Category Archives: Virtualization

In computing, virtualization refers to the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, including virtual computer hardware platforms, storage devices, and computer network resources.

Google Cloud Platform

Introduction to Google Cloud Platform

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Introduction to Google Cloud Platform – Installing your first Virtual Machine and Project

This is an Introduction to Google Cloud Platform and goes over creating your first project and virtual machine. This walkthrough is for beginners that are just getting started with Google Cloud.

Download GCloud SDK

Allows gcloud commands from command prompt
https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/python/download

Next Steps

Now that we know how to use Google Cloud Platform, go out and build up your first system. I highly recommend starting with an Ubuntu server, since they have the best community support for starters, and install a web server to host a website. I found this incredibly easy, especially compared to AWS or Azure. If you want to see any follow-up topics on Google Cloud Platform, let me know below, and I will work on creating more content explaining it. If you are in business, I highly recommend you look at Google Cloud Platform for a backup server and use a VPN to connect your on-site servers. This works seamlessly and is very affordable for a cloud solution.

Leave any Questions and Comments below and I’ll get back to you. I regularly publish on YouTube, Steemit, and christitus.com so if you’d like to see more videos please like, subscribe, and follow me.

XCP-ng

XCP-ng / XenServer – Your First Virtual Machine Installation

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Creating a Windows 10 VM on XenServer / XCP-ng Walkthrough

This video goes through setting up a Virtual Machine in XenServer / XCP-ng in a lab environment. If you want to experiment with in detail with XenServer, I highly recommend you download XCP-ng from their official website. This is a community-powered version of XenServer with ALL FEATURES ENABLED. XenServer from Citrix has recently started going away from its open-source roots and as a result, has begun locking features behind a paywall.

What do you think about this project? Would you like to see more of these videos?  Leave any Questions and Comments below and I will get back to you. I regularly publish on YouTube, Steemit, and christitus.com so if you’d like to see more videos please like, subscribe, and follow me.

virtualization

Virtualization Introduction

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Virtualization Introduction

This is an introduction to virtualization and when you should be using it. In the follow-up videos, I will go into using the hypervisor, creating VMs and maintenance.

Now that you understand what it is and if you want to start getting your feet wet, please check out my other video to start installing your hypervisor and launching your first virtual machine here.

Leave any Questions and Comments below and I will get back to you. I regularly publish on YouTube, Steemit, and christitus.com so if you’d like to see more videos please like, subscribe, and follow me.

docker images

Commiting Changes to Docker images and containers

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Docker Images Overview

This is a walkthrough of how to commit changes to docker images and containers. You need to do this if you make configuration changes to any docker images. By committing changes to the docker images you can backup and clone them.

Docker is a very powerful tool you can use to isolate applications, therefore, you won’t have them on a single server. However, some docker images don’t save changes to their container when a restart happens. You will notice that when a reboot or unexpected outage happens all your configuration will be gone since the creation of container. The Ubiquiti Unifi Controller docker image is a good example of this.

Here are the following commands to commit those changes to a new image

sudo docker ps -l
Note: This shows all your containers you need to copy Container ID for the one you want to commit changes on.

sudo docker commit CONTAINER_ID_GOES_HERE IMAGENAME:TAG
Example Syntax: sudo docker commit 520b0f024bf6 unifi:latest-06-21-2018
docker-screenshot

Now if you have any issues you can simply create a new container using the image you created above.

Leave any Questions and Comments below and I will get back to you. I regularly publish on YouTube, Steemit, and christitus.com so if you’d like to see more videos please like, subscribe, and follow me.

xenserver

Re-attach LVM after a reinstalling XenServer

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This article describes how to introduce a local Storage repository (SR) on XenServer. The XenServer database has become corrupt or your XenServer does not see the local SR.

Instructions

  • Do a pvscan to get the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) of an existing SR on a local disk. This example uses UUID 39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801:
    pvscan

Output:
PV /dev/sda3 VG VG_XenStorage-39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801 lvm2 [66.87 GB / 57.87 GB free]
Total: 1 [66.87 GB] / in use: 1 [66.87 GB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ]

Note the output above, the VG name of the local drive /dev/sda3 is VG_XenStorage-39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801 . The VG name contains the SR UUID that resides on this storage media. In this case, the UUID is 39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801.

  • Introduce the SR with the following command:
    xe sr-introduce uuid=39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801 type=lvm name-label=”Local storage” content-type=user
    This command sets up database records for the SR named “Local storage”
  • Locate the SCSI ID of the device or partition where the SR data is stored:
    ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/

Output:
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST3500320AS_9QM13WP2 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST3500320AS_9QM13WP2-part1 -> ../../sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM-part2 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jan 15 09:44 scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM-part3 -> ../../sda3

In this case, the SCSI ID of the device /dev/sda3 is scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM-part3.
This is the device name to use in the next command, where a PBD (physical block device – a connector between the XenServer host and the SR) is created.

  • Run the xe host-list command to find out the host UUID for the local host:
    xe host-list

uuid ( RO) : 83f2c775-57fc-457b-9f98-2b9b0a7dbcb5
name-label ( RW): xenserver1
name-description ( RO): Default install of XenServer

  • Create the PBD using the device SCSI ID, host UUID and SR UUID detected above:
    xe pbd-create sr-uuid=39baf126-a535-549f-58d6-feeda55f7801
    device-config:device=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST380815AS_6QZ5Z1AM-part3 host-uuid=83f2c775-57fc-457b-9f98-2b9b0a7dbcb5

Displays after run: aec2c6fc-e1fb-0a27-2437-9862cffe213e

  • Attach the PBD created with xe pbd-plug command:
    xe pbd-plug uuid=aec2c6fc-e1fb-0a27-2437-9862cffe213e

The SR should be connected to the XenServer host and be visible in XenCenter.

Source: Original Article from Citrix (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121896)

xenserver

XenServer 6.5.0 tapdisk experienced an error

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When re-attaching a SR on a fresh VM, I ran into this error. I ran the following from XenServer console to eject all CD drives on that host. I was then able to start the VM with the old image.

xe vm-cd-eject --multiple

If your XenCenter hangs or becomes unresponsive, you can also reset the toolstack from console from a PuTTy session or if XenCenter console is working running the following command:

xe-toolstack-restart

Let me know in the comments below if you have any issues or if you find another solution to your problem.

xenserver

Citrix XenCenter gives “Could not create SSL/TLS Secure Channel” when connecting to server

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This is how you fix the error Could not create SSL/TLS Secure Channel in XenCenter. This error is caused by Windows 10 requiring stronger encryption. This is prevalent on older XenServer installations that cannot be easily upgraded to XenServer 7+.

Here is the process:

  • Putty in using SSH
  • service xapissl stop
  • mv /etc/xensource/xapi-ssl.pem /etc/xensource/xapi-ssl.pem.bak
  • /opt/xensource/libexec/generate_ssl_cert “/etc/xensource/xapi-ssl.pem” ‘10.100.0.40’
  • service xapissl start
  • xe-toolstack-restart

Where you see 10.100.0.40 this is the IP of your XenServer that you are connecting to (not VM ips). This will reissue the cert and you should be able to properly connect. I’ve seen this on Windows 10 Systems since they force the higher level encryption.