Category: Hyper-V (Page 1 of 2)

Hyper-V integration services, are a bundled set of software which, when installed in the virtual machine improves integration between the host server and the virtual machine. Integration services (often called integration components), are services that allow the virtual machine to communicate with the Hyper-V host. Hyper-V Integration Services is a suite of utilities in Microsoft Hyper-V, designed to enhance the performance of a virtual machine’s guest operating system.

In short and general, the integration services are a set of drivers so that the virtual machine can make use of the synthetic devices provisioned to the VM by Hyper-V.

Hyper-V Integration Services optimizes the drivers of the virtual environments to provide end users with the best possible user experience. The suite improves virtual machine management by replacing generic operating system driver files for the mouse, keyboard, video, network and SCSI controller components. It also synchronizes time between the guests and host operating systems and can provide file interoperability and a heartbeat.

Below is the list of Integration Services Version numbers

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2012 R2

The files used by Hyper-V VM are as below: In short, to explain:

• .XML : This file  contain VM configuration details
• .VHD and .VHDX: These files are virtual disks that hold the current virtual disk data, including partitions and file systems.
• .BIN : This file contains the memory of a virtual machine or snapshot that is in a saved state
• .VSV: This file contains VM’s saved state.
• .AVHD and .AVHDX: These files are differencing virtual disks, commonly used for snapshots and Hyper-V checkpoints

The BIN file created in the virtual machine folder of the virtual machine is equal to the size of the memory of the virtual machine and is a placeholder to save the virtual machine state in the event that the Hyper-V host shut down.

The BIN file contains the memory of a VM and is located inside the GUID folder. If the VM in powered off state, there will be no BIN file present. This file is the equal to the size of the VM’s memory provisioning in Hyper-V Manger.

In Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 – starting a virtual machine would result in Hyper-V creating a .BIN file which matched the size of the memory assigned to the virtual machine.  Microsoft did this to ensure that we always had enough disk space available to create a saved state (which is particularly critical if the physical computer is shutting down – and the virtual machine is configure to save state when the physical computer shuts down).

The BIN file is simply idle while the virtual machine is powered on; it is pre-allocated so that its space is guaranteed to be available if needed and for quicker response to a save action. However – many people did not like to see their disk space being “wasted” like this.., as BIN file is idle during running state.

To address this, since Windows “2012” Microsoft made a simple change: Hyper-V only pre-create the .BIN file if you choose “Save the virtual machine state” as the Automatic Stop Action for the virtual machine.  If you choose “Turn off the virtual machine or Shut down the guest operating system”, BIN file will not create with equal size of RAM.

It is still possible to save the state manually as long as there is enough room for the file. Above Automatic Stop Action setting in only applicable when Physical computer shutdown.

By default, all virtual machines have an Automatic Stop Action of Save, which means the state of the virtual machine saved to disk. However, the best practice is once Integration Services are enabled the Automatic Stop Action should be changed to “Shut down the guest operating system”, which performs a clean shutdown and no longer needs the BIN file to save the memory content to.

 Considerations:

• Keeping BIN file is not recommended in a cluster environment as VM’s were configured in High Availability, in case of Physical computer shutdown, VM will failover to another anode hence there is no advantage of keeping BIN file.
• Consider choosing BIN file if Hyper-v Servers are not in cluster (standalone) and no constraints with storage space.
• VM move into saved state only when Hyper-v Host is gracefully shutdown and VM will not move to save state in case Hyper-v host is unexpected shutdown/restart.
• Microsoft do not recommends keeping VM in saved state for the applications like Domain Controllers, Database, etc. Hence, change Automatic Stop Action to “Shut down” from “Save state” as per MS recommendations

 Steps to save storage space by removing BIN File

• VM need to be powered off
• Go to VM Settings ->Automatic Stop Action -> Change the Option from “Save the virtual Machine state” to “Shut down the guest operating system”
• Power on VM
• Execute similar steps for each VM4

Issue:

In one of our customer infra, for one of the VM  ,snapshot grown to 1.9 TB size and it was created by one of the engineer as part of IS upgradation but forgot to delete.

Environment

• Hyper-v : 2012R2 cluster (4 Nodes)
• 2 Volumes (Volume1 – 7 TB (Free space 1.18 TB), Volume2 -7 TB (980 GB free space) )
• VM Role: Standalone critical VM where MS SQL(2008R2) databases are hosted and the size of all databases(100) is 1.3 TB.

Challenges:

• VM level backups are not existed due to backup license issue , however regular database backup is happening with backup tool . But, as on  date SQL & backup team not tested restoration.
• Expected additional free space from storage as snapshot deletion activity requires equivalent VHD free space -> Due to storage credentials issue, storage team unable to provide any support.

Due to above 2 challenges, planned below options and completed as part of prerequisites

• Removed all unwanted files from Volume2 and made the free space of 1.6 TB in Volume2 so that while snapshot deletion(merging) it should not have space issue
• Built new VM(SQL Server) and do database restoration to new SQL server -> This test is to estimate the restoration time and check database consistency

Implementation plan:

Prerequisites

• As there is no VM level backup, backup team need to take FULL database backup & differential backup post downtime
• Shutdown VM
• Move CSV’s Volume 1 & 2 to the Hyper-v Server where VM hosted -> To provide better I/O
• Make sure only one VM   is hosted on Hyper-v Server -> To provide better performance and we have sufficient resource to have only one VM

Implementation Plan:

• Go To Hyper-V Manager -> Select VM -> Right Click ->Delete Snapshot 

Note: If Merge process taking more than expected, we cannot can cancel in between the merge process as there are lot of chance corruption

Roll Back Plan:

• Backup team need to restore SQL databases directly to new VM which was prepared as Standby
• Change the Hostname & IP to production
• SQL team need to change the hostname at SQL Instance level
• Application team need to check the connectivity

Issue:

In a 5 node Hyper-v 2012R2 cluster,  all of sudden VM backups are failing on only one node(HOST2) i.e., backup team unable to take backup if any VM hosted on HOST2.

Observation:

• When backup team is firing VM level backup on the HOST2, Backup is getting terminated with the VSS snapshot error..
• If VM’s migrated to other node then backup is getting success for the same VM
• Observed issue not specific to VM or any cluster shared volume -> Issue is occurring only if VM’s hosted on HOST2

Troubleshooting:

• As issue specific to HOST2, tested VM backup with windows native backup tool -> Unable to take backup , terminating while creating VSS snapshot.
• Created new VM on local D drive -> Tested with Windows backup tool -> Backup is getting success with windows backup tool if VM hosted on local drive, VM backup failing only if it is on Cluster shared storage
• As issue specific to one server & CSV writer on HOST2 -> Started troubleshooting from the side of CSV writer
• Done deep level analysis of event logs -> which indicates towards CSV writer unregistered -> Check below screenshot
• Run the command “vssadmin list providers” on HOST2 and compared with other servers ->  it has been observed that  provider “Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy Provider”  is missing from HOST2 ->Screenshot attached
• As CSV provider is missing on problematic HOST2 -> Fixed issue by exporting CLSID provider from working server and imported to HOST2 ->Check below screenshot
• Post import , ran the “vssadmin list providers” -> Now provider list is same as working servers
• Backup is working fine post fixing all..

Error Screenshots

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provides the ability to create a point in time image (shadow copy) that can be used to perform backups. In our environment, backup of VM failed immediately which was hosted on HOSt2 node, once it shows as “Snapshot Processing”. This means, snapshot operation is not happening. Provider ID(400a2ff4-5eb1-44b0-8a05-1fcac0bcf9ff) which is reflecting in Event viewer logs is related to MS CSV Shadow Copy Provider, which is not existing in registry editor as it might have unregistered.

Working Server(HOST3)

Not Working(HOST2) ->CLSID is missing

Final Screenshot

In one of my customer infra, we have 5 nodes in Hyper-v 2012R2 cluster. Among these 5 nodes , always Node1 changing to pause mode automatically for every 30 mins..

Issue:

Node1 is going to Pause State(With DO NOT FAIL ROLES BACK)  i.e., Node going to pause state without moving VM’s.

Observation:

• Issue is getting resolve only after stopping of SCVMM agent service on BHHV-A01.
• There was a recent migration happened(approx. 2 months) from Hyper-v 2012 to 2012 R2 and SCVMM 2012 to 2012R2
• No schedule tasks were configured

In ideal scenario, Hyper-v will be go in pause mode only if administrator keep in maintenance mode or SCVMM will keep node in pause mode if it  is configured with  Dynamic optimization or PRO in SCVMM -> But, these settings are not configured in SCVMM

Issue looks very typically as only one node is having an impact and issue resolving if we stop SCVMM agent on Node1

I know that SCVMM is cluprit as issue resolving post stopping of SCVMM agent service -> I have asked customer to reinstall SCVMM agent on Node1 but he is not convinced.

Started searching SCVMM known issues in forums and found the below resolution

Solution:

It has been observed that, SCVMM was installed with RTM version in and there is a known  pause issue listed in Update Rollup 5.

Latest Rollup is Update Rollup 10 and below issue fixed in Rollup 5

Steps to add Pass-through Disk in Highly Available VM –  2012R2

• Shutdown VM if it is powered on (Best Practice)
• Make Sure Disk is online at HOST level and note down Disk Number
• Go to Failover Console -> Add Disk to cluster ->After adding it will be placed in “Available Storage” ->Note the Disk number in console for later verification
• Check whether Disk owner in failover console is displaying current working Server or not , else you need to proceed all steps by logging to the disk owner server.
• In Failover Console ->Under Disk’s  section -> Right Click Disk ->  Assign to VM Role-> Select the VM which for which you want to assign.
• After adding the disk to Failover Cluster, assign it to the VM role and ensure that the disk is online on HOST. If it is offline when you perform the remaining steps, the disk will be Read-Only in the VM with no way to fix it but to start over
• In Failover ->Roles -> Go to VM -> Check under Resources Section -> Under Virtual Machine-> “Virtual Machine Configuration”  resource should online
• In failover Console -> Go to VM Settings ->Add virtual SCIS adapter -> Pass Through Disk 4
• Start VM ->Check Disk is accessible or not
• Test Live Migration  

In 2008 or 2008 R2

DISK should be offline at HOST else it will go in READ-ONLY MODE  -> Blogs confirmed the same and I too seen the same issues

A new disk must be brought Online and Initialized before it can be used. This process writes a disk signature to the disk so cluster can use it. Once the disk has been initialized, it can be placed Offline again. No partitioning is required as that will be accomplished inside the virtual machine

Difference between adding pass-through disk in 2008 & 2012 is -> In 2008, Disk should be initialized and make offline whereas in 2012 it should be online throughout  the process

References

Issue

• Unable to add Pass-through Disk in failover console to make Virtual Machine’s(2 VM’s) High Available with Pass-Through Disk.
• Multiple VM’s had pass-through disk’s and no issue with any other.
• Issue occurred  after one of my team member  removed pass-through disk post VM shutdown
• Able to add pass-through disk without adding in to HA

Initial Troubleshooting

• One of my team member removed pass-through disk and shutdown as part of planned maintenance activity – Post VM start , Disk went into Read-Only mode in guest O.S.
  
• Due to less time,  without VM shutdown  I  tried to remove pass-through disk from VM ->Disk changing to Read-Only Mode
• As disk changing to read-only mode, assumed that disk need to keep in offline at Host level ->Therefore, I had only option to change Disk to Turn-on Maintenance mode in failover console
• In Failover console-> Kept Disk into Maintenance Mode -> Added pass-through disk to VM  in Failover Console -> Worked fine, Disk is in normal mode in Guest O.S.

Keeping the Disk into maintenance will not impact any functionality. Enabling of this mode will just disables few Disk checks like File/Device System Check’s , Is Alive, Look Alive etc. which performed by cluster service

Maintenance mode will remain on until one of the following occurs:

• You turn it off.
• The node on which the resource is running restarts or loses communication with other nodes (which causes failover of all resources on that node).

I have taken downtime as I need to Turnoff Disk Maintenance and resolve issue permanently

Next Troubleshooting:

• Removed VM & Disk  from High Availability and Re-added to Failover Console -> No Luck
• Moved VM to different Host server’s and tested the same steps to isolate issue from Host level ->No Luck
• Created Test VM and executed similar to isolate issue from VM level ->No Luck
• Tested by assigning Cluster disk’s with different servers to isolate issue from Disk ownership -> No luck
• Tried Pass-through Disk by keeping in Disk Maintenance mode ( Previous state) -> No Luck
• Removed VM & Disk from HA and added only in Hyper-v Manager -> It is working without High Availability 
  

Next Observations:

• Before adding to cluster , when making DISK online -> Disk automatically coming with drive letter by appearing in windows Explorer -> Drive letter appearing as pass-through disk is not new(fresh), it is already using in production with drive letter so directly mounting.
• When adding Cluster Disk in Failover console (let’s say  in HOST1) -> Disk ownership changing to HOST2 after adding to cluster -> This is the main difference which we made with current and  other VM’s  
• Received Error while adding Pass -through Disk to VM  in Failover Console -> Error “An error occurred while updating the virtual machine configuration settings, Error code:0x8007100c, Not Supported”

Involved Microsoft support to check this typical issue, below are root cause & solution for the subjected issue

• The UI(Failover Console) was trying to check the permission due to which we received an error on the disk which we are presenting as pass through as they are presented from SAN.
• When we add the disk as pass through to the VM it gets added with the MPIO path of the disk. Due to which when we add it from the failover cluster manager to the VM it fails to update that path on the VM configuration file as it needs certain permissions, which it cannot see as we cannot add permission on the path \\?\mpio#disk&ven_dgc&prod_raid_5&rev_0532#1&7f6ac24}

Error:

‘Virtual Machine “DBL’ failed to start.

‘DBL’ failed to start. (Virtual machine ID XXXXXXXXXX)

‘DBL’ Synthetic SCSI Controller (Instance ID XXXXXXX): Failed to Power on with Error ‘General access denied error’ (0x80070005). (Virtual machine ID XXXXXXX)

‘DBL’: Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service Account does not have permission to open attachment ‘\\?\mpio#disk&ven_dgc&prod_raid_5&rev_0532#1&}’. Error: ‘General access denied error’ (0x80070005). (Virtual machine ID XXXXXXX)

The highlighted is the path of the disk on which we cannot add the permission.

To force that path to get updated on the VM configuration file we have to run the PowerShell command.

update-clustervirtualmachineconfiguration -vmid XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX

Above command updated the path succesfully in VM configuration, VM booted successfully

Error Screenshots

References:

How to add a Pass-through disk to a Highly Available Virtual Machine running on a Windows Server 2012 R2 Failover Cluster

Read-only pass-through disk after you add the disk to a highly available VM in a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 failover cluster

I have encountered below scenarios few months back  and issue addressed by following below approach

1. VM appearing in Failover console and disappeared in Hyper-v Manager after unexpected reboot of Host server, it failed over and unregistered. -> Unable to find VM on any host in Hyper-v Manager
2. After applying pass-through disk in failover console, it given access denied error but I started the VM to check -> VM tried to start in all nodes(16) and failed ->Post that, unable to start VM & open VM settings ->Unable to find VM on any Host in Hyper-v Manager

Troubleshooting

• Restarted VMM service – No luck – Had a thought of reregistering with import option as event id said failed to unregister.
• Imported With registration option From Hyper-v Manager – VM registered successfully

And for the 2^nd case -> Registered  VM with Mklink command

• Hyper-V operates using a list of symbolic links in a specific directory:  C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines
• Each of these are links to the actual VM configuration files in their own respective subdirectories – whether stored locally or on shared storage, the link doesn’t change in its nature.
• First you need to identify the GUID of the specific VM. 
• As an example will use the LitwareSpeech VM, located at D:\VMs\LitwareSpeech.  In the “D:\VMs\LitwareSpeech\Virtual Machines” path is the configuration file for this VM, named “D546B942-76AF-4C3B-97C6-9EE74828BC91.XML”

Using the VM GUID that you determined above in Step 1, run the following command:

Syntax:   mklink <GUID>.XML <VMConfigPath.XML> or in our example

mklink D546B942-76AF-4C3B-97C6-9EE74828BC91.xml “D:\VMs\LitwareSpeech\Virtual Machines\D546B942-76AF-4C3B-97C6-9EE74828BC91.xml”

Above command restores the reference to your VM in Hyper-V Manager.

Ideally, when you create a VM Hyper-V creates a security entry (ACE) on this symbolic link for the SID of the worker process for the VM.  Unfortunately, this ACE isn’t re-created when you recreate the symbolic link using mklink as detailed above.

If you try to start your re-registered VM at this point, you may receive permission issue

To address this issue, follow these steps:

Using this GUID, run the following command to provide permissions

Syntax:  icacls “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines\<GUID>.xml” /grant “NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\<GUID>“:(F) /L

icacls “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V\Virtual Machines\D546B942-76AF-4C3B-97C6-9EE74828BC91.xml” /grant “NT VIRTUAL MACHINE\D546B942-76AF-4C3B-97C6-9EE74828BC91”:(F) /L

Above command regenerates the necessary ACE on the symbolic link using the Service SID of the VM, rather than on the configuration file itself, replicating the initial state of the symbolic link.

Once this command has been run successfully, you should be able to start your VM without further issues.

If above command steps does not work, you can try by stopping Hyper-v Virtual Machine Management Service

• In few scenarios, we may need to unregister
• Delete the file symbolic link, will just deletes link and unregister from Hyper-v Manager. The VM and its configuration will be kept in your HDD
• You can follow the above  steps to register VM

Error Screenshots

You may not know about brownouts, blackouts and dirty pages in Hyper-V Live Migrations, but they are useful for monitoring virtual machine live migration

Hyper-V Live Migration is undoubtedly the most sought-after feature of Hyper-V because of its ability to move virtual machines (VMs) between clustered hosts without noticeable service interruption. But in fact, Live Migration can cause brief disruptions in service that end users may not notice.

As an admin, you should understand some lesser-known Hyper-V Live Migration terms that help monitor and troubleshoot service interruption.

Hyper-V event logs contain information about live migration disruptions that can briefly affect VMs. For every VM live migration, these logs report three events: a brownout event, a blackout and dirty-pages event, and a summary of the live-migration process. Understanding these terms also helps you troubleshoot live migrations that take too long and prevent administrative tasks

You’ll find the Live Migration logs in the Application and Services Log -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Hyper-V-Worker

These Hyper-V Live Migration terms are numbered as follows:

A Live Migration brownout event 

A Hyper-V-Worker event log lists the brownout stage first. In the context of virtualization, a brownout is defined as the amount of time it takes to complete the memory-transfer portion of Hyper-V Live Migration. And the term brownout is a good metaphor for this event, because a VM is not affected completely (as the term blackout suggests). The VM is still responsive, but you can’t perform configuration changes or other administrative functions during this stage of the live migration

Above figure indicates that the brownout took 19.43 seconds. This time depends on the size of active RAM the VM uses and the speed of the Live Migration transport network. During this time, the VM is completely responsive as the memory pages move to the destination node. This stage of live migration gets most of a VM’s state over to another node, but not quite all. Since the VM is responsive, users most likely never know that a migration to another node is in process. But VM response may get delayed. You can monitor this delay by constantly pinging the VM with the command ping SERVERNAME –t. You’ll notice brief periods of longer response times, without total disruption of service

Live Migration blackout and dirty-pages event

The final stage in Hyper-V Live Migration is when a VM fully migrates to the destination node of the cluster. This process is called the blackout stage, where, to finally move a VM and all its memory, there is a brief pause in service. During the brownout stage, the host attempts to move all active memory to the destination node. But server memory isn’t completely emptied until this final process, where data is moved to the destination node. A final snapshot provides a last file representation of the remaining memory, which is known as dirty pages. When dirty pages are migrated to the destination node, the blackout occurs.

The blackout period is by no means comparable to the longer saved state in Hyper-V’s former Quick Migration feature, because Live Migration usually moves a very small amount of data during this final stage. But a slight disruption will occur, usually about one to two seconds, or one dropped ping. Unlike during the brownout stage, a VM is not responsive. The event log indicates how long the blackout period was and how many dirty pages were moved during the migration’s final stage (see below Figure)

Note that during a live migration for servers with a higher transaction workload, longer blackout times and a greater number of dirty pages occur.

These two Hyper-V Live Migration terms are important, because the blackout and dirty-pages event are troubleshooting tools. The log tells you for how long a VM was unavailable, which is useful information when a live migration takes longer than expected or when there is a noticeable disruption in service

Live Migration summary event

The final event, 22507, gives a nice summary of the duration of the live migration process

Note: Above article written based on Hyper-v 2008 r2 and it is applicable to later version too..

Immediate Observations:

• Only few Virtual machines went to paused state and observed all VM’s are coming from single volume let’s say Volume 1
• Volume1 is having 30 % free space , checked with storage team whether the LUN is thick or thin as sometimes LUN may be exhausted if they allocated as thin. It is a thick LUN and no issues observed from storage
• Tried to resume the VM, after sometime VM moving to pause state
• Tried to move the CSV disk from one node to another – No Luck
• Observed that there is no single recommended hotfix installed on any node in a cluster but all nodes are up to date with all critical patches

Resolution

• Based on above findings, assumed that there is some known issues would be there as  error is misleading us to  DISK’s are running out of space though 30% free space available. 
• As there was no single recommended hotfix  installed in cluster , initially installed Hype-v 2012 hotfixes on one node and taken restart.
• Move the Victim volume to the recently restarted node. – No issues  observed
• Post keeping an observation, installed all recommended hotfixes

Finally, I am unsure which hotfix resolved exactly but I have seen below forums where these issues addressed in KB2791729 but it is a private hotfix