HP BL680c XenServer Virtual Machine Installation 4.1.0 - Page 16

Installing Windows VMs

11

Warning

Be extremely careful with copying ISOs directly onto the control domain filesystem, as it has limited

space available. A network share is a much safer mechanism for storing large numbers of ISO

images. If the control domain does fill up, unpredictable behavior will result.

3.2. Windows paravirtualized drivers

The Citrix paravirtualizated network and SCSI drivers provide high performance I/O services without the

overhead of traditional device emulation found in first-generation virtualization products. During the instal-

lation of a Windows operating system, Xen will use traditional device emulation to present a standard IDE

controller and a standard network card to the Virtual Machine. This allows Windows to complete its instal-

lation using built-in drivers, but with reduced performance due to the overhead inherent in emulation of the

controller drivers.

After Windows is installed, you install the Citrix high-speed paravirtualized drivers. These are on an ISO

available to the virtual CD-ROM drive of the Virtual Machine. These drivers replace the emulated devices

and provide high-speed transport between Windows and the XenServer product family software.

Note

While a Windows VM will function without them, performance is significantly hampered unless these

drivers are installed. Running Windows VMs without these drivers is

not

supported. Some features,

such as live relocation across physical hosts, will only work with the paravirtual drivers installed

and active.

The Windows paravirtualized drivers ISO can be attached to the VM by using the Install Tools menu in

XenCenter, or by directly inserting the built-in

xs-tools.iso

ISO image to the VM using the CLI. Once the

ISO is attached, double-click on the

xensetup.exe

installer executable and follow the on-screen prompts.

Normally, the Windows paravirtualized drivers are installed by default in the directory

C:\Program Files

\XenSource\Drivers

on the VM.

3.3. Remote Desktop

The graphical console for Windows can be either a standard console via emulated graphics card, or an

RDP connection.

For Windows VMs, there is a Switch to Remote Desktop button on the Console tab. Clicking it disables the

standard graphical console, and switches to using Remote Desktop instead.

The button will be grayed out if you do not have Remote Desktop enabled in the VM, and the paravirtualized

drivers must be installed.

Procedure 3.2. To enable Remote Desktop on a Windows VM

1.

From the Start menu, select Control Panel.

2.

From the Control Panel window, select System.

3.

In the System Properties dialog box, select the Remote tab.

Section	Page
XenServer Virtual Machine Installation Guide	1
Table of Contents	4
Chapter 1. About this document	6
1.1. Overview	6
1.2. How this Guide relates to other documentation	6
Chapter 2. Creating VMs	7
2.1. Overview	7
2.2. Virtual memory and disk size limits	7
2.3. XenServer product family virtual device support	8
2.4. Physical to Virtual Conversion (P2V)	9
2.4.1. General Guidelines for Virtualizing Physical Servers	10
2.5. Cloning an existing VM	11
2.6. Importing an exported VM	11
2.6.1. Exporting a VM	12
2.6.2. Importing a VM	12
Chapter 3. Installing Windows VMs	14
3.1. Making the ISO available to XenServer Hosts	14
3.1.1. Copying ISOs to local storage	15
3.2. Windows paravirtualized drivers	16
3.3. Remote Desktop	16
3.4. Preparing to clone a Windows VM	17
3.5. Release Notes	18
3.5.1. General Windows Issues	18
3.5.2. Windows 2003 Server	18
3.5.3. Windows XP SP2	18
3.5.4. Windows 2000 Server	18
3.5.5. Windows Vista	18
Chapter 4. Installing Linux VMs	19
4.1. Installation of a built-in distribution	20
4.2. Installing Linux from vendor media to a VM	20
4.3. Installing Linux from a network installation server to a VM	22
4.4. Physical-to-Virtual Installation of a Linux VM	23
4.4.1. Guest Installation Network	23
4.5. Installing the Linux guest agent	24
4.6. Preparing to clone a Linux VM	25
4.6.1. Machine Name	25
4.6.2. IP address	25
4.6.3. MAC address	26
4.7. Time handling in Linux VMs	26
4.8. Configuring VNC for VMs	26
4.8.1. Setting up Red Hat-based VMs for VNC	26
4.8.1.1. Determining the location of your VNC configuration file	27
4.8.1.2. Configuring GDM to use VNC	27
4.8.1.3. Firewall settings	28
4.8.1.4. VNC screen resolution	28
4.8.2. Setting up SLES-based VMs for VNC	29
4.8.2.1. Checking for a VNCserver	29
4.8.2.2. Enabling Remote Administration	29
4.8.2.3. Modifying the xinetd configuration	30
4.8.2.4. Firewall settings	30
4.8.2.5. VNC screen resolution	31
4.8.3. Setting up Debian-based VMs for VNC	32
4.8.4. Checking runlevels	32
4.9. Release Notes	32
4.9.1. Debian Sarge 3.1 and Etch 4.0	32
4.9.2. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3	33
4.9.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4	33
4.9.3.1. Preparing a RHEL 4.x guest for P2V	34
4.9.4. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5	34
4.9.5. CentOS 4	35
4.9.6. CentOS 5	35
4.9.7. SUSE Enterprise Linux 9	35
4.9.8. SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 SP1	35
4.9.9. Oracle Enterprise Linux 5	35
Chapter 5. Updating VMs	36
5.1. Updating Windows operating systems	36
5.2. Updating paravirtualized drivers for Windows VMs	36
5.3. Updating Linux kernels and guest utilities	37
Appendix A. Creating ISO images	38
Appendix B. Setting Up a Red Hat Installation Server	39
B.1. Copy installation media	39
B.2. Enable remote access	39
B.2.1. NFS	39
B.2.2. FTP	40
B.2.3. HTTP	40
Appendix C. Troubleshooting VM problems	41
C.1. VM crashes	41
C.1.1. Linux VMs	41
C.1.2. Windows VMs	41
C.2. Troubleshooting boot problems on Linux VMs	42

HP BL680c XenServer Virtual Machine Installation 4.1.0 - Page 16

Windows paravirtualized drivers, 3.3. Remote Desktop, Warning

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