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    BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer

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    • DashrenderD
      Dashrender @BRRABill
      last edited by

      @BRRABill said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

      To circle back and answer some questions...

      1. It was a Server 2003 VM.
      2. I did a full shutdown and export/import.
      3. I was expecting it to just come right back up, because the disk should have been the same. Same with the networking.
      4. The VM had a static IP address. When I tried to assign this address to the adapter it was given, it said there was a hidden adapter with the same IP. I understand why that happens, but again since it was a full shutdown and copy, I didn't think those things would happen.

      Not a huge deal, just trying to learn more. 🙂

      wait.. something happened... you didn't get the same hardware profile on the new machine, hence the hidden adapter. What caused that?

      So you shutdown the VM, then did an export to a file, then imported that file on the new server and started it?

      BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BRRABillB
        BRRABill @Dashrender
        last edited by

        @Dashrender said

        So you shutdown the VM, then did an export to a file, then imported that file on the new server and started it?

        Correct.

        The only thing I can think of is that the machine I exported from has more NICs activated.

        But that still doesn't explain the checkdisk, unless that is totally normally. I was just ASSUMING (I know, I know) it would just boot up.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • DashrenderD
          Dashrender
          last edited by

          huh, Well @olivier did say that exports are based on snapshots, though I don't know why a snapshot would be needed on a non running VM.

          BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BRRABillB
            BRRABill @Dashrender
            last edited by

            @Dashrender said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

            huh, Well @olivier did say that exports are based on snapshots, though I don't know why a snapshot would be needed on a non running VM.

            Right, that makes no sense.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • olivierO
              olivier
              last edited by

              I said snapshots are used for exporting Running VMs. If your VM is halted, no need to create a snapshot.

              DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • DashrenderD
                Dashrender @olivier
                last edited by

                @olivier said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                I said snapshots are used for exporting Running VMs. If your VM is halted, no need to create a snapshot.

                Ok that makes more sense... so I wonder why his VM when booted on the new imported host acted like it had an improper shutdown?

                Could it be related to a different CPU vendor? Why would the NICs be different too? Do the paravirtualized NICs actually show up as the real hardware instead of a virtualized NIC?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • olivierO
                  olivier
                  last edited by

                  1. No reason come in my mind. Maybe guest/Windows reasons?
                  2. If any hardware change for the guest OS, maybe it's related?
                  3. NIC are different probably because they got a new MAC address (again guest OS behavior)
                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • BRRABillB
                    BRRABill
                    last edited by

                    Starting to feel a Hyper-V install in my future.

                    DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DashrenderD
                      Dashrender @BRRABill
                      last edited by

                      @BRRABill said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                      Starting to feel a Hyper-V install in my future.

                      I feel a second XS install in mine so I can test these results.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JaredBuschJ
                        JaredBusch
                        last edited by

                        The problem here is bad understanding on @BRRABill's part.

                        He said he did an export/import. I would expect that process to present new hardware. Who would want to export a machine and have it come back up with the same MAC?

                        If he was doing a migration, that would be different.

                        BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • BRRABillB
                          BRRABill @JaredBusch
                          last edited by

                          @JaredBusch said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                          The problem here is bad understanding on @BRRABill's part.

                          He said he did an export/import. I would expect that process to present new hardware. Who would want to export a machine and have it come back up with the same MAC?

                          If he was doing a migration, that would be different.

                          It very well could be, which is why I asked.

                          On a straight restore, I could see the system seeing the VD as new, since the blocks are all different. But since I exported the VD as-is, I didn't think it would need to run scandisk.

                          As I said, I was just more curious as to the mechanics of why.

                          I agree with you on the MAC. I was not thinking that the IP is tied to the adapter. I guess there are so many scenarios, you couldn't copy over the IP.

                          But in the same token, why would it just grab an IP? That could mess stuff up, too.

                          Maybe in the future the better thing it to do NO networking, and then fix it before first boot.

                          Again, this is why I asked the question.

                          JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • JaredBuschJ
                            JaredBusch @BRRABill
                            last edited by

                            @BRRABill said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                            @JaredBusch said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                            The problem here is bad understanding on @BRRABill's part.

                            He said he did an export/import. I would expect that process to present new hardware. Who would want to export a machine and have it come back up with the same MAC?

                            If he was doing a migration, that would be different.

                            It very well could be, which is why I asked.

                            On a straight restore, I could see the system seeing the VD as new, since the blocks are all different. But since I exported the VD as-is, I didn't think it would need to run scandisk.

                            As I said, I was just more curious as to the mechanics of why.

                            I agree with you on the MAC. I was not thinking that the IP is tied to the adapter. I guess there are so many scenarios, you couldn't copy over the IP.

                            But in the same token, why would it just grab an IP? That could mess stuff up, too.

                            Maybe in the future the better thing it to do NO networking, and then fix it before first boot.

                            Again, this is why I asked the question.

                            Do you even understand what you are saying here?

                            This is one of the points of virtualization. That it does all of this to make this portable and abstracted.

                            A restore should never change anything. You are now bringing up a third scenario. Export/Import, Migrate, Backup/Restore. These are all different processes.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • DustinB3403D
                              DustinB3403
                              last edited by

                              I can confirm, exporting from XO (or even XenCenter) will create new MAC addresses once the import is done. I was a bit surprised at first and then realized why.

                              JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • JaredBuschJ
                                JaredBusch @DustinB3403
                                last edited by

                                @DustinB3403 said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                                I can confirm, exporting from XO (or even XenCenter) will create new MAC addresses once the import is done. I was a bit surprised at first and then realized why.

                                Because you have the VM set to automatically assign the MAC I would assume. I am not familiar enough with XS to know the setting, with Hyper-V and VMWare, this is the same. In the latter two, though, you can optionally specify the MAC if desired and it will not change during all of those processes.

                                coliverC DustinB3403D BRRABillB 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • coliverC
                                  coliver @JaredBusch
                                  last edited by

                                  @JaredBusch said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                                  @DustinB3403 said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                                  I can confirm, exporting from XO (or even XenCenter) will create new MAC addresses once the import is done. I was a bit surprised at first and then realized why.

                                  Because you have the VM set to automatically assign the MAC I would assume. I am not familiar enough with XS to know the setting, with Hyper-V and VMWare, this is the same. In the latter two, though, you can optionally specify the MAC if desired and it will not change during all of those processes.

                                  You can do the same in XS.

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                                  • DustinB3403D
                                    DustinB3403 @JaredBusch
                                    last edited by

                                    @JaredBusch By default on import the device settings for the NIC's are configured to Auto generate a new MAC address.

                                    This way you can avoid duplicates and all of those problems. But you can manually assign the MAC to what it "was" once the import is completed.

                                    BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • BRRABillB
                                      BRRABill @JaredBusch
                                      last edited by

                                      @JaredBusch said

                                      Because you have the VM set to automatically assign the MAC I would assume. I am not familiar enough with XS to know the setting, with Hyper-V and VMWare, this is the same. In the latter two, though, you can optionally specify the MAC if desired and it will not change during all of those processes.

                                      With me being new to the virtualization game, these are the kinds of things I am learning.

                                      Did my sever blow up? No.

                                      Do I want to ask questions to figure out why what happened did? Yes.

                                      I'm not sure how I can be any clearer I am asking questions here because I do not know and would like to learn.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • BRRABillB
                                        BRRABill @DustinB3403
                                        last edited by

                                        @DustinB3403 said

                                        @JaredBusch By default on import the device settings for the NIC's are configured to Auto generate a new MAC address.

                                        This way you can avoid duplicates and all of those problems. But you can manually assign the MAC to what it "was" once the import is completed.

                                        And in that scenario, to the new VM, it would have been seen as the same "adapter"? Thus keeping the same static IP address and DNS settings, etc.?

                                        coliverC DustinB3403D 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • coliverC
                                          coliver @BRRABill
                                          last edited by

                                          @BRRABill said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                                          @DustinB3403 said

                                          @JaredBusch By default on import the device settings for the NIC's are configured to Auto generate a new MAC address.

                                          This way you can avoid duplicates and all of those problems. But you can manually assign the MAC to what it "was" once the import is completed.

                                          And in that scenario, to the new VM, it would have been seen as the same "adapter"? Thus keeping the same static IP address and DNS settings, etc.?

                                          Not necessarily.

                                          JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • DustinB3403D
                                            DustinB3403 @BRRABill
                                            last edited by DustinB3403

                                            @BRRABill No at least not with how I'm currently configured. All of my VM's will auto generate a new MAC and thus get a new IP from our DHCP server. (On export / import)

                                            But once the import is completed, if you have the VM configured so it doesn't automatically turn on, just copy the MAC address from your old VM, and replace the MAC address of the NIC of the imported VM.

                                            Then it will pull the same IP from your DHCP server.

                                            XC will alert you about the same MAC being used, but so long as you keep the other VM off you'll be fine.

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