Openstack Windows 7 Image Download

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Image resources Download pre-built images for OpenStack. You can run a number of different Linux distributions and operating systems on top of your RDO cloud. This is a collection of various OpenStack-ready images that you can use: Fedora cloud images; RHEL 7 image (requires RHEL subscription) RHEL 6 image (requires RHEL subscription) CentOS 7. Microsoft Windows: If you must use Windows, you can download the OpenStack Windows Server 2012 Standard Evaluation image from Cloudbase Solutions. You can find a more exhaustive list of OpenStack images, including CentOS, Fedora, Debian, and OpenSUSE, in the OpenStack documentation.

During the past few weeks I found myself doing lots of work withWindows VMs. I finally started reading-up on the use of snapshots andtook the time to figure out how to install the virtual storage driverson creation of a new Windows VM.

This article is divided into two parts. In part one we will:

  • Discuss the steps involved in building a new Windows 7 VM,
  • Use a QCOW2 format image so that we can save disk space and make use of snapshots with our VM,
  • Get the Redhat Virtual I/O drivers installed during the WindowsInstallation process so that we can take advantage of the performanceimprovements that they offer,
  • Install the Redhat Spice Video and other Guest Tools so that,among other things, our Desktop Clipboard will interface properly withour VM clipboard,
  • And we'll perform some important additional customizations to improve the performance and reliability of our Windows 7 VM.

To reduce the size of this article I put all the information aboutQEMU snapshots into Part Two, which you can find here:

KVM-QEMU, QCOW2, QEMU-IMG and Snapshots
http://azertech.net/content/kvm-qemu-qcow2-qemu-img-and-snapshots

In part Two we will:

  • Take snapshots of the VM at various stages of developmentso that we can go back, for example, to Internet Explorer 9, 10 or 11- or at any point where we saved a snapshot of the VM image.
  • Make a second VM, in only a few seconds, which will be based onthe first VM.
  • Merge the the second VM image file with the Backing Imagefile to create a single file that doesn't waste disk space onunused snapshots.

The steps described here are very specific to KVM-QEMU onLinux. The snapshot functions are not yet available in theVirt-Manager GUI so we will execute some commands in a shell. AlthoughI've been using Windows 7 lately I'm guessing that other versions ofWindows will likely be similar.

I did try to include some conceptual notes along with theinstructions. As always I look forward to hearing from you. If youhave any questions or comments please use the contact form that youcan find in the About menu on this site.

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Let's get started.

New features in KVM-QEMU, VirtIO & Virt-Manager

KVM has been working fine for years so I never really needed tolook at it. Consequently I had no idea, until recently, about thegreat work the QEMU people have been doing in the area ofsnapshots. It turns out that QEMU has supported, for some time now,snapshots and Backing Images through the QEMU-IMG tool.

Some other improvements include:

  • Previously missing features such as USB support. You can nowconnect your VM to your USB devices and the glue is getting betterevery year.
  • Redhat now distributes a Spice Video support package for Windows VMs.Not only does it install support for your SpiceVideo - you also get clipboard support to allow cutting and pastingbetween your VM and your desktop.

There are probably many more features hiding under the hood. Theymay not be obvious but we can see the VMs running smoothly.

Downloading Drivers

Before you begin you will need to collect some Redhat Virtual I/Oand Spice Video packages:

  • The Spice Video Guest Tools are in the Guest section of theSpice-Space Download page (currently about half-way down the page.)

    The download page is here:
    http://www.spice-space.org/download.html

    The files are available in this folder:
    http://www.spice-space.org/download/windows/spice-guest-tools/

  • When creating a new VM it is possible to load the Redhat VirtualDisk I/O drivers into Windows to speed things up. The easiestway to do this is to add a second CDROM device to your VM and load theRedhat Virtual I/O drivers, as an ISO file, through thatdevice. Redhat has an ISO file available for this purpose on theirVirt-Manager download page:

    Information about the latest Virtual I/O drivers from Redhat isavailable on the www.linux-kvm.com site; see this article:
    http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/latest-windows-virtio-drivers

    The files are available in this folder
    http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/bin/

There are plenty of other packages you might need for your VMs suchas 7-zip, git-bash, bacula, etc. No doubt you've already collectedmany of them somewhere convenient. Of course you will also need your Windowsinstallation DVD and your product key.

Creating a new VM

At the time of this writing there is a minor bug in Virt-Manager onUbuntu 13.10. If you follow the normal procedure for creating a newVM, customizing it as we need here, the launch of the new VM failswith an error message about the KVM-QEMU binary not being found.Hopefully, by the time you read this, the bug will be fixed.

As it happens, though, the work-around for the bug is simple andeasy: We will create a simple default VM, stop the installation justafter it begins, then customize the VM settings before continuing witha normal installation.

Here are the steps:

The first step is to click the New VM button, under the File menu, at the top-left cornerof the Virt-Manager window

Browse to your installation DVD and select your OS Type/Version. Click Forward to continue.

(Throughout this document you will want to scroll down the page toget from one image to the next. Note that the images should belightbox enabled. You should be able to click on them to pop them outat full size if you need to see some detail.)

Next: Virt-Manager wants to know how much RAM and how many CPU cores to allocate to the VM. In practice Windows 7 will only use the first two cores. The amount of RAM that you allocate will depend on your plans for this VM - but and how many CPUs to use

Here Virt-Manager needs to know about the disk image we will be using for our new VM.

Once again: At the time of this writing there is a bug inVirt-Manager that will appear in the next few steps - so let's not tryto setup the real VM image for now. Instead we can create a dummyQCOW2 image file as a temporary placeholder.

There's no need to allocate any space for this file as we willoverwrite it in a minute or two. It's more convenient, though, if ithas a meaningful name. (Iused /kvm/win7demo-kvm.qcow2 for this article.)

Go ahead and click the Finish button in the bottom-right corner sothat Virt-Manager will launch the new VM.

We're just launching a default VM for now. Then we'll Force Off the VM and customize it.

The Windows Installation procedure will start loading files. As wedon't plan to complete this installation it doesn't really matter; wecan go ahead and force-off the VM.

Windows

From the Virtual Machine menu, open the Shut Down menu and select the Force Off menu option.

Once the VM has been forced off Virt-Manager will automaticallyreboot it again. This is normally a convenience feature. Virt-Manageris assuming that the installation process has completed and you needto reboot your VM. You will have to force it off a second time.

The QCOW2 image file

At this point we need to create our QCOW2 image file. Open a shelland change to the directory you used above when you created your dummyVM image file. (You remember Iused /kvm/win7demo-kvm.qcow2 for thisarticle.)

Check part two of this article for detailed information aboutthe QEMU Image Create command.

Here is the command that I used to create my QCOW2 image and theoutput from that command.

Use the sudo command if you are creating an image in thestandard virt-manager images folder as you will not have permission towrite files in there.

Customizing the Virtual Hardware

The default configuration of a new VM expects to be using a RAWimage file and has one CDROM drive for the Operating Systeminstallation CD.

What we want to do now is customize the virtualhardware in a few small ways:

  • Set the main storage device type (called Disk Bus in Virt Manager,) to VirtIO,
  • Tell Virt Manager that we want to use the QCOW2 format instead of RAW,
  • Add a second CDROM drive to hold the Redhat Virtual IO driver files,
  • and Set the Device Model for the network card to VirtIO.

In practice I find the virsh command very useful for this kind ofwork. I use virsh dumpxml to extract an xml file if Ineed to create lots of VMs quickly. Then I edit the xml files and usevirsh definexml to load them back into theVirt-Manager. In this case we only need to create one VM so let's dothis the graphical way:

To start this customization: Open the Virtual Machine Details forthe Win7Demo VM and Click on the IDE Disk 1 device in the leftpanel.

In the Advanced Options for this device you will want to selectVirtIO for the Disk Bus and QCOW2 for the Storage Format.

Under performance options you can select a CacheMode. Unfortunately I haven't found any good documentation on thesevarious modes. Based on notes from one writer it seems that theDefault option is supposed to be the safest.

I did find one document that suggested the Default mode is theslowest and WriteBack was faster for the person who wrote thatdocument. During my own tinkering I had no problems with the WriteBackmode. I did not try to test the performance of the various modes.

Use Default mode if in doubt or if you experience any unusualbehavior with your VM with other cache modes.

Next you will want to create a second CDROM drive. This drive willbe used to load the Redhat Virtual IO drivers after the Windows 7installer boots.

Browse to the ISO file containing the Redhat Virtual IO drivers.

Don't forget to set the device type to IDE CDROM.

You should now have two CDROM drives in the device list for yourVM. The first CDROM drive should be connected to your WindowsInstallation DVD.

You might also want to check your Boot Options. You want to makesure that your VM is willing to boot from the first CDROMdrive. Personally I also like to make sure the Boot Menu is enabled.

When preparing this documentation I forgot to change the EthernetDevice Model to VirtIO. It's more convenient to do it right awaay.

On the other hand not much happens if you forget to change it. TheVirtual RTL8139 device will work nicely. You can switch the device toVirtIO later to take advantage of the improved performance.

Installing Windows

At this point everything is ready. Click on the Run button to boot your new VM.

If your toolbar is not visible you need to open the Virtual Machine menu and select the Run menu option.

If all goes well you will see the Windows Installer loading filesand asking you to agree to the license terms. About four screens intothe process you will be asked if you want to perform an Upgrade or aCustom Install.

Choose Custom Install to begin a new installation.

Loading Redhat Drivers

Here's where we get to load the Redhat Virtual IO drivers.

Windows is not able to see the QCOW2-based virtual storage device because it doesn't have a driver for the VirtIO device (yet.)

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Click on the Load Driver link near the left side of the window.

Openstack Windows Image Download

Now click on the browse button...

Select the CDROM drive in which you loaded your Redhat Virtual IO drivers.

And find those files.

In this case I am using Windows 7, 64 bits, so I choose the virtio/WIN7/AMD64 folder.

The Windows Installer will scan the folder and show only thedrivers that match the virtual hardware it sees in the VM. Therefore,as a general rule, you will want to select all the drivers that appearin the list and click on the Next button.

The Windows installer will then take a bit of time to load all thedrivers and activate them. After that it will search for a usablestorage device.

Completing the Installation

Select the device and click on the Next button to begin the installation procedure.

Depending on your system this might take a while.

After rebooting a couple of times, the Windows installer will ask you for some information.

A few screens later you will be able to log into your new VM for the first time.

Spice Guest Tools

Once you log into your new VM you may want to install the SpiceGuest Tools package. This will not only provide you with advancedSpice Video drivers - it will also implement the Clipboard interfacebetween your VM and your Desktop.

After working for a bit the Spice Guest Tools package will try toinstall a driver on your system. Windows will ask you for permissionto complete this operation.

The package will try to install a few more drivers before it is finished.

Once the Spice Guest Tools are installed the basic installation is complete.

To snapshot or not to snapshot?

At this point you have a basic VM that is working. If you can thinkof a case where this might be of value to you in the future you mightwant to 'take a picture of it' so that you can take your image back tothis state in the future.

If you decide that you do want a snapshot at this point you canshutdown the VM and take one (the instructions are here: QEMU Image Snapshot command.)

Windows Update

The next step is to get started with Windows Update.

In my case I wanted a snapshot of a clean install of Windows 7 withInternet Explorer 9. To accomplish this I had toinstall all security and performance updates without accidentallyinstalling any Optional updates representing new functionality.

As you know this takes a long time. Each time you run WindowsUpdate it checks all the known issues with (and between) files in thesystem. Each time you install updates there is a chance that anewly installed file will not be compatible with a previously installed file.At some point it may turn out that you have, for example, twoDLLs in the system that are known by Microsoft to conflict with eachother. Windows Update will detect such issues and install any fixesthat have been created to resolve them. As such you need to runWindows Update, reboot your system and Check for Updates, over andover again, until it tells you that there are no more updates toinstall.

I ran Windows update a few times before finally being offered onlySP1, IE10, IE11 and some other enhancements (and I took snapshots ateach milestone.)

Important VM Customizations

While Windows Update is running it's a good idea to take care ofsome basic customizations that will improve the performance of the VM.

Although Windows 7 was written in the age of virtualization it doesnot automatically configure itself to act as a VM. In effect itcontinues to behave as though it is in control of your bare metal. Ittries to manage the internal system fans to control thetemperature. It also tries to power-down the hard disk and turn offthe screen when it is idle. Most often these operations represent aninsignificant overhead but, in some cases, they can cause the VM tocrash. In all cases these functions have no value in the context ofthe life of a VM so it's best to disable them.

Disabling power management

Start by running the Power Options control panel applet.

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Look under the Additional Power Plans. Select the High Performance power plan and click on the Change Plan Settings link for that plan.

Choose the Never option for turning off the display and for putting the computer to sleep; don't forget to click on the Save Changes button.

Click on the link called Change Advanced Power Settings.

Verify that the Turn Off Hard Disk After setting is set to Never (ie: zero minutes.)

Disable the USB suspend setting.

That was all I found when I was looking but, in the future, theremay be other power-saving settings. Take a look around and disablethem.

Going Further

This concludes the Windows VM setup and Part One of this article.

In Part Two we will:

  • Take snapshots of the VM at various stages of developmentso that we can go back, for example, to Internet Explorer 9, 10 or 11- or at any point where we saved a snapshot of the VM image.
  • Make a second VM, in only a few seconds, which will be based onthe first VM.
  • Merge the the second VM image file with the Backing ImageVM image file to create a single file that doesn't waste disk space onunused snapshots.

Part Two continues here:

KVM-QEMU, QCOW2, QEMU-IMG and Snapshots
http://azertech.net/content/kvm-qemu-qcow2-qemu-img-and-snapshots

Hi,

I am trying to boot-up my own ISO file on openstack Grizzly (which was installed on top of Ubuntu). The steps I am following are as follows:

(1). Create an image, providing 'iso' as the input format.

glance image-create --name test_iso_image --disk-format iso --container-format bare --file /opt/stack/devstack/files/images/myimage.iso --property hw_vif_model=e1000 --property hw_disk_bus='ide'

(2). Start an instance with the created image and flavor as 'medium'.

nova boot test_image --image '7b48108e-9778-41bf-820d-cdadb5517a93' --flavor 3

With this approach, I am finding that the instance is created, but no drive is attached to the image, other than the CDROM. So, the installation stops, complaining that there is no disk to boot into.

The same ISO image, in VMDK format boots up fine. The aim is to boot from the ISO image directly.

I saw posts that this issue was fixed in openstack on XENServer - is this still a problem on openstack on Ubuntu?

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Comments

VMDK format is already installed on the machine for openstack grizzly installation on ubuntu, thus booting will be fine if it is done in that way but I suppose there is some other method for booting ISO directly, not the one you have followed.