Move VM from Hyper-V to XenServer

Posted on January 7th, 2011

There is a way to move a virtual machine from Hyper-V to XenServer without the need for XenConvert.

On Hyper-V do the following:

• Power off the VM
• Backup or migrate to a CIFS share
• The backup or CIFS share will include the VHD files for the hard disks (one VHD per virtual hard disk)

On XenServer do the following:

• Create a new VM with the correct configuration (CPUs, RAM, NICs etc) and correct number of Hard Drives.
• Modify the name of the virtual disks: storage tab, select disk, properties, change name to be something unique (for example TEST or VM-C-Drive or VM-D-Drive). Do this for each disk.
• Use the cli determine the SR uuid and vm disks uuid
• > xe sr-list (note the uuid of the correct storage repository)
• > xe vdi-list name-label=VM-C-Drive (or however named above) – (Note the UUID of each disk)

Copy the VHD files to the XenServer storage volume

• Using WinSCP or similar copy to the following location (using the sr uuid determined above)
• /var/run/sr-mount/{SR-UUID}/

Rename

• The VHD files have the filename of the uuid of the virual disk as determined above.
• Rename 0r delete the first hard disk assigned to this VM (the filename with the uuid of the VM-C-Drive disk)
• Rename the Hyper-V disk 1 to the same filename {Disk1-uuid}.vhd
• Repeat the process for each disk

Now you can power on the VM and it will boot from the hard disks copied from Hyper-V.

This seems like a lot of steps but it is pretty quick to do and means that XenConvert is not required (as was not possible in my case). The VM will configure the new devices during the first boot, reboot and then be ready to use.

Tags: Citrix XenServer, Convert, copy, hyper-v, uuid, VHD, XenConvert
Filed under Citrix XenServer | No Comments »

Speed up the launch of the XenDesktop Delivery Services Console (DSC)

Posted on September 2nd, 2010

Sometimes the Delivery Services Console takes a long time to launch. This is due to a .NET delay in the authenticode signature component as described in Microsoft Article Q936707.

The following config file can be added to speed up the lauch of the Delivery Services Console.

• mmc.exe.config

Ensure the contents of the file contain the following:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<configuration>
<runtime>
<generatePublisherEvidence enabled=”false” />
</runtime>
</configuration>

Copy this file to the following locations:

• 32-bit server – c:\windows\system32
• 64-bit server – c:\windows\sysWOW64

Tags: .NET, AMC, authenticode, delivery services console, dsc, launch, mmc, slow, xendesktop
Filed under Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop | 2 Comments »

Use a different name for the XenDesktop Controllers Group

Posted on August 24th, 2010

During the initial instalation of XenDesktop, an Active Directory Controllers group is created and populated with the DDC servers in the farm. This group is named ‘controllers’.

For any subsequent installation of XenDesktop a new controllers group is added for each XenDesktop installation with a different name based on controllers – such as ‘ControlA0D3′

If there will be multiple XenDesktop instances in the same Active Directory it may be best to use a controllers group that reflects the business unit, project name or farm name to destinquish it from the others.

The process to do this is detailed in the following Citrix Article: CTX120451

However, the following points are worth noting when following this article.

• Create a new group in the same OU as the original ‘controllers’ group called: <farm_name>_Controllers

• Add the DDC controller objects to this group

• Enable advanced features in the ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’ tool (View | advanced features)

• Right click the new group | properties | Attribute Editor

• Locate the objectGUID entry

NOTE: you need the GUID as displayed here. If you open the entry by double clicking to copy/paste the value this mirrors some sections of the GUID as detailed in the Citrix article mentioned above.

• When entering the GUID into the registry key it needs to be in the format: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

• Restart all DDC servers

• Run the AD Configuration wizard again from one DDC and it will now use the GUID entered in the regkey as the controllers group rather than the default. It appears to also update the SCP information with the details of the new group.

This registry key does not need to be applied to the virtual desktops as they get information about the controllers groups from the AD SCP configuration, which has just been updated from the AD config wizard.

Restarting the virtual desktops (VDA agents) now gives a sucessful registration with the farm.

Note: don’t forget to also update the settings for ‘Access this device over the network’ to include the new controllers group if this applies in your configuration.

Tags: controllers, ctx120451, ddc, group, guid, rename, xendesktop
Filed under Citrix, Citrix XenDesktop | 1 Comment »

use xe.exe to start/shutdown vm’s on XenServer

Posted on July 27th, 2010

I wanted to stress test a Citrix XenServer 5.6 computer to see how it copes with a number of simultaneou startup and shutdown requests.

I also wanted to see the IOPS passed to back end storage where the virtual machine hard drives are stored.

Rather than manually selecting the machine in XenCenter and shutting down or starting I wrote a script to perform the same action which made it a little quicker and easier when performing this task many times.

I wanted to perform the actions on a specific list of vm’s listed in a text file

List of VM’s – vm.txt

Name-of-VM1

Name-of-VM2

Name-of-VM3

Remember they are case sensitive and the same name you see in XenCenter. It can also be acheived with UUID’s of the VM’s but this is less friendly, so the names were used.

Startup VM’s

This is a simply dos batch script

set XenServer=[server name or IP]
set XenUser=[username]
set XenUserPwd=[password]

for /F %%1 in (vm.txt) do (
start “start %%1″ “c:\program files (x86)\Citrix\XenCenter\xe.exe” -s %XenServer% -u %XenUser% -pw %XenUserPwd% vm-start name-label=%%1
)

I have used the start command to open a seperate dos box for each VM so they are done in parallel. Without this the command waits for each VM to start before starting the next one. Running them all in parallel is *much* better for a stress test of a boot storm simulation!

Shutdown VM’s

set XenServer=[server name or IP]
set XenUser=[username]
set XenUserPwd=[password]

for /F %%1 in (vm.txt) do (
start “shutdown %%1″ “c:\program files (x86)\Citrix\XenCenter\xe.exe” -s %XenServer% -u %XenUser% -pw %XenUserPwd% vm-shutdown name-label=%%1
)

I will no doubt be working on some updates to these scripts in the near future and will share them soon.

Tags: Citrix XenServer, cli, script, xe, xe.exe, xe.exe cli, xencenter
Filed under Citrix XenServer, Scripts/Reg | No Comments »

Customize Page title & favicon on Citrix Web Interface 5.x

Posted on July 13th, 2010

The defaut page title and fav icon logo appear on the browser tab when connecting to the Citrix Web Interface Site.

Shown here:

It is possible to replace the logo with your own one and change the text to be more appropriate.

Logo

The logo is:  ..\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\{site name}\media\IcaComboAll.ico

replace with your own .ico file but keep the same file name

Browser Title text

This is picked up from the following file:

..\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\{site name}\languages\common_strings.properties

Near the top of the file look for the sections:

DefaultProductName=Citrix XenApp
DesktopProductName=Citrix XenDesktop

and change to your own name.

the bit after the common name cannot be changed in the same way (i.e. the -Applications bit in the above screen grab). This changes depending on the screen you are in from the WI site (Applications, Messages, Preferences, session settings etc)

Tags: browser, customisation, customization, favicon.ico, title, web interface, web interface 5.x
Filed under Citrix Web Interface | 3 Comments »