BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer

Dashrender

BTW: last night I found there IS a way in XenCenter to force it to check for updates and then force an install.

From the ISO on their webpage, there are probably 25-30 updates needed to my fresh install.

Strangely, most of them needed a reboot which I thought was weird.

sooooo.... how did you force it?

BRRABill

@Dashrender said:

sooooo.... how did you force it?

First, if you want it to check for new version of XenServer, you have to go into TOOLS and OPTIONS and UPDATES and select that box.

To check for and install updates, go to the Notifications tab. Then go to UPDATES. Then click on REFRESH. It will give you a list of the updates, and an option to DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL.

I've only been able to install them one at a time.

QUESTION:
It is generally recommended to install every update they offer?

coliver

@BRRABill said:

@Dashrender said:

sooooo.... how did you force it?

First, if you want it to check for new version of XenServer, you have to go into TOOLS and OPTIONS and UPDATES and select that box.

To check for and install updates, go to the Notifications tab. Then go to UPDATES. Then click on REFRESH. It will give you a list of the updates, and an option to DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL.

I've only been able to install them one at a time.

QUESTION:
It is generally recommended to install every update they offer?

Yes. As is the case in 95% of instances.

Dashrender

I thought the updates were cumulative?

OK I just looked, the answer is - sorta, but not exactly.

BRRABill

I was really surprised at

a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebooting

I thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.

coliver

@BRRABill said:

I was really surprised at

a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebooting

I thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.

Rebooting is generally a good idea regardless. That being said I haven't had to reboot XenServer because of an update in a long time. Although I am running a very out of date version.

DustinB3403

@BRRABill said:

I was really surprised at

a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebooting

I thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.

Rebooting for security updates has never been a railing point for any sys admin.

A lot of updates don't require the host to be reboot, think of Debian and CentOS. You can patch on the fly.

BRRABill

In XenServer:

When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?

For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.

And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?

coliver

@BRRABill said:

In XenServer:

When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?

For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.

And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?

Correct, the size of the virtual disk in this instance is the max size the disk can grow.

Dashrender

@BRRABill said:

In XenServer:

When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?

For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.

And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?

that depends on the option you picked earlier.

Remember you started your datastore over because Scott suggested that you pick thin provisioning.

Unlike Windows, it's all or nothing so it appears on XS. All VMs are thin provisioned on a disk, or none.

So in this case you don't need to be asked. The expectation is you know the setting of your data store, and that setting will be applied.

BRRABill

Well the BMR test actually went pretty well. Up until boot time, that is.

I am getting this error:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from selected boot disk."

Hoping I just need to edit a file somewhere...

Dashrender

@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day.

BRRABill

@Dashrender said:

@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day.

What chu talkin bout Willis?

I've found almost every BMR I've ever done has issues.

I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.

Dashrender

@BRRABill said:

@Dashrender said:

@BRRABill
Or you could have an out of order drive set like Scott did the other day.

What chu talkin bout Willis?

I've found almost every BMR I've ever done has issues.

I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.

I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.

I use Appassure as my backup product.

To do a bare metal restore I have to options: PXE boot or boot from CD/iso.

Then pull the backups down...sometimes the restore process will allow me to provide storage drivers which it will then inject into the new VM. Otherwise I have to boot from the install media and do a repair and provide the storage drivers.

Additionally, I've had recoveries where the system didn't set the boot disk to active so the system would even try to boot.

JaredBusch

@Dashrender said:

To do a bare metal restore I have to options: PXE boot or boot from CD/iso.

PXE Boot has nothing to do with it directly. it simply a remote ISO instead of CD/DVD/USB plugged in directly.

JaredBusch

@Dashrender said:

I don't know what a Datto device is, or the shadowprotect (is that a product?) is.

Datto is a NAS and ShadowProtect is a software.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I was really surprised at

a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebooting

I thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.

Not when updating the hypervisor. Not sure if there is any hypervisor yet that can be updated without restarting. Is there any product like that out? If there is any, seems like it would be VMware and I don't think that they do this yet.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said:

@BRRABill said:

I was really surprised at

a--how many there were and
b--that most of them needed rebooting

I thought that was one of the things non-Windows admins always railed about, how you always have to reboot with Windows updates and not so much with non-Windows systems.

Rebooting for security updates has never been a railing point for any sys admin.

A lot of updates don't require the host to be reboot, think of Debian and CentOS. You can patch on the fly.

It is, but traditionally from the AIX world. Big Iron systems rarely reboot for updates even going back decades.

Linux does not need to reboot even for kernel updates but most of us don't configure it that way, rebooting is a normal part of systems administration and working hard to never have to do it has diminishing returns. but Linux has offered on the fly kernel replacement for a while now.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

In XenServer:

When you select a size for a virtual disk, is that the max size it can grow to, or the actual size it is taking up?

For example, with Hyper-V, with a dynamic disk, if you say the size is 40GB, it appears as 40GB to the OS on the VM, but only takes up as much space as there is data on the host hard drive.

And since I picked "thin provisioning" in setup, ALL virtual disks will be dynamic, correct?

Dynamic is the wrong term. Thin Provisioned is the real one. Dynamic is a Microsoft only term for thin provisioned. Thin Provisioned is the name of the technology across the board, Dynamic is a term for the use of Microsoft's LVM technology that allows for thin provisioning. So no, using this won't install a Windows LVM, but it will be thin provisioned

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

I'm using the Datto device, and almost always have to use the ShadowProtect Recovery ISO.

Isn't that how it is supposed to be restored? When I look at their vendor's guide that's what it says to do.