A bit of downtime today

[Patrick]

STH forums and WP site have been up for about 6 months straight. Need to do a quick reboot later this evening to apply some patches. Downtime should be under 10 minutes each.

 

[Patrick]

Both the main site and forums are now done.

For those wondering, wanted to move the cluster from Proxmox VE 2.2 to 3.1. I went the "safe" route and did 2.2 -> 2.3 -> 3.0 -> 3.1 on all four of the nodes.

 

[capn_pineapple]

didn't notice anything. Good job!

 

[Patrick]

Looks like the site needed one more page cache purge. All is well now.

 

[mrkrad]

Why not use ESXi or Hyper-V? Hyper-V 2012 R2 seems to have some really slick features (for free!)

 

[Patrick]

Why not use ESXi or Hyper-V? Hyper-V 2012 R2 seems to have some really slick features (for free!)

Very close to this actually. The good news is that, in theory, I can run Proxmox on two nodes, setup Hyper-V on two nodes, transfer over, then upgrade the other two to Hyper-V.

On the other hand, that is a LOT of work since I already have this working. Will need to check out the new Hyper-V 2012 R2 to see if management is any easier. CentOS and Ubuntu run just fine in Hyper-V so that would be good.

 

[MiniKnight]

Would you actually use Hyper-V 2012 R2 as a front-end web server VM host? Windows servers directly connected to the Internet make me nervous.

I thought you liked the GUI management of Proxmox?

Edit found this: http://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com...scvmm-2012-console-install-fail-on-windows-8/

Good luck trying something like that!

 

[Mike]

Why would you require one of the commercial products? Proxmox does what they do and even better in some areas.

Why would Windows be a problem? It's not like ghettorigging Windows XP IIS servers is still happening, is it? Do you really think that the outdated Vmwarez images are any better at security then a full blown Windows server that was meant for this purpose?

 

[Patrick]

Why would you require one of the commercial products? Proxmox does what they do and even better in some areas.

Why would Windows be a problem? It's not like ghettorigging Windows XP IIS servers is still happening, is it? Do you really think that the outdated Vmwarez images are any better at security then a full blown Windows server that was meant for this purpose?

Mike - a few reasons I am thinking about it:

1. I am more familiar with Hyper-V and ESXi. On my recent thread about the new workstation I built it specifically to have more local Hyper-V capacity.
2. Finding someone to admin Proxmox is tough because it has a smaller install base. Been searching for someone good for over a month now and nothing.

I do agree though. Hyper-V is getting to be fairly mature to the point where I would not be worried about it.

 

[Mike]

One would argue that finding a good Windows admin is even harder.

Make administrating the site a community effort. Would be pretty cool now wo'nit?

 

[Patrick]

One would argue that finding a good Windows admin is even harder.

Make administrating the site a community effort. Would be pretty cool now wo'nit?

http://forums.servethehome.com/site-organization-suggestions/2698-new-sth-admin.html#post24885

Would be cool. The Hyper-V thing, if it worked, would be awesome though. Would simplify quite a few things using SMB 3.0 and such.

 

[TangoWhiskey9]

Would be cool. The Hyper-V thing, if it worked, would be awesome though. Would simplify quite a few things using SMB 3.0 and such.

Here's my breakdown on where you are.

I'd say you are more comfortable with Hyper-V so that makes a lot of sense.
Hyper-V management is really easy with Windows Server 2012 R2 but sucks with Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 if you are trying to do so remotely. You NEED a domain. The hard thing is you kinda want whatever machine you are using to admin the servers to also be on the same domain.
Honestly, MSFT has put a lot of money and effort behind Hyper-V. SMB 3.0, multipath IO, failover is a given. All stuff that is a total pain in Proxmox and VMware ESXi costs more to do with (still)

Here's the concern: you have to do a dump and replace of the current sites into the new architecture AND do an architecture refresh. That is freaking scary.

Here's the other concern: I googled this type of setup and there really is no good guide. You kinda would want these steps:
1. Setup Hyper-V server on 2-4 nodes
2. Setup a domain controller (or two of course since one could go down for HA)
3. Setup remote management for a Windows 8.1 machine
4. Setup SMB 3.0 with cache
5. Setup multipath I/O
6. Router/ network config
7. Install Linux in HA mode
8. Dump current VM to Hyper-V
9. Do any extra DNS stuff you need

That is like a book in itself.

 

[Patrick]

All good points. I am building a Hyper-V test environment now just for this. Did #3 in workgroup mode which is always fun. Took screenshots so may make a guide out of it.

 

[PigLover]

I'm not sure setting up hyper-v and migrating VMs from Proxmox really as hard as you suggest. You've pretty much listed the required steps but many of them are really quite trivial things. E.g., setting up a simple AD domain is 95% automated in 2012R2, etc.

I know a home/lab is not really comparable to a production system - even a small/simple one like Patricks STH host. But I recently migrated from Proxmox to hyper-v and it is quite simple.

Even moving the VM itself is reasonably simple. Just use the QEMU tools to convert the VM disk to VHD, fire it up under Hyper-v and install the Hyper-v integration tools. Even easier with Centos 6.x because the integration tools are installed already and Linux auto configures them at boot.

 

[Patrick]

I'm not sure setting up hyper-v and migrating VMs from Proxmox really as hard as you suggest. You've pretty much listed the required steps but many of them are really quite trivial things. E.g., setting up a simple AD domain is 95% automated in 2012R2, etc.

I know a home/lab is not really comparable to a production system - even a small/simple one like Patricks STH host. But I recently migrated from Proxmox to hyper-v and it is quite simple.

Even moving the VM itself is reasonably simple. Just use the QEMU tools to convert the VM disk to VHD, fire it up under Hyper-v and install the Hyper-v integration tools. Even easier with Centos 6.x because the integration tools are installed already and Linux auto configures them at boot.

That is what I was thinking with qemu-img convert _____ -O vhd or something similar

Did steps 1 and 3. Still figuring out what I would need the AD for versus just using workgroup.

PigLover - any guides for 4, 5 and 7 using Hyper-V Server 2012 R2? Really hard to find information on that one.

I tried using Server Manager but I am getting a WinRM error. Seems to be fixed thanks to: winrm set winrm/config/client @{TrustedHosts="RemoteComputerName"}

 

[MiniKnight]

Seems to be fixed thanks to: winrm set winrm/config/client @{TrustedHosts="RemoteComputerName"}

You should really try an entire cluster config before deciding on this path. My favorite example is you are having this much trouble now. Imagine if you ever decided to buy a MacBook Pro and had to work on the site. Proxmox at least works across platforms.

 

[PigLover]

Patrick,

There really is no 'workgroup' option for running Hyper-v in a cluster. You have to use AD to get all the features turned on. Is not really a heavy list at all to create a simple domain.

As for proxmox - the are just too many downsides. Agree that it is 'free' (sorta) and web-managed. But dealing with the rude and arrogant 'support' team if you dare ask any questions on their support forum is just not worth it. Plus their HA model is based on a partially borked 'voting' database and depends on the use of 'fencing' tools that don't always work right to turn off and turn on you standby servers. Believe me, trying to do anything real with Proxmox is just not worth the hassle...and way more difficult than using Hyper-v or ESXi.

 

[Patrick]

Patrick,

There really is no 'workgroup' option for running Hyper-v in a cluster. You have to use AD to get all the features turned on. Is not really a heavy list at all to create a simple domain.

Point taken. On the plus side, I now have a pretty decent set of instructional notes and screenshots of getting the workgroup version to work. It is a bit harder to setup but I just put the second Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 online.

Guessing I would then have 2x Windows Server 2012 R2 machines (AD + SMB 3.0 file sharing) and 2x Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 machines (compute only VMs)?

 

[nitrobass24]

Unless something has changed I dont think you get all of the features in Hyper-V Server. You would need to run Window Server w/ Hyper-V. Furthermore, my previous setup before i moved to Xen was this exact setup (-SMB3, -multipath).

1. Build your first Windows Server w/ Hyper-v role only, provision your storage using SMB3.
2. Create a single VM 2 cores 2-4GB RAM, and build your domain on the VM.
3. Join the Windows Server w/ Hyper-v to your domain.
4. Join Additional Windows Servers w/ Hyper-v as capacity permits.
5. Configure SMB3 storage for other compute nodes.
6. Build a Windows 8 VM, join to domain, enable RDP and install teamviewer/etc.

 

[Patrick]

Yea already have Server 2012 R2 installing in VMs. Any idea what version I need to pull this off?