Win2008 Server Not Reliable on ProxMox 1.8?

[unleeshop]

We have been running our main Windows 2008 SP1 production file and license server as a ProxMox VM for some time. Mostly I've been impressed with the performance and the ability to move the VM to another Proxmox host when we needed to.

The problem is unreliable booting/restarting of the Windows VM after we do Windows Updates. Earlier this year, after Windows automatically downloaded and installed updates, the VM could not reboot. The VNC console showed the initial booting texts, then the Windows splash screen with the little green crawling line .... then a black screen, and CPU utilization pegged at 100%, forever. We could use the web console to stop the VM, and when we restarted it Windows complained about problems and gave the usual option of "repair" or "normal start". The Repair option does load but since we don't have saved images for it to recover (we back up the VM with snapshots using Proxmox), that didn't get us anywhere. Eventually it did decide to boot normally, but today, after it installed several Windows security updates, the same thing occurred. By using "f8" at the VNC console to get the option for "Safe Mode", and restarting in that mode a couple of times, it eventually booted normally, although before permitting a login, the screen showed that it was reverting all the failed security updates.

Upshot is: all the advantages of having a VM and snapshots to revert to earlier conditions, or the ability to bring up the VM on a backup server, are far less relevant than being able simply to run Windows 2008 and let it do updates when it needs to, without biting my nails that it will refuse to start. I'm not here to gripe: I'm looking for suggestions as to what would improve the reliability of a Win2k8 VM, and if anybody else has had similar experiences. Thanks!

 

[nicolasdiogo]

to clarify - your instability are related to shutdown and restart of the server and not with the running of it?

 

[oban]

Same experience here. Running a windows server 2008 R2 for days without any issue. After applying windows updates, a reboot is required. Doing a normal Windows restart gave me the same VNC console state, that is the initial Windows green progression bar followed by a black screen. It remains in this state forever with a CPU use at 48%. Note: The VNC console black screen occurs before switching to its final resolution.
To get out from this state, I have to stop the VM. Starting the VM again, Windows let me choose between a recover or normal start. The normal start fall in the same black screen again.

Using a previews snapshot let me to recover the VM to its previews state before Windows updates.

It is difficult to know if the VM is dead or not.

 

[tom]

I got some similar behavior with outdated virtio disk drivers. After removing/updating them (was not that trivial) the issues was gone.

But I cannot give a detailed advice what I did, I just remember several reboots and attempts in the device manager.

Do you also use virtio for disk?

 

[oban]

Hi tom,
Yes I do. How do I look for its version ?

#pveversion -v
pve-manager: 1.8-18 (pve-manager/1.8/6070)
running kernel: 2.6.32-4-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.35: 1.8-11
pve-kernel-2.6.32-4-pve: 2.6.32-33
pve-kernel-2.6.35-1-pve: 2.6.35-11
qemu-server: 1.1-30
pve-firmware: 1.0-11
libpve-storage-perl: 1.0-17
vncterm: 0.9-2
vzctl: 3.0.27-1pve1
vzdump: 1.2-13
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.0.11-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 0.14.1-1
ksm-control-daemon: 1.0-6

Note: I do not explain why the "proxmox-ve" listed is the one from the kernel 2.6.35 ... because even if I have both kernel installed I force the 2.6.32 at boot. Any issue with this ?

[update]: the virtio I have installed comes from the drv_virtio-win-1.1.16.iso.

best regards
oban

 

[tom]

if you want to run the 2.6.32, install the virtual package for 2.6.32 - aptitude install proxmox-ve-2.6.32 (but its just not related to this issue).

do you use already the latest virtio from the fedora project? if not try it.
if this does not help, switch from virtio to ide - does this help?

and probably before you change anything inside, go for the latest KVM 0.15 from pvetest.

 

[oban]

Yes I use the last version from Fedora. I use the virtio driver based on the drv_virtio_win_1.1.16.iso.

I remember a similar case few months ago and I did why you suggest, that is switch to IDE but it didn't help in my case.

I will try to update to KVM 0.15,

It is not the main topic of this thread, so, I don't want to extend the discussion here, but I'm surprise to not have this virtual package already installed during the initial host installation with Proxmox 1.8 iso. By default 2.6.32 is installed. Then it is required to run the aptitude to install the kernel 2.6.35. After that the boot loader give the choice to boot from the 2.6.32 or 2.6.35 kernel. I didn't install any specific proxmox-ve package by hand. I assume that if the proxmox-ve 2.6.35 has been installed during the kernel install, the proxmox-ve 2.6.32 should follow the same rule and must be present at initial install from the iso. Correct ?

oban

 

[tom]

the 1.8 ISO installs 2.6.32 kernel and the virtual package for 2.6.32. if you got the 2.6.35, you have installed it later.

 

[dietmar]

... I assume that if the proxmox-ve 2.6.35 has been installed during the kernel install, the proxmox-ve 2.6.32 should follow the same rule and must be present at initial install from the iso. Correct ?

The proxmox-ve-X.Y.Z packease are just virtual packages to help you getting the right packages for a specific kernel. So if you change the kernel you should follow the instructions on:

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_VE_Kernel

 

[oban]

Hi dietmar,
I full agree. I have followed the procedure you are mentioning to add the proxmox-ve 2.6.35. Do you mean that when I move back to the 2.6.32 I have to install the proxmox-ve 2.6.32 again ?
I have tried to run the aptitude install proxmox-ve-2.6.32 and the installer ask me if I want to remove the current proxmox-ve-2.6.35...
I didn't know that. I will care of it.

Thanks
oban

 

[dietmar]

I full agree. I have followed the procedure you are mentioning to add the proxmox-ve 2.6.35. Do you mean that when I move back to the 2.6.32 I have to install the proxmox-ve 2.6.32 again ?

Yes, that is the suggested way. (Althought it is currently only required when you switch back to 2.6.18, which needs a totally other version of kvm).

 

[unleeshop]

to clarify - your instability are related to shutdown and restart of the server and not with the running of it?

That is correct. As far as I know we have not had any problem at all with the normal operation of the server as a VM. Booting (either restarts or "cold" boots from a stop) are the problem. It is not consistent, and when it has happened, it has been correlated with having just installed Microsoft system updates.

 

[unleeshop]

Wow, glad to hear some other knowledgeable discussion about this. Because our University is starting classes Monday I have to leave the server "up"; I cannot be swapping out modules or kernels or packages and testing the results but I will check my versions and follow this discussion. Some time back (year or more) I did have to manually change out a kernel version when my VMs suddenly refused to start, no time to experiment now. Maybe on my backup server. I'll comment that my "guru" who supervises a host of virtual servers on our campus (not using PVE), says they have almost no Windows Server installs, disk I/O issues being a prominent issue. PVE has been awesome for our Linux VMs.

 

[mmenaz]

The latest version of Fedora driver is (strange but true) virtio-win-0.1-mm34.iso
you can find them here:
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/bin/

 

[oban]

Hi mmenaz,
Thanks for the information. I saw this file but didn't try it due to its strange name. I have updated my first VM with this new virtio release and everything seems working. Will see if my issue is fixed.

Thanks
oban