Th e vmss fi le is created automatically when a virtual machine is

suspend-ed Th e fi le contains the entire state of the virtual machine Th e fi le is

688 Advanced Server Virtualization

typically a few megabytes larger than the maximum amount of memory

allocated to the virtual machine Once suspended, the virtual machine is

in a hibernated type state, similar to a laptop computer.

STD

Th e std fi le extension is the legacy extension for suspended state fi les.

VMSN

Th e vmsn fi le is the snapshot state fi le When a snapshot is taken of a

run-ning virtual machine, its state is stored in the vmsn fi le.

VMX.SAV

Th e vmx.sav fi le is the confi guration snapshot fi le When a snapshot of a

virtual machine is taken, the vmx.sav fi le stores the current confi guration

of the virtual machine.

LOG

Two important log fi les are the virtual machine log fi les—vmname.log

and vmware.log Th ese fi les contain key information about the virtual

ma-chine’s activity When troubleshooting, these log fi les may prove useful to

help diagnose problems.

FLP

Th e fl p fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual fl oppy disk

VMware will mount virtual fl oppy disks with other extensions; however,

when browsing for virtual fl oppy disks, VMware looks for fl p fi les by

de-fault It is also important to note, fl p images should be 1,474,560 bytes

long

ISO

Th e iso fi le is used to store content in the form of a virtual

CD/DVD-ROM An iso fi le can be downloaded from the Internet or created with

ISO imaging tools as described in chapter 27.

NVRAM

Th e nvram fi le stores information about the virtual machine’s BIOS/

CMOS settings If the fi le is not found or becomes corrupted, it is easily

recreated by cycling the power on the virtual machine

Appendix III

Useful Log Files

For the most part, trying to diagnose a problem with a virtual machine or a

virtualization host server is not that diff erent than trying to diagnose a problem

with an application or a physical server Just as physical servers and applications

exhibit strange behavior that lead to problems needing to be researched,

virtual-ization hosts and virtual machines also have problems that need to be identifi ed

as quickly as possible to correct some adverse situation One of the best places

to start looking for answers is the virtualization log fi les Th is chapter provides

a quick reference to commonly used log fi les as well as their locations sorted by

server virtualization platform (see Figure 32.1).

VMware GSX Server

If problems are encountered while running GSX Server, VMware requests that

they are reported to the VMware support team In order to report the

prob-lem and have VMware support help diagnose the situation, VMware provides

a support script to conveniently collect all the necessary log fi les and system

information needed for troubleshooting Th e support script can only be run on

the GSX Server host machine Th erefore, when encountering a problem with

a remote client, log fi les must be obtained manually Th is section will describe

how to run the support script as well as identify most of the important GSX

Server log fi les Additionally, for GSX Server for Windows, various event entries

are captured and logged in the Windows Event Viewer that may prove useful in

troubleshooting

690 Advanced Server Virtualization

Useful Log Files 691

GSX Support Script

On a Windows host machine, use the following steps:

1 Open a command prompt (CMD.EXE).

2 Change to the GSX Server program directory by

enter-ing the drive letter and path that was used durenter-ing installation

Th e default directory is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware GSX Server.

3 Run the support script by executing the following: cscript

support.vbs.

4 Once the script completes, it displays the name of the directory where the

output fi les have been stored Th ese are the support fi les that should be zipped and included with support requests Th e fi les are also now conve- niently located in one place to help internal troubleshooting.

On a Linux host machine, use the following steps:

1 Open a terminal screen.

2 Run the support script as either the root or the user who is running the

virtual machine Execute the following script: vm-support Some of the information cannot be collected if the script is not executed by root If this information is needed, VMware support may ask that the script be executed again as root.

3 A compressed tgz fi le is created in the current directory Th is fi le should

be included with support requests Th is fi le can also be uncompressed to help internal troubleshooting as the log fi les are now conveniently located

in one place.

Log Files

Th e following log fi les are created by GSX Server and are the log fi les that get

collected by the support scripts described above.

Virtual Machine Log File

If a virtual machine either crashes or ends abnormally, this fi le should be

saved off immediately for the aff ected virtual machine It is important to save off this fi le before the virtual machine is powered back on Th e log fi le

is located in the same directory as the aff ected virtual machine’s confi tion fi le On a Windows host, this fi le is identifi ed as vmware.log On a Linux host, this fi le is identifi ed as <vmname>.log.

Virtual Machine Event Log File Another useful fi le in the event that a virtual machine crashes or ends

abnormally is the virtual machine’s event log Each virtual machine on a

692 Advanced Server Virtualization

host includes an event log fi le that can be identifi ed as event-<path_

to_confi guration_fi le>.vmx.log On a Windows host, the default

location of the fi le is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware GSX

Server\vmserverdRoot\eventlog On a Linux host, the log fi le is

located in /var/log/vmware.

VMware Virtual Machine Console Log File

Th e VMware virtual machine console also keeps a log fi le If any problems

are encountered on a remote client while using the virtual machine console,

this log fi le should be helpful in diagnosing it On a Windows host, the

log fi le is identifi ed as vmware-<username>-<PID>.log and is located

in the user’s TEMP folder Th e default location of this folder is found at

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\

Temp On a Linux host, the log fi le is identifi ed as ui-<PID>.log and

is located in the user’s TEMP folder Th e default location of this folder is

found at /tmp/vmware-<username>.

VMware Management Interface Log File

Th e VMware management interface keeps a log If a problem is

encoun-tered while using the management interface, this log fi le can help

diag-nose the problem On a Windows host, the log fi le is identifi ed as mui.

log and the default location is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware

Management Interface On a Linux host, the log fi le is identifi ed as

error_log and the default location is /var/log/vmware-mui.

VMware Authorization Service Log File

Th e VMware authorization service can be setup to keep a log By default, it

does not However, by performing the following manual steps, the service

can be setup to keep a log fi le, which may prove helpful when diagnosing

problems.

• Using a text editor, open the following fi le:

On a Windows host, edit the confi g.ini fi le Th e fi le is located by default in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Ap- plication Data\VMware\VMware GSX Server.

On a Linux host, edit /etc/vmware/confi g.

• Th e following lines should be added to the fi le:

vmauthd.logEnabled = TRUE log.vmauthdFileName = “vmauthd.log”

Th is creates a fi le called vmauthd.log On a Windows host, this fi le

is located by default in the system directory, usually tem32 On a Linux host, this fi le is located by default in /var/log/

%WINDIR%\Sys-vmware.

• Save and close the confi guration fi le On a Linux host, logging is

en-abled immediately On a Windows host, the VMware Authorization Service must be restarted before logging can take place.

Useful Log Files 693

VMware Registration Service Log File

Th e VMware registration service keeps a log If a problem is encountered

while connecting to virtual machines or using the management interface, this log fi le may help in diagnosing the problem On a Windows host, the log fi le is identifi ed as vmware-serverd.log and is located in %WIN- DIR%\Temp On a Linux host, the log fi le is also identifi ed as vmware- serverd.log but is located in /var/log/vmware.

VMware GSX Server and VMware Virtual Machine Console Installation Log Files

On the host server, VMware creates an installation log fi le while

install-ing GSX Server On a remote client, VMware creates an installation log

fi le while installing the VMware virtual machine console If a problem is encountered while installing either application, this log fi le may help in diagnosing the problem On a Windows host, the log fi le is identifi ed as VMInst.log and is saved in the TEMP directory By default, this direc- tory is C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Set- tings\Temp On a Linux host, the log fi le is identifi ed as locations and can be found in /etc/vmware.

VMware GSX Server Events on Windows

GSX Server also sends information to the Event Viewer on a Microsoft

Win-dows host server When troubleshooting, the Event Viewer may help provide

insight by providing the following types of information:

1 Changes to a virtual machine’s power state—was the virtual machine

powered off or suspended?

2 Th e addition or removal of a virtual machine from the host’s inventory

list—was the machine removed?

3 Th e deletion of a virtual machine from the GSX Server system—was the

virtual machine deleted along with its disk fi les?

4 Messages and warnings from the GSX Sever host along with responses to

the messages and warnings—when the host server prompts with a ing or message to the user, it is logged in the Event Viewer along with the response given by the user.

warn-To view event log entries relating to GSX Server, use the following steps:

1 Select Start.

2 Select Control Panel.

3 Choose Administrative Tools.

4 Select Event Viewer.

694 Advanced Server Virtualization

5 Select the Application log on the left side column.

6 Th e right side column contains the list of events identifi ed with VMware

as the source.

VMware ESX Server

If problems are encountered while running ESX Server, VMware requests that

they are reported to the VMware support team In order to report the problem

and have VMware support help diagnose the situation, VMware provides a

sup-port script to conveniently collect and package all relevant ESX Server log fi les

as well as system and confi guration information needed for troubleshooting Th e

support script can only be run on the ESX Server host machine Th is section will

describe how to run the support script as well as identify most of the important

ESX Server log fi les.

ESX Support Script

On an ESX Server host machine, use the following steps:

1 Open a service console window.

2 Log in as the root user.

3 For ESX Server versions 2.1.x and earlier, the latest vm-support script

should be downloaded from VMware’s Web site Archive the original

vm-support script and then replace it with the newer version For ESX Server

2.1.x and 2.0.x, the script is located in /usr/bin For ESX Server 1.5.x,

the script is located in /usr/lib/vmware

4 Execute the following script: /usr/bin/vm-support (For ESX 1.5.x,

run /usr/lib/vmware/vm-support).

5 Th e resulting fi le will be saved as a compressed tgz fi le called

esx-<date>-<unique-xnumber>.tgz Th e script will display the output

fi lename and the fi le location.

6 Th e output fi le should be included with support requests made to

VM-ware It can also be uncompressed to help with internal troubleshooting

as the log fi les are now conveniently located in one place.

Log Files

Th e following log fi les are created by ESX Server and are among the log fi les

col-lected by the support scripts described above Log fi les such as VMkernal

Warn-ings, VMkernal Logs, and Service Console Logs can be viewed through the GUI

VMware Management Interface by logging in as root and choosing Options

Useful Log Files 695

followed by System Logs Th ese and other log fi les can also be viewed directly

by accessing the service console If the VMkernel fails, an error screen normally

appears for a short period of time and then the virtual machine reboots

Addi-tionally, when confi guring the virtual machine, a VMware core dump partition

should be specifi ed By doing so, the VMkernel may also generate a core dump

fi le and an error log.

Virtual Machine Log File

If a virtual machine crashes or ends abnormally, this fi le should be saved off

immediately for the aff ected virtual machine It is important to save off this

fi le before the virtual machine is powered back on Th e log fi le is located in the

same directory as the aff ected virtual machine’s confi guration fi le and is named

vmware.log

VMkernal Warnings

Th e VMkernel warnings log fi le is a good resource when experiencing problems

with the ESX server or the virtual machines From the console, the data is logged

at /var/log/vmkwarning Th e log should be checked periodically for any

alerts that may get recorded.

VMkernel Messages

Th e VMkernel messages log fi le is a good resource when experiencing problems

with the ESX server or the virtual machines From the console, the data is logged

at /var/log/vmkernel Th e log should be checked periodically for any alerts

that may get recorded.

Service Console Messages

Th e service console messages log fi le is a good resource when experiencing

prob-lems with the ESX server or the virtual machines From the console, the data is

logged at /var/log/messages Th e log should be checked periodically for

any alerts that may get recorded.

ESX Server Service Log

If a problem is encountered while connecting to virtual machines or using the

management interface, this log fi le may help in diagnosing the problem Th e log

fi le is identifi ed as vmware-serverd.log and is located in

/var/log/vm-ware

696 Advanced Server Virtualization

Microsoft Virtual Server

Problems while running Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 should be reported

through normal Microsoft support channels It is important to note that

Micro-soft Virtual Server does not create log fi les, but instead uses the MicroMicro-soft

Win-dows Event Viewer for all system related communications It is recommended

that the host server’s Event Viewer and the Microsoft Virtual Server Event Filter

should be checked for reported errors or problems Th is section will explain how

to identify entries and problems in Event Viewer regarding Microsoft Virtual

Server

Event Viewer Steps

To view event log entries regarding Virtual Server, use the following steps:

1 Select Start.

2 Select Programs or All programs.

3 Select Microsoft Virtual Server.

4 Choose Virtual Server Administration Website.

5 On the left hand side under the Virtual Server heading select Event

Viewer

Another way to view event log entries regarding Virtual Server is:

1 Select Start.

2 Select Control Panel.

3 Choose Administrative Tools.

4 Select Event Viewer.

5 Select “Virtual Server” on the left side column.

6 Th e right side column contains the list of events.

Interpret Log Entries

For in-depth troubleshooting, it is recommended that the Windows Event

Viewer be used instead of the Virtual Server Administrative Website version

Th is is due to the fl exibility provided by the rich GUI interface and the fact that

the Web site version is limited to a fi xed number of entries, by default, fi ve on

the main status page and twenty on the event viewer page Th e Windows Event

Viewer however, provides 16MB of entries, more than enough to see if there are

any error trends or how long an error has been occurring Entries for Virtual

Server in Event Viewer can be broken up into several categories Below is a list

of event types and their descriptions.

Useful Log Files 697

Virtual Server

Th e Virtual Server events listing are comprised of interactions between the host

server and the virtual machines Examples include MAC address changes, virtual

server confi guration fi le changes, and Virtual Server service status changes.

Virtual Machine

Virtual Machine events provide status on user and virtual machine interactions

and confi guration/state changes Examples include users connecting via remote

console, virtual machine starts and stops, virtual disk creation, and volume space

remaining.

Disk Operation

Disk Operation provides status on changes to virtual hard disks Examples

in-clude creation and changes to disk types.

Setting Change

Th e Setting Change events are related to virtual machine hardware changes

Ex-amples include video resolution changes, changes to the virtual network that a

virtual machine is attached to, guest operating system changes, and the presence

of VM additions.

Remote Control

Remote Control lists events relating to the VMRC (this is the virtual keyboard,

video, and mouse console) Examples include NTLM authentication, VMRC

connects, VMRC disconnects, and VMRC idle connection disconnects.

Appendix IV

Useful TCP/IP Ports

Server virtualization and its related technologies commonly use TCP/IP

net-work protocols to provide specifi c features such as management of the

virtualiza-tion host server or providing remote access to the virtual machine Th is chapter

consolidates the most commonly used TCP and UDP ports in use and provides

information on what features use the port (see Figure 33.1) If the host server is

behind a fi rewall, the fi rewall may need to be reconfi gured to allow access to the

appropriate ports

VMware Ports

8222 (HTTP) Used to connect to the VMware GSX Server host machine by using the VMware Management Interface (if SSL is disabled) For backward compatibility, ESX Server handles this port as an HTTP redirect to TCP port 80.

8333 (HTTPS) Used to connect to the VMware GSX Server host machine by using the VMware Management Interface (uses SSL) For backward compat- ibility, ESX Server handles this port as an HTTPS redirect to TCP port 443.

80 (HTTP) Used to connect to the VMware ESX Server host machine by using the VMware Management Interface in a low security environment.

443 (HTTPS) Used to connect to the VMware ESX Server host machine by using the VM- ware Management Interface in a medium to high security environment.

700 Advanced Server Virtualization