Windows Installation Reference

Overview

AppLogic supports appliances running the following Windows operating systems:

• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP2 32-bit, 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition R2 32-bit, 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2 32-bit, 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition R2 32-bit, 64-bit
• Windows Server 2003 Web Edition R2 32-bit

If you are able to obtain ready-made Windows appliances/applications for your grid from 3Tera or your service provider, 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 aid in the creation of these appliances/applications. The following 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.
• Windows IIS Web Server a Windows Internet Information Server appliance. Detailed documentation can be found here.
• Scalable Windows IIS Web Server IIS03yx4 and IIS03yx8, contained in the system_ms catalog. Please contact your service provider to have this catalog installed on your grid. IIS03yx4/IIS03yx8 includes references to /system_ms:IIS03y. If the system_ms catalog is installed on your grid and any one of the /system_ms:IIS03y appliances are missing, the application editor displays an error message every time an application is opened. To resolve this issue, either create all of the /system_ms:IIS03y appliances or remove the unused IIS03yx4/IIS03yx8 appliances from the system_ms catalog.
• Windows SQL Server a Microsoft SQL Server appliance. Detailed documentation can be found here.
• WISA/WISAx4 Windows template applications which use a IIS/SQL/ASP.NET stack. Detailed documentation can be found here 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) or for 64-bit appliances ("64S" for 64-bit Standard, "64E" for 64-bit Enterprise, and "64DC" for 64-bit DataCenter).

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 supports Windows appliances which use the 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 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 v2.0.0

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. 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-v2.0.0.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).
4. Be certain you know the Administrator password. Restart the Windows appliance by using the comp restart --debug AppLogic command.
5. 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

AppLogic no longer supports the Novell PV drivers. The Novell PV drivers are not compatible with XEN 3.3 that is used in AppLogic 2.8 and later. A future AppLogic release may support these drivers.

WIN03y: Windows Server Appliance - iso2class

WIN03y is created using the iso2class utility that is shipped with AppLogic. 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

Other Windows appliances and applications: Filer, IISy, SQL08y, VDS, WISA

Once you have created the Windows server appliance WIN03y, you can create other Windows based appliances and applications. Detailed instructions are here:

• Windows Filer Installation
• Windows IIS Installation
• Windows SQL Installation
• Windows VDS Installation
• WISA/WISAx4 Installation

-- StephenQ - 29 Aug 2008