Windows Installation Reference

Overview

AppLogic 2.4.x supports appliances running the following Windows operating systems:

• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP2 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition R2 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition R2 32-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Web Edition R2 32-bit

Windows appliances/applications are not distributed with AppLogic due to licencing issues. However, depending upon your AppLogic license, you may be able to obtain the Windows-based appliances/applications from 3tera.

• If you are a direct licencee who installs AppLogic on-premesis in your own datacenter or on your own hardware, please contact Microsoft for a Windows Volume License (you must obtain your own Microsoft license in order to use Windows appliances on AppLogic). In addition, contact your 3tera account manager for information on how to obtain optional Windows PV drivers that are used to enhance the network/disk I/O performance within Windows appliances.
• If you own a VPDC (Virtual Private Datacenter) obtained directly from 3tera, contact your 3tera account manager for information on how to obtain ready-made Windows appliances and applications that you may use on your VPDC.
• If you own a VPDC (Virtual Private Datacenter) obtained directly from a 3tera partner, contact your sales representative with that vendor for information on how to obtain ready-made Windows appliances and applications that you may use on your VPDC.

If you are able to obtain the ready-made Windows appliances/applications for your grid, you do not need to follow the instructions in this topic unless you want to create your own Windows appliances from scratch. If you are using 3tera supplied Windows appliances, please review the 3tera Windows Appliance for details concerning their operation.

If you need to create the Windows appliances/applications for your grid, tools are provided with AppLogic which make the creation of these appliances/applications very easy. There are three basic Windows appliances/applications which can be created using these tools:

• Windows Server a generic Windows server appliance (similar to LINUX5 and SOL10). Detailed documentation can be found here.
• Windows VDS a Windows Virtual Dedicated Server. Detailed documentation can be found here.
• Windows Filer a Windows Filer which performs file-system level operations over ntfs volumes. Detailed documentation can be found here.

The Windows Server appliance is the base appliance used to create all other Windows-based appliances (and as such should be created first before any other Windows appliance).

In order to install Windows, the proper ISO images for the OS installation must be used. Please see this topic for more information.

Please review the Windows Appliance Notes for some important notes/limitations about using Windows appliances on AppLogic.

Note that in the following text in this topic, the "y" placeholder in WIN03y is for the Windows edition that the appliance is based upon ("S" for Standard, "E" for Enterprise, "DC" for DataCenter, "W" for Web).

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Caveat

While the Windows Server 2003 Standard/Enterprise/Web Editions work readily under AppLogic, the Datacenter Edition is missing some required network drivers. To make these drivers available during the installation process it is necessary to create a small NTFS volume, store the required drivers on it, and make this volume available as one of the optional volumes in the iso2class utility (e.g. iso_volume3):

Before attempting to create an appliance using the Windows Datacenter edition, you must create an AppLogic Windows filer based on either the Standard or Enterprise Editions (the Standard edition is recommended for the filer). Follow the instructions in the subsequent sections to create your Windows filer. This will be needed in order to create a Windows NTFS driver disk. Follow the instructions below to create the network driver disk:

1. Create a new NTFS global volume and manage the volume using the vol manage command. Be sure to enable the external network access (see the vol manage command help on how to do this). Below is an example for creating and managing the volume:
   • volume create _GLOBAL:driver_disk size=50M fs=ntfs
   • volume manage _GLOBAL:driver_disk --rw ip=application_public_IP netmask=grid_netmask gateway=grid_gateway
2. Open the graphic console of the filer and download suitable networking drivers for the virtualized NICs that are present in a Windows appliance:
   • Open IE and visit http://www.realtek.com.
   • Download the RTL810X/RTL8130/ RTL8139(A/B/C/D) PCI Series Drivers for WinXP (WinServer 2003) onto the managed volume.
3. Close the graphic console to the filer and exit from the vol manage shell.
4. Now you may proceed with building Windows appliances based on the DataCenter edition. You must provide the newly created driver disk as one of the optional volumes with the iso2class utility.
5. After the OS installation is complete, you must make the driver disk visible in Windows (it usually does not appear in the explorer by default):
   1. Open My Computer
   2. Check to see if the driver disk has appeared in the list of disk drives in the appliance. If not:
      1. Open Start->Administrative Tools->Computer Management
      2. Right click on the driver disk ntfs volume and choose "add driver letter and path"
      3. After assigning an appropriate letter (i.e., "E:"), go to drive E:
   3. Unzip the Realtek drivers
6. Proceed with installing the Realtek drivers. If Windows automatically prompts for the network drivers (this needs to be done for all network devices in the appliance):
   1. Select "No, not this time" and click Next
   2. Select "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)" and click Next
   3. Select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install" and click Next
   4. Scroll down the list for Common Hardware Types, select "Network Adapters" and click Next
   5. Click on "Have Disk"
   6. Click on "Browse" and select E:\Driver_XP_5699_0828\Driver_XP_5699_0828\Netrlx.inf and click Open (assuming the driver disk is drive E:)
   7. Click OK. This should show a list of Network Adapters
   8. Select "Realtek RTL8139/810X Family Fast Ethernet NIC" and click Next
   9. Click on Yes for the Update Driver Warning
   10. Click on Finish
7. If Windows does not automatically prompt for the network drivers:
   1. Right click on "My Computer", go to the Hardware tab and click on the device manager.
   2. Expand "Other Devices" if it is not already expanded and for each Ethernet Controller device listed do the following:
      1. Right click on Ethernet Controller and select "Update Driver"
      2. Repeat all steps under step #6 above.

Windows PV Drivers

AppLogic 2.4.x supports Windows appliances which use either the Novell or Halsign Turbogate PV drivers. These drivers are used to enhance the disk and network I/O performance of a Windows appliance running on AppLogic. The Novell drivers are not distributed with AppLogic; the Halsign Turbogate drivers are distributed with AppLogic (accessible through the appliance's default interface just like the Windows msis used to create Windows appliances). Below are example performance measurements with and without these drivers:

Note that the performance numbers may vary depending upon the hardware that is used in the grid.

3tera has tested the following PV driver versions:

• Halsign Turbogate: TurboGate GTools v1.2.1.2
• Novell: SLES Virtual Machine Driver Pack 10 sp2

Follow the instructions below for obtaining/installing these PV drivers in your Windows appliances. Be sure to install the PV drivers after the 3tera APK is installed.

Halsign Turbogate PV Drivers

Follow the directions below to install the Halsign Turbogate PV drivers in your Windows appliance:

1. Start your application that contains the Windows appliance where you want the drivers installed.
2. Open the graphical console to your Windows appliance.
3. Enable for automatic start the "Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing Service" (ICS). The turbogate drivers depend upon the ICS service. If this service is not enabled and started, you will experience degraded network performance with your Windows appliance (150 Mbps tcp, 350 Mbps udp).
4. This Halsign Turbogate self-executing installer can be downloaded from the grid controller through the appliance's default interface.
   • To find the internal IP address of the controller, in a command line shell execute ipconfig /all and note the IP address of the DHCP server for the last enumerated interface (e.g., Local Area Connection 5).
   • Point IE at http://IP-address:8080/download/ and download the PV drivers (e.g., TurboGate-GTools-v1.2.1.exe):
     • Right-click on the file and select Save Target As to download the file to the desktop.
   • Double-click on the file on the desktop to perform the installation.
     • The user will be asked if they are sure they want to install unsigned Windows drivers in their appliance; please select yes.
     • After the installation is complete, the user will be prompted to reboot the appliance; please select no.
   • Delete the installer file from the desktop and empty the Recycle Bin (if desired).
5. Be certain you know the Administrator password. Restart the Windows appliance by using the comp restart --debug AppLogic command.
6. After the Windows appliance reboots, login through the graphical console. The hardware wizard automatically detects all of the network devices that use the newly installed PV drivers (no user interaction is required). After this is complete, restart the appliance again without the --debug option to verify it is working properly.

If you later add a new terminal to the appliance, the user will manually have to complete the Found New Hardware Wizard on the next boot of the appliance. Please see the Windows Notes for more information.

Novell PV Drivers

A limited-time evaluation version of these drivers is available from Novell. To install these drivers in an AppLogic appliance:

1. Obtain the drivers from Novell:
   • Point a browser at: http://www.novell.com/products/vmdriverpack/
   • Click the link to obtain an activation code (registration required)
   • Download the SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack
2. Extract the drivers to the impex volume of the grid controller:
   • Copy the downloaded driver pack SLES-Virtual-Machine-Driver-Pack-10-sp2-CD1.iso to /vol/_impex/tmp/ on the controller
   • In a bash shell on the controller cd /vol/_impex/tmp ; mkdir mnt ; mount -o loop SLES-Virtual-Machine-Driver-Pack-10-sp2-CD1.iso mnt.
   • Copy the two required rpm's from the mounted iso image to the current directory:
     • cp mnt/suse/noarch/vmdp-xen-win2003-1.2.0-4.noarch.rpm .
     • cp mnt/suse/noarch/vmdp-1.2.0-4.noarch.rpm .
     • umount mnt
   • Install the rpm's with a local root directory:
     • rpm -i --root /vol/_impex/tmp/ vmdp-1.2.0-4.noarch.rpm
     • rpm -i --root /vol/_impex/tmp/ vmdp-xen-win2003-1.2.0-4.noarch.rpm
   • Copy the iso containing the Windows 2003 32-bit PV drivers to the impex volume:
     • cp opt/novell/vm-driver-pack/xen/vmdp-xen-Win2003-32bit-drivers.iso vmdp-xen-Win2003-32bit-drivers.iso /vol/_impex/
   • Cleanup: rm -rf /vol/_impex/tmp
3. Import the extracted iso as a global volume:
   • 3t vol import _GLOBAL:vmdp-xen-Win2003-32bit-drivers.iso vmdp-xen-Win2003-32bit-drivers.iso
4. Create a test appliance based on WIN03y and install the Novell PV drivers on it:
   • 3t app create win-novell-pv-test
   • 3t vol copy _GLOBAL:vmdp-xen-Win2003-32bit-drivers.iso win-novell-pv-test:novell_pv_drivers
   • Open the application in the AppLogic editor and include an instance of WIN03y.
   • Branch the WIN03y instance and add a placeholder volume. Configure the placeholder volume to use novell_pv_drivers
   • Start the application. Access the graphic console of the singleton. The placeholder volume will automount as D:.
   • In Windows Explorer, navigate to D: and double-click on setup.exe to install the PV drivers (or select the autoplay option on D:). Do not reboot when the installation is complete.
5. Complete the driver installation:
   • 3t app restart --debug win-novell-pv-test (the start will time out)
   • Open a graphic console to the running appliance and for each network device click-through the Found New Hardware Wizard:
     • Select No, not this time when asked to Connect to Windows Update
     • Select Install the Software Automatically
     • Select Continue Anyway
   • 3t app restart and verify the start is successful.

To make use of the Novell PV drivers outside of the limited evaluation, please contact Novell.

If you later add a new terminal to the appliance, the user will manually have to complete the Found New Hardware Wizard on the next boot of the appliance. Please see the Windows Notes for more information.

WIN03y: Windows Server Appliance - iso2class

WIN03y is created using the new iso2class utility that is shipped with AppLogic 2.4.x+. iso2class is a command line utility which is used to create a singleton class using an OS installed from an iso image. iso2class creates and starts an AppLogic application which is used to install an operating system from an iso image onto a volume. This application is generated from a template and contains a singleton named iso2class. The boot volume of the singleton is an iso image. A second volume on the singleton is the target for the OS install.

The end result of using this new interactive utility is a singleton with a single volume which contains the installed OS. This singleton can be moved into a catalog and used as the basis for creating new appliance classes. Detailed iso2class documentation can be found here. iso2class makes it extremely easy to create new OS distros in AppLogic.

The iso image used for the OS install can come from 3 locations:

• stored on the impex volume of the grid (either copied to the impex volume by a maintainer or imported from a remote server)
• stored as a global volume on the grid (typically imported from a remote server)
• imported from a URL

During OS installation, the singleton will reboot. When this happens, an open graphical console no longer responds. Simply close the console and open it again from the AppLogic GUI to obtain the console of the newly booting image.

Detailed instructions for creating WIN03y using iso2class are here:

• Single CD Install
• Two CD Install

Windows VDS and Filer

Once you have created the Windows server appliance WIN03y, you can create the Windows VDS and filer. Detailed instructions are here:

• Windows VDS Installation
• Windows Filer Installation

-- StephenQ - 29 Aug 2008