Creating a SmartOS Dataset for Windows Server 2012 r2
I postet about SmartOS almost 1 1/2 Year ago. Since i am still using SmartOS here and then for primary testing purpose, i decided to create a new Post about how to make your own Datasets, to make several VMs based on the same Image possible. As Microsoft also introduces their latest Server OS (Windows Server 2012 r2) as a Preview Version, i choosed this OS for the Test, since i guess besides SmartOS itself and Linux, which has already a lot of Dataset present, Windows might be the next common OS to use in a VM.
Prerequisites
You should already have these Software Packages:
- SmartOS Download
- http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Download+SmartOS
- Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview
- http://technet.microsoft.com/de-DE/evalcenter/dn205287.aspx you should rename the ISO e.g. to win2k12r2_de.iso
- TightVNC Java Viewer JAR
- http://www.tightvnc.com/download.php
You should have SmartOS installed on a proper Hardware (at least > 50GB Disk and proper KVM support – this means a recent Intel CPU and working VT-x/EPT). I am using VMWare Fusion 5 for this, since there is a specific Setting for supporting VM internal Virtualization.
The Setup of SmartOS is pretty straigh forward. You can have a short description here [1].
In this tutorial i will choose [client] when you have to run the command on your Workstation and [smartos] when you should run it on your SmartOS Host (e.g. via SSH).
SmartOS Configuration
You should check the current Host Configuration of you SmartOS System first. The CLI Tools for this are sometimes different than e.g. in Linux [2].
First you need to find your Host Network Gateway (here 172.16.108.2)
[smartos] /usr/bin/netstat -r
Routing Table: IPv4 Destination Gateway Flags Ref Use Interface -------------------- -------------------- ----- ----- ---------- --------- default 172.16.108.2 UG 3 443 e1000g0 localhost localhost UH 2 310 lo0 172.16.108.0 00-50-56-28-a8-14 U 5 1694314 e1000g0 Routing Table: IPv6 Destination/Mask Gateway Flags Ref Use If --------------------------- --------------------------- ----- --- ------- ----- localhost localhost UH 2 12 lo0
[smartos] /usr/bin/sysinfo -p
Live_Image='20130629T040542Z' System_Type='SunOS' Boot_Time='1375215743' Manufacturer='VMware, Inc.' Product='VMware Virtual Platform' Serial_Number='VMware-56 4d 56 5e e8 ff 08 7b-38 81 e6 57 ac d8 b9 7d' VM_Capable='true' CPU_Type='Unknown' CPU_Virtualization='vmx' CPU_Physical_Cores=4 Nic_Tags=admin Setup='' UUID='564d565e-e8ff-087b-3881-e657acd8b97d' Hostname='00-50-56-28-a8-14' CPU_Total_Cores=4 MiB_of_Memory=8191 Disk_c1t0d0_size_in_GB=268 Disk_c1t1d0_size_in_GB=268 NIC_admin='e1000g0' Network_Interface_e1000g0_MAC_Address='00:50:56:28:a8:14' Network_Interface_e1000g0_IPv4_Address='172.16.108.135' Network_Interface_e1000g0_NIC_Names='admin' Network_Interface_e1000g0_Link_Status='up' Network_Interface_e1000g1_MAC_Address='00:50:56:21:c3:ec' Network_Interface_e1000g1_IPv4_Address='' Network_Interface_e1000g1_NIC_Names='' Network_Interface_e1000g1_Link_Status='up' Bootparam_console='text' Bootparam_root_shadow='$5$2HOHRnK3$NvLlm.1KQBbB0WjoP7xcIwGnllhzp2HnT.mDO7DpxYA' Bootparam_smartos='true'
[smartos] /usr/sbin/dladm show-link
LINK CLASS MTU STATE BRIDGE OVER e1000g0 phys 1500 up vmwarebr -- e1000g1 phys 1500 up -- -- vmwarebr0 bridge 1500 up -- e1000g0
VM Setup
VM Configuration
[smartos] /usr/bin/cat /opt/win2k12r2_vm.json
{
"brand": "kvm",
"alias": "win2k12r2",
"vcpus": 2,
"autoboot": false,
"ram": 2048,
"resolvers": ["8.8.8.8"],
"disks": [
{
"boot": true,
"model": "ide",
"size": 40960
}
],
"nics": [
{
"nic_tag": "admin",
"model": "e1000",
"ip": "172.16.108.201",
"netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"gateway": "172.16.108.2",
"primary": 1
}
]
}
Your main Tool for VM Administration ist vmadm [3].
[smartos] /usr/sbin/vmadm create -f /opt/win2k12r2_vm.json
Successfully created VM 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744
[smartos] /usr/sbin/vmadm list
UUID TYPE RAM STATE ALIAS 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 KVM 2048 stopped win2k12r2
[smartos] /usr/sbin/zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT zones 52,3G 192G 652K /zones zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 39,5K 10,0G 39,5K /zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0 40G 232G 16K - zones/config 41K 192G 41K legacy zones/cores 62K 10,0G 31K /zones/global/cores zones/cores/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 31K 10,0G 31K /zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744/cores zones/dump 4,00G 192G 4,00G - zones/opt 31,5K 192G 31,5K legacy zones/swap 8,25G 200G 16K - zones/usbkey 127K 192G 127K legacy zones/var 2,08M 192G 2,08M legacy
You need to copy the installation ISO Image into your VM Zone:
[client] scp win2k12r2_de.iso root@172.16.108.135:/zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744/root/
After that you can boot your VM with the ISO Image attached:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/vmadm boot 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 order=cd,once=d cdrom=/win2k12r2_de.iso,ide
Successfully started VM 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744
You can access your VM via a VNC Viewer (we are using TightVNC). You can get the necessary connection setting via:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/vmadm info 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 vnc
{
"vnc": {
"host": "172.16.108.135",
"port": 34783,
"display": 28883
}
}
You can now extract the TightVNC Zip you downloaded before. Withing the folder classes you type:
[client] java VncViewer HOST 172.16.108.135 PORT 34783
The Port and the Host URL may differ. The Port will change everytime your VM reboots.
Setup
Running System
After a Reboot, the Login Screen greets us:
The Network also seems to work :-).
Dataset Creation
We can now start to create our VM Package. For that we need to shutdown our VM:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/vmadm list
UUID TYPE RAM STATE ALIAS 37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 KVM 2048 stopped win2k12r2
The first step is to create a ZFS Snapshot of that specific VM Disk:
So let’s have a look:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT zones 52,3G 192G 652K /zones zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 39,5K 10,0G 39,5K /zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0 40G 232G 16K - zones/config 41K 192G 41K legacy zones/cores 62K 10,0G 31K /zones/global/cores zones/cores/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744 31K 10,0G 31K /zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744/cores zones/dump 4,00G 192G 4,00G - zones/opt 31,5K 192G 31,5K legacy zones/swap 8,25G 200G 16K - zones/usbkey 127K 192G 127K legacy zones/var 2,08M 192G 2,08M legacy
It seems, that our disk is zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0 a zvol.
[smartos] /usr/sbin/zfs snapshot zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0@dataset
Let’s look for the Snapshot:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/zfs list -t snapshot
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0@dataset 0 - 7,36G -
There it is. Now we need to compress it, since this will be our vanilla Image.
[smartos] /usr/sbin/zfs send zones/37d3cef6-01a6-4b25-a927-928cc2681744-disk0@dataset | /usr/bin/gzip > /tmp/win2k12r2_de.zvol.gz
Wait…
Now we only need size and the SHA1 Checksum of that Image for the Manifest file.
[smartos] /usr/bin/digest -a sha1 win2k12r2_de.zvol.gz
Wait…
0d955b91973bdaccc30ffa75b856709ce9a1953a
[smartos] /usr/bin/ls /tmp
... -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3933399939 Jul 30 22:20 win2k12r2_de.zvol.gz ...
So our matching Dataset Manifest File might look like this:
[smartos] /usr/bin/cat /tmp/win2k12r2_vm.json
{
"name": "win2k12r2de",
"version": "1.0",
"type": "zvol",
"cpu_type": "host",
"description": "Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview DE",
"created_at": "2013-07-31T11:40:00.000Z",
"updated_at": "2013-07-31T11:40:00.000Z",
"published_at": "2013-07-31T11:40:00.000Z",
"os": "windows",
"image_size": "40960",
"files": [
{
"path": "win2k12r2_de.zvol.gz",
"sha1": "0d955b91973bdaccc30ffa75b856709ce9a1953a",
"size": 3933399939
}
],
"requirements": {
"networks": [
{
"name": "net0",
"description": "public"
}
]
},
"disk_driver": "ide",
"nic_driver": "e1000",
"uuid": "857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66",
"creator_uuid": "0e70a5a1-0115-4a2b-b260-94723fd31bf1",
"vendor_uuid": "0e70a5a1-0115-4a2b-b260-94723fd31bf1",
"owner_uuid": "0e70a5a1-0115-4a2b-b260-94723fd31bf1",
"creator_name": "Philipp Haussleiter",
"platform_type": "smartos",
"urn": "smartos:phaus:win2k12r2de:1.0"
}
You can now install the new Dataset to your local Image Store:
[smartos] /usr/sbin/imgadm install -m /tmp/win2k12r2_de.json -f /tmp/win2k12r2_de.zvol.gz
Installing image 857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66 (win2k12r2de 1.0) 857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66 [==============================> ] 19% 727.97MB 11.39MB/s 4m25s … Installed image 857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66 to "zones/857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66".
Wait…
[smartos] /usr/sbin/imgadm list
UUID NAME VERSION OS PUBLISHED … 857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66 win2k12r2de 1.0 windows 2013-07-31T11:40:00Z …
You can now using this image as a normal SmartOS Dataset with the UUID 857ea9a0-f965-11e2-b778-0800200c9a66.
Feel free to comment if you have questions or problems.
Links
- [1] SmartOS – Basic Setup
- http://blog.smartcore.net.au/smartos-the-basics/
- [2] The Linux-to-SmartOS Cheat Sheet
- http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/The+Linux-to-SmartOS+Cheat+Sheet
- [3] Using vmadm to manage virtual machines
- http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/Using+vmadm+to+manage+virtual+machines
- [4] Some extra Configuration Options for SmartOS
- http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/extra+configuration+options
- [5] How to create a SmartOS Dataset
- http://www.nickebo.net/creating-smartos-datasets
Since i got some Mails about it, a proper VM File for creating a VM with that Image would be like this:
What is wrong with using virtio instead of e1000 and ide?
Hello Hans. Nothing wrong about. At that time i did not know about the driver CD for all the virtio devices. Since then i found another great blog post ( http://ispire.me/how-to-create-smartos-windows-vm/ ) that explains exactly how you can create your own driver CD and use it with your SmartOS VM.
Any idea how to measure the quality of the disk I/O and suggestions about what to about slow disk I/O performance?
Running 8 GB virtual win2012(trial) machine with 40GB diskimage on a recent I7 with 32Gb and two WD Red 2TB disks(mirrored) with 30GB Kingston as cache disk
That might have several reasons. First of all is just the VM slow or the whole system?
The best Post about VM Performance i found here http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/2013/01/11/virtualization-performance-zones-kvm-xen/
DTrace is a valuable tool for identifying bottlenecks. A nice intro is here https://blogs.oracle.com/BestPerf/entry/i_o_analysis_using_dtrace although DTrace needs some time for getting into it.
If you are using the 30GB (SSD? ) as an ARC you may also try arcstat https://github.com/mharsch/arcstat
Indeed a 30GB Kingston SSD I picked up as a bargain a while ago. Thanks for the links for measuring.
Using:
– a Joyent zone as Samba FileServer with Crashplan as backup software.
– a Joyent zone for Project Fifo as management interface
Has been running for a month.
Yesterday installed my first KVM zone. Only noticed it was a bit slow when running windows update.
Going to do some measurements after the image is provisioned from the dataset I just created from the clean install plus latest patches.
dump question: you installed all necessary virt io drivers? I never had a running KVM instance running for a long time. Always stayed with Zones. But i guess since KVM is normally not that slow there must be an issue somewhere…
I installed both the virtio network and virtio disk driver. The problem very likely is elsewhere. Dedup was still turned on at zones.
Going to turn that of after a scrub.
Turned dedup off. And I ran into a Project-Fifo bug or I did something stupid. The dataset generated had no related snapshot ;(. So installing windows 2012 again.
uhh… that sounds not good. I always had troubles with dedup… alway had to less memory for that. What kind of Bug in FiFo did you detect? I just found one myself, while playing araound with the AMD SmartOS Flavor…