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Posts tagged Core
Windows Server 2008 R2 Core, Virtual Switches & NIC drivers
Mar 1st
The combination of a Windows Server 2008 R2 Core installation, virtual switches and NIC drivers can be a pain in the ass. Most of the time the installation and configuration goes as expected, but sometime it goes horribly wrong. The tools in this blog can make your live a little bit easier. Not a lot 
First of all a blog that rules. Hyper-V Error: Error Applying New Virtual Network Changes – Cannot bind to because it is already bound to another virtual network. I use this blog to breakdown and remove virtual switches that are there but aren’t.
The second tool is DEMANVIEW. This is an alternative to the standard Device Manager of Windows, which displays all devices and their properties in flat table, instead of tree viewer. I find this very useful because you get quick access to all your installed devices with the ability to uninstall, disable or enable them.
Third tool would be 5nine Manager for Hyper-V. Throw NVSPBIND out of the window, lets go graphical!
Last but not least an old skool tool called DEVCON. Very useful to detect hardware when you remove it with DEVMANVIEW.
Happy demolition and rebuilding!
Core, Server Manager and WinRM
Feb 25th
The other day I ran in to an annoying WinRM problem on a node installed with Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. I wanted to open Server Manager and connect to the specific node.
Although WinRM was enabled via sconfig, I couldn’t connect to it use the Server Manger from a full installation to do some basic troubleshooting.
Remote Management is enabled according to sconfig. But is it completely!
Check #1. The standard command “winrm qc” to configure WinRM gave the following result
So everything should work. NOT!
Check #2. When doing a “winrm id –r:<servername>” I got the result below.
WSManFault
Message = The WinRM client cannot complete the operation within the time specified. Check if the machine name is valid and is reachable over the network and
firewall exception for Windows Remote Management service is enabled.
Error number: -2144108250 0×80338126
The WinRM client cannot complete the operation within the time specified. Check
if the machine name is valid and is reachable over the network and firewall exception for Windows Remote Management service is enabled.
That’s not a good sign.
Check #3. When doing a “winrm e winrm/config/listener” I got the result below.
That’s funny….it is listening on port 80…..why?
Check #4.When checking the firewall I saw that not all the rules needed where enabled.
But according to sconfig everything should be up and running. This is backed by the fact that “winrm qc” is stating that everything is configured and is up and running as it should be.
O wait, the firewall has port 5985 open, and WinRM has a listener configured on port 80. Not gonna happen I think!
Solution:
The way to resolve this has many parts and is very simple . Just delete all listeners and let them be recreated by running the quick configure command.
- Quickly delete the WS-Man listener: winrm invoke Restore winrm/Config @{}
- Quick configure WinRM and answer Y: winrm qc
- Check is no listeners are present anymore: winrm e winrm/config/listener
A simple test to find out if WinRM is working as it should is “winrm id –r:<servername>”
And now the Server Manager is also connecting to the remote server.
All done! The Server Manager is now able to connect remotely using WinRM. Possible that SCVMM related issues will disappear to!
GO! And start fixing those WinRM issues!
Uninstalling KB976932 (SP1 RC) from Windows Server 2008 R2 Core
Feb 16th
Before installing Service Pack 1 of Windows Server 2008 R2 Core you must uninstall the Beta or RC version. You can simply do this by using the following command:
wusa /uninstall /kb:976932
More guests per logical processor in Hyper-V R2 SP1
Jan 7th
In a TechNet blog Michael Kleef announced that the number of VM’s per logical processor (LP) has been increased from 8:1 to 12:1, a 50% increase of VM density.
The increased ratio is supported if all guests run Windows 7. This is clearly aimed at Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments on Hyper-V R2. During the keynote of TechNet Europe 2010 we already heard increased VM density per host by at least 40%.
Microsoft changes Hyper-V R2 cluster limits
Jun 16th
Until now Microsoft supported Hyper-V R2 clusters with a maximum of 64 VM’s per cluster node or 960 VM’s per 16 node cluster (taking into account a cluster reserve of 1).
With the upcoming SP1, these limits have now been increased to 1000 VM’s per cluster with any number of nodes, but with no more than 384 VM’s per cluster node. The maximum number of cluster nodes remains 16.
Where does the number of 384 come from? It is apparent that a dual socket quad-core totals 8 logical processors. If we take the 8 virtual processors to 1 logical processor ratio which is formally the maximum supported by Microsoft, it would take a quad-socket 12-core processor to get to 384 (4 x 12 x 8).
Please note that very high VM densities of VM’s in a Hyper-V R2 cluster requires a very high number of IO capability in the SAN. This is much more likely to be the limiting factor.
|
Number of Nodes in Cluster |
Average |
Max # VMs in Cluster |
|
2 Nodes (1 active + 1 failover) |
384 |
384 |
|
3 Nodes (2 active + 1 failover) |
384 |
768 |
|
4 Nodes (3 active + 1 failover) |
333 |
1000 |
|
5 Nodes (4 active + 1 failover) |
250 |
1000 |
|
6 Nodes (5 active + 1 failover) |
200 |
1000 |
|
7 Nodes (6 active + 1 failover) |
166 |
1000 |
|
8 Nodes (7 active + 1 failover) |
142 |
1000 |
|
9 Nodes (8 active + 1 failover) |
125 |
1000 |
|
10 Nodes (9 active + 1 failover) |
111 |
1000 |
|
11 Nodes (10 active + 1 failover) |
100 |
1000 |
|
12 Nodes (11 active + 1 failover) |
90 |
1000 |
|
13 Nodes (12 active + 1 failover) |
83 |
1000 |
|
14 Nodes (13 active + 1 failover) |
76 |
1000 |
|
15 Nodes (14 active + 1 failover) |
71 |
1000 |
|
16 Nodes (15 active + 1 failover) |
66 |
1000 |
Requirements and Limits for Virtual Machines and Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee405267(WS.10).aspx
(Section Failover Clusters and Hyper-V R2)
New Hyper-V network configuration tool
Jan 26th
On MSDN you can find a new Hyper-V network configuration tool which lets you disable and enable protocol bindings from the command line at the parent partition level. It is great stuff for Server Core en Hyper-V Server administrators.
The tool is written by Paul Despe, program manager from the Microsoft Hyper-V team.
Get the options with nvspbind.exe /?
nvspbind.exe
Disable netbios from the selected adapter
nvspbind -d {0EA93B34-DEE7-4CDF-B232266E3F0B9D72} ms_netbios
Just type nvspbind again to verify the protocol binding
And change it back to enabled again with:
nvspbind -e {0EA93B34-DEE7-4CDF-B232266E3F0B9D72} ms_netbios
John Howard pointed me to another tool called nvspcrub which helps out if you managed to ruin your virtual network configuration 
http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2010/01/25/announcing-nvspbind.aspx
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