Archive for the ‘P2V’ Category

A forum member put me on to a new P2V (and other directions) solution. I’ve got an eval copy and will be running tests in April. Here’s the usual blurb:

“DDChanger is used to change the installed disk device drivers in Windows. The program installs drivers in an offline (not running) Windows installation. This feature makes easy P2V, V2P, P2P, V2V conversion/migration possible!  You can install almost any SCSI/FC/RAID driver into your Windows installation. The new version of DDChanger can add the newest 4GB FibreChannel adapters from QLogic to enable for example “boot from SAN”

DDChanger can also migrate your existing servers to VMware ESX / VMware GSX Server or Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 (P2V) and back againg using V2P.”

Link:

http://www.helperapps.com

I came across a couple cool tools and add-ins that you might find useful inconjunction with a BartPE CD or an Ultimate-P2V disk. They are all hosted at the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (UBCD4W)

Firstly, they have a installer which adds a tons of network and storage adapter drivers to a standard BartPE disk

Secondly, they have a tool called AutoStreamer this application is used for slipstreaming Service Packs onto your Windows installations CD’s. It is compatiable with 2k, XP, and 2K3

Thirdly, they have a tool called QEMU for Windows which allows you to run ISO images from your HDD in a separate window. It offers many other options…

Link:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm

This week I spent the a day looking at P2V-ing NT4 Terminal Services Edition (Service Pack 6) with Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 with remapped drives.

I was pleasantly surprised as I wasn’t expecting to see this work. Firstly, NT4 TSE isn’t offical supported with VMware’s P2V product. Additionally, NT4 TSE isn’t offically supported on ESX 2.x.x.

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osde.info of the forums has been busy building his own P2V Solution. Here’s what he says:

“If you were wowed by Player you’ll be blown over by the now also free-of-charge Server which includes VMTools

I’ve also just discovered another set of free software gnu gpl open source non-proprietory P2V software like (G4L and G4U) that helps you clone disks from physical to virtual – the system rescue cd (systemrescuecd) http://www.sysresccd.org/ which includes partimage (a sort of dd that skips blank sectors)
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Note:
This announcement was made in error. The datasheet released by VMware should not have been released. 

VMware has significantly reviewed its marketing of its P2V Assistent. In contrast to the “jumpstart” offer costing $6000 for 25 conversions, a new course has been launched. It priced at $1,495 (USD) per attendee in open-enrollment courses.

Critically the price includes an unlimited-use P2V Assistant License

This information has been released on VMware’s Education website in the Course DataSheet

This change has been prompted by increased competition in the P2V market by the major hardware vendors and backup providers, as well as the arrival of various “free” P2V solutions.

Created by Qui Hong (The Developer), Chris Huss and Mike Laverick (Value-Add and Documentation)

Ultimate-P2V is a BartPE free plug-in that allows you to clone a physical machine to virtual machine – and perform the neccessary “system reconfiguration” required to make it bootable. Without this tool or a commerical P2V tool the virtual machine would just give a “blue screen of death”. It has been tested with Symantec Ghost 8 in mind, but it should be configurable with other cloning software and BartPE Plug-ins

Also included are plug-ins for

• VMware Tools
• VMware SVGA Drivers
• VMware VMXnet
• LSILogic SCSI
• BusLogic SCSI
• Downloads for popular network and storage drivers for physical machine

Read more here

When you finally get round to doing the P2V process – the P2V Assistant expect the Windows Server to have a boot.ini file on the primary and active partition.

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As you might know P2V 2.1 has been released I’ve been playing with the BETA for a while. There’s little to report – you be pleased to know that no unnecessary changes have been made. What is new is the P2V Boot CD itself – which is based around the Knoppix Boot CD and loads an X-Windows UI. The actually P2V application is still the same – find my hardware – and set my IP address of the target physical machine. If you are using the new boot CD you might want to know two tips…

Firstly, if you rather not have X-Windows load up because you have graphics card issues – then type:

Knoppix 2

This gives you run-level 2 with text mode only – it boots from the CD a little quicker

Secondly, in the previous edition of P2V the only network tools we had was mii-tool. This wasn’t Gigbit aware and would only work with certain NIC vendors (it didn’t work with Intel Pro 1000 cards). Mii-tool is still there – but we now have the ethtool as well. A common problem with the boot CD is that auto-negioatites link speed/duplex on eth0. If you switches don’t support or have had auto-negiotaite switched off – you have to manual set these parameters. To do this do the following:

In the P2V Window (this assumes your running X-Windows – Alt-F2 if you running in text-mode)

1. Choose the menu, Session
2. Choose New Session

   At the command prompt use the following commands:

   sudo ethtool
   - to report link speed

   sudo ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off
   - turns on 100/FD and switches off auto-negotiation

   sudo ethtool -s eth0 autoneg on
    - switches back to auto- negotiation

You can still use sudo dmesg | grep “etho” as alternative way of reporting link speed and duplex for cards that don’t support ethtool and mii-tool

This week on the Forum I helped diagnose a problem with a posters P2V event. The guy couldn’t logon after the P2V process. Every time he logged on he was logged out again. I’ve seen this with some P2V products (not VMware’s) and Citrix Drive-Letter remap tools which can cause problems with the ctxgina.dll. The error dialog box had a message concerning the Awgina.dll. I managed to trace this file to PC-Anywhere and found a Microsoft KB to resolve the issue. It does seem to be the case that virtual machine have a problem from time-to-time with 3rd party authentication systems that change/replace the default msgina.dll.  

Link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817142

If you use a P2V product you might problems with many vendors hardware monitoring software/agents such as HP Insight Manager/IBM Director and Dell Open Manage. Typically symptoms might be BSOD (but not the inaccessible boot device error) or errors when the “monitor” loads. The monitor is VMware’s term for the virtual BIOS which is loaded from the nvram file. These monitor errors read along these lines:

“***VMWare ESX Server internal monitor error *** NOT IMPLEMENTED at 2263 (16390)…” 

The only solution to these problems currently appears to be to uninstall this software from the physical server before beginning the P2V process.