RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.8

[pixelplumber]

This is a real head scratcher.

Have others experienced an application inside a guest VM having problems with a version of PVE even though the actual guest OS seems to be running fine? Seems counter intuitive to my understanding of virtualisation, I figure if the guest OS is fine, all applications should be ok.

I have a win7 pro guest OS running a copy of XPUnlimited which is a 3rd party terminal services app.

On pve1.8 with virtio (hdd/net) it works without issues, however when migrated to a new server running pve 2.2 it will not allow more than 1x RDP connection. This is despite all other network functionality working (pings/web/single RDP). Secondary RDP connections begin the login process, but go to a blue screen, hang for a minute and then logs out and closes the RDP window.

Normally I would go to the company for support except that it works (and has worked for over a year) with no problems on pve 1.8.

I've tried:

• removing the virtio drivers and using e1000 (no change)
• using -cpu host in case there were flags not seen on the qemu64
• restored the vm onto both new and old server from the same backup - works in 1.8 not in 2.2

Could it be something to do with the version of qemu-server?? I'm going to try and migrate the original VM back onto 1.8 to see if it starts working again (as did my restored backup).

NEW Server
------------------

# pveversion -v
pve-manager: 2.2-32 (pve-manager/2.2/3089a616)
running kernel: 2.6.32-17-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: 2.2-83
pve-kernel-2.6.32-16-pve: 2.6.32-82
pve-kernel-2.6.32-17-pve: 2.6.32-83
lvm2: 2.02.95-1pve2
clvm: 2.02.95-1pve2
corosync-pve: 1.4.4-1
openais-pve: 1.1.4-2
libqb: 0.10.1-2
redhat-cluster-pve: 3.1.93-2
resource-agents-pve: 3.9.2-3
fence-agents-pve: 3.1.9-1
pve-cluster: 1.0-34
qemu-server: 2.0-71
pve-firmware: 1.0-21
libpve-common-perl: 1.0-41
libpve-access-control: 1.0-25
libpve-storage-perl: 2.0-36
vncterm: 1.0-3
vzctl: 4.0-1pve2
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.1-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 1.3-10
ksm-control-daemon: 1.1-1

OLD Server
-----------------
# pveversion -v
pve-manager: 1.8-18 (pve-manager/1.8/6070)
running kernel: 2.6.32-4-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: 1.8-33
pve-kernel-2.6.32-4-pve: 2.6.32-33
pve-kernel-2.6.24-11-pve: 2.6.24-23
pve-kernel-2.6.24-8-pve: 2.6.24-16
qemu-server: 1.1-30
pve-firmware: 1.0-11
libpve-storage-perl: 1.0-17
vncterm: 0.9-2
vzctl: 3.0.28-1pve1
vzdump: 1.2-14
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.0.11-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 0.14.1-1
ksm-control-daemon: 1.0-6

 

[Bicka]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Hi pixelplumber,

Did you ever get to the bottom of this? I can see you are trying to run terminal services on proxmox.

I'd like to know if its possible to run a terminal server successfully on proxmox.

 

[blackpaw]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

We are running TS 2008R2 on proxmox 3.1 with no issues. Only 4-5 users though.

Sent from my MT27i using Tapatalk

 

[Bicka]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Thanks blackpaw,

Could you please provide detail about your drivers, including storage (IDE, SATA, VirtIO etc) and GPU? I have a very slow screen refresh compared to running baremetal. I have a feeling it is related to the graphics driver that is available to the windows guest in proxmox. I'm running Windows 8.1 32bit (same code as 2012 R2) so it includes several enchancements to do with RDP 8.0 that I haven't enabled RemoteFX etc.
Are you running RDP 8.0?

It may be better if I discuss it directly with you on a PM but I'm not sure how to do it on these forums.

Regards,
Bicka.

 

[blackpaw]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Using all virtio drivers for disk, network and ram. No passthrough GPU and just using the QXL driver for the 2008R2 guest.

Are you running RDP 8.0?

Not sure off the top of my head, just whatever is the latest for 2008R2 which I think is 7.0

8.1/2012R2 don't do terribly well under KVM - lack of PV drivers doesn't help. I'm sure tht will change soon though.

I vaguely remember that you can set the guest to use the VMWare VGA Hardware and install the vmWare guest drivers for better performance.

 

[Bicka]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Using all virtio drivers for disk, network and ram. No passthrough GPU and just using the QXL driver for the 2008R2 guest..

Thanks Mate, That is really helpful. I finally figured out what was causing most of my lag. Believe it or not, the UAC was preventing my application from loading properly and it can't be turned off with the slider, I had to edit the Registry key.
[FONT=&quot]HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

In the right pane look forEnableLUAandmodify its value to 0. Close regedit.[/FONT]

The other MAJOR fail on my part was the core count. I was assigning 8 cores to the VM (when I only have 4C8T) After I changed it to 4C still QEMU64 the performance was greatly improved. It is still not as good as baremetal, however I am running IDE qcow2 located on 'local' directory on the SSD, otherwise I can't do snapshot backups?? <-- Maybe this is wrong
I have LVM storage sliced off both the hard drives and have them configured in RAID1 via Windows; probably not a great idea, but i'm still working on my storage config and backup plan. I am then backing up my "C:\" to the backup RAID1 drive via Windows File History.

 

[mir]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

If you change IDE to virtio then you can improve performance by another 50%.

 

[blackpaw]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Poxy UAC setting ... give us endless hassles glad you worked it out.

I have a 2012R2 server where I can't get ide disk converted to virtio - it bluescreens half way through startup. I have a second attached disk that works with the virtio driver, so I do have them loaded. Unforunately IO is a issue for this server so I might have to port it to 2008R2. PITA.

 

[mir]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

If IO is an issue then your only option is virtio. A "cheap" solution is to plugin a hardware raid controller an make a raid10 of at least 4 SAS disk or SSD and deploy using qcow2 on the host to be able to make shapshots.

 

[blackpaw]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

Our storage is a NAS with raid 10, nfs over dual go. It's quite flexible and easy.

Sent from my MT27i using Tapatalk

 

[mir]

Re: RDP/xpunlimited terminal services application does not work on pve2.2 works on 1.

At my work we also have SAN (2 EMC nx5300). They perform horribly unless LUN's are attached directly but this breaks our virtualizing strategy which demands virtual disks as well for maximum availability and stability.