PARALLELS VIRTUOZZO CONTAINERS 4.0 FOR WINDOWS RELEASE NOTES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 22, 2008 © 1999-2008 Parallels. All rights reserved. This document describes the new features of this release and important changes since the previous one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. About This Release 2. New Features and Improvements 3. Bugs Fixed 4. Compatibility Issues 5. Known Issues and Restrictions 6. Troubleshooting -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. ABOUT THIS RELEASE Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 for Windows has a host of major new features and improvements in comparison with SWsoft Virtuozzo Containers 3.5.1, which makes it a true next-generation virtualization solution suitable for large-scope enterprise deployments. In this version, the product has changed its name from SWsoft Virtuozzo for Windows to Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Windows. As part of the product renaming, some of its components have also been renamed. These are the following Virtuozzo Containers components: * Virtual Environments (VEs) have been renamed to Containers; * Virtuozzo Management Console (VZMC) has been renamed to Parallels Management Console; * Virtuozzo Control Center (VZCC) has been renamed to Parallels Infrastructure Manager; * Virtuozzo Power Panels (VZPP) has been renamed to Parallels Power Panel; * the Virtozzo Agent (VZAgent) software has been renamed to Parallels Agent. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. NEW FEATURES AND IMPROVEMENTS - Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 supports the MSCS (Microsoft Cluster Server) clustering technology allowing you to provide greater availability for your applications and services, including the Virtuozzo Containers software itself. - Now you can use any convenient Container name for the management purposes. Additionally, some notes or a description may easily be attached to a Container. This makes Virtuozzo Containers management much easier and more user-friendly. - Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 supports the SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) protocol allowing you to monitor the network and system resources on the Hardware Node and inside its Containers by means of standard SNMP applications. - A number of Container backup enhancements have been introduced in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 including storing Container backups on Linux platforms, scheduling the Container backup time, performing differential Container backups, excluding files and folders from the Container backup, etc. - The p2v migration from physical servers running the Windows Server 2000 operating system is now supported. - A well-balanced rights assignment and user authentication and authorization strategy has been implemented in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. This strategy enables you to grant the rights to users (including the users registered in Active Directory databases) for performing certain operations in the Hardware Node and Container contexts. - Container Ethernet (packet switching based) network adapters can now be managed by means of Parallels Management Console and Parallels Infrastructure Manager. - Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 has a new licensing scheme implemented. Now you need only one Virtuozzo Server license to be installed on the Hardware Node to start managing it by means of Parallels Infrastructure Manager, Parallels Power Panel, and Parallels Management Console. - The traffic accounting and traffic shaping features have been introduced in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. - The Virtuozzo hierarchical scheduler has been improved. Now it enables you to: * configure the minimal guaranteed share of the CPU time the given Container is guaranteed to receive; * set the CPU time limit the given Container is not allowed to exceed. - System administrators can now configure the number of virtual CPUs which will be available inside a particular Container, up to the number of physical CPUs installed on the Node. The Container will see only the specified CPU(s) for licensing and intuitive power management purposes. - The 'Container reinstall' functionality allowing you to easily reinstall a broken Container is now supported. - The list of supported versions of Windows Server 2003 has been enhanced. Now the Virtuozzo Containers software can be installed on the following versions of Windows Server 2003: * 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2003: Standard or Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 with or without R2: US English, German, French, Korean, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, or Japanese; Standard or Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 with or without R2: US English, German, French, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, or Japanese; Datacenter Edition of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 with or without R2 (US English); Datacenter Edition of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 with or without R2 (US English); * x86-64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003: Standard or Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 x64 Service Pack 1 with or without R2 (US English or Japanese); Standard or Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 x64 Service Pack 2 with or without R2 (US English or Japanese); Datacenter Edition of Windows Server 2003 x64 Datacenter Edition Service Pack 1 with or without R2 (US English); Datacenter Edition of Windows Server 2003 x64 Datacenter Edition Service Pack 2 with or without R2 (US English); Datacenter Edition of Windows Server 2003 x64 with Service Pack 2 (Japanese); * IA64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003: Standard or Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 IA64 with Service Pack 2 (US English, German, or Japanese). - The Parallels Infrastructure Manager and Parallels Power Panel interfaces have been completely redesigned to introduce a more intuitive approach to managing Hardware Nodes and their Containers. - All groups of Virtuozzo objects (Containers, templates, configuration samples, backups, etc.) can now be centrally managed by Parallels Infrastructure Manager for all Hardware Nodes united in a Virtuozzo Group. - The list of antiviruses that have been thoroughly tested with Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is widely extended and now includes: * Symantec AntiVirus 10.1.5; * McAfee VirusScan 8.5i; * AVG 7.1, 7.5; * F-Secure 5.52, 7; * CA e-Trust r8, r8.1; * Kaspersky 6.0.2, 6.0.3; * Trend Micro OfficeScan 8.0. Chances are that you will also be able to use other antiviruses on your servers, but Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 has not been extensively tested with them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. BUGS FIXED Many bugs from the previous release have been fixed in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. Here is a small sample of them: - The Virtuozzo Containers installation fails if the Windows Server 2003 operating system is installed in the folder other than C:\WINDOWS. - A Microsoft Virtual PC cannot be migrated to a Container using the 'vzp2v' utility. - Container drives cannot be mounted from external servers using the 'net use' command. - The 'DNS server' property cannot be set for stopped Containers. - It is impossible to connect to Containers based on the 'Oracle' configuration sample via RDP. - The network settings modified from inside a Container are not saved in the Container configuration file and reset to the old values on the next Container start-up. - The migration of a physical server to a Container on the Hardware Node may fail if the physical server has the Cygwin application installed. - The backup process might occasionally fail to create a Container snapshot in the case of a heavy memory pools fragmentation on large Container disk images. - Task Manager inside a Container shows incorrect information on the Container memory consumption. All these bugs together with many others have been fixed in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. COMPATIBILITY ISSUES - To use Virtuozzo Management Console 3.5.1 for managing Hardware Nodes running the Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 software, you should enable a special compatibility mode on these Nodes. To this effect, set an arbitrary password for the vzagent0 user by running the following command in the cmd.exe command line interpreter on each Node: C:\...\Administrator> vzctl exec 1 net user vzagent0 "asd123wr" /active:yes where "asd123wr" is an arbitrary password of the vzagent0 user. After that, you can use the vzagent0 credentials to log in to your 4.0 Hardware Nodes via Virtuozzo Management Console 3.5.1. - To use Parallels Management Console 4.0 for managing Hardware Nodes running SWsoft Virtuozzo 3.5.1, you should have a valid Management Console license installed on your local computer (i.e. on the computer where you are running Management Console). You can use any of your old Management Console 3.x licenses for this purpose. To install a Management Console license, click Help on the Management Console main menu, select Enter License Data, and enter the appropriate license key in the displayed window. - Requesting a new Virtuozzo Server license via Parallels Management Console, Parallels Infrastructure Manager, or the vzlicreq utility is not supported any more in Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. Now you can use one of the following ways to obtain a new Virtuozzo Server license: * fill up a special registration form on the Parallels web site (available at http://www.swsoft.com/virtuozzo/windows_eval/) and get a free evaluation license; * contact a Parallels sales representative. - To restore a Container residing on a Hardware Node running Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 from its backup stored on a 3.5.1 Hardware Node by means of Parallels Management Console, you should invoke the Restore Container wizard for the Node where the Container backup is located, i.e. for the 3.5.1 Node. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. KNOWN ISSUES AND RESTRICTIONS A list of known issues for Virtuozzo 4.0 for Windows is given below. * Setup - Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 does not function if the Virtuozzo Containers data directory (C:\vz, by default) is located on a network drive. - Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 does not function if the Virtuozzo Containers data directory (C:\vz, by default) is a mount point, i.e. an external disk partition or network drive is mounted to this directory. - If the server where you are installing Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 is a member of a domain and has the Secondary Logon service disabled, the Service Container installation may fail. In this case you should enable this service after the Virtuozzo Containers installation and recreate the Service Container using the Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard (to invoke the wizard, click Start --> Programs --> Parallels --> Virtuozzo Tools --> Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard). - Due to the absence of the MSDE and ADAM applications for IA64-bit processors, the Virtuozzo Containers installation uses the MSDE and ADAM applications installed on a remote Hardware Node (either 32-bit or x86-64-bit). So, to complete the Virtuozzo Containers installation on a Hardware Node running the IA64-bit version of Windows Server 2003, you should additionally perform the following operations: * Prepare a Hardware Node running either the 32-bit version or the x86-64-bit version of the Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 software (you can use any of your existing Nodes for this purpose, if you already have any). Make sure that the Service Container has only one IP address assigned to it and that this IP address can be accessed from the IA64-bit Node; otherwise, recreate the Service Container by completing the following tasks on the Node: 1. Invoke the Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard by selecting Programs --> Parallels --> Virtuozzo Tools --> Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard on the Windows Start menu. 2. In the Welcome window, click Next. 3. In the Service Container Creation window: * clear the Skip this step check box and select the Enable API compatibility with Virtuozzo 3.x check box; * specify a public IP address to be assigned to the Service Container in the Specify Container IP address field; * set an arbitrary password in the vzagent0 password field and confirm this password in the Confirm password field; * click Next. 4. After the Service Container has been successfully recreated, click Finish to exit the wizard. * Create the Service Container on the IA64-bit Hardware Node: 1. On the IA64-bit Node, launch the Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard by selecting Programs --> Parallels --> Virtuozzo Tools --> Virtuozzo Tools Configuration Wizard on the Windows Start menu. 2. In the Welcome to... window, click Next. 3. In the displayed window, click Next. 4. In the Service Container Creation window, specify the IP address assigned to the prepared Node in the 'Node address' field and provide the Administrator credentials of this Node in the 'Node administrator' and 'Administrator's password' fields. When you are ready, click Next to start creating the Service Container. 5. After the Service Container has been successfully created, click Finish to exit the wizard. - The setup program cannot uninstall Virtuozzo if any Container is running. * General - All Hardware Nodes included in a Virtuozzo Group shoud have the system time synchronized. Otherwise, some Parallels Infrastructure Manager functions (e.g. viewing logs, viewing top resource-using Containers, managing licenses) might work incorrectly. - Due to multiple considerations, you are not recommended to have more than 1000 Containers hosted on all Hardware Nodes included in a Virtuozzo Group. - There is a small propagation delay (up to 60 seconds) needed for the permissions included in a new role created on a Slave Node in the Virtuozzo Group to come into effect. During this time, you may not be able to make use of the role permissions to the full extent. - On the Parallels Agent service start (e.g. during the Hardware Node boot), a Container may be left in the transitional state. To solve the problem, restart the Parallels Agent service on the Node as follows: C:\...\Administrator> sc stop vzaop C:\...\Administrator> sc start vzaop - The vzsveaddress hostname is reserved for internal Virtuozzo Containers purposes and cannot be used as a hostname for your regular Containers. - Backups of Containers residing on Slave Nodes in a Virtuozzo Group are not shown in Parallels Power Panel if they are stored not locally, i.e. on a Node other than that where the corresponding Containers are hosted. - You must restart the Hardware Node after installing the Symantec AntiVirus 10.1.5 application on it to enable the antivirus protection inside Containers residing on this Node. - To continue using Parallels Infrastructure Manager to manage Hardware Nodes running the IA64-bit version of Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 and registered in the Virtuozzo Group as Slave Nodes after their removal from the Group, you need to recreate the Service Container on these Nodes. - You cannot use Parallels Infrastructure Manager to migrate operating system (OS) and application templates between Hardware Nodes running the Windows Server 2003 OS and acting in the Virtuozzo Group as Slave Nodes if the Master Node in this Group has a Linux distribution installed. - The process of uploading and installing large Virtuozzo templates (more than 1Gb) via Parallels Infrastructure Manager may work unstable. In this case you can manually copy these templates to your Node and install them there using the vzpkgdeploy utility. - A local VUS (Virtuozzo Update Services) server must have the primary DNS suffix set; otherwise, you may experience problems with downloading Virtuozzo Containers software updates from the VUS server to your Hardware Nodes. To set the primary DNS suffix for your local VUS server, perform the following operations: 1. Double-click System in Control Panel. 2. Select the Computer Name tab. 3. Click Change and, in the Computer Name Changes window, click More. 4. In the DNS Suffix and NetBIOS Computer Name field of the displayed window, specify the DNS suffix to be appended to the name of your VUS server. 5. Click OK three times. 6. Restart the VUS server for the changes to take effect. - If you are deploying Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 in a VMware ESX Server environment, you should perform the following operations to make your Containers operating in the 'bridged' mode accessible from external servers: * Make sure that the value of the Promiscuous Mode field on the Security tab of the vSwitch Properties window is set to Accept. * Ensure that the ESX Server adapter always has one and the same MAC address assigned. - You cannot create more than one virtual network adapter for a Container if you use Internet Explorer 6 or 7 to manage your Hardware Nodes and their Containers via Parallels Infrastructure Manager. To create additional network adapters for your Containers, you can: * log in to your Hardware Node via Parallels Infrastructure Manager using another web browser (e.g. Safari, Opera, or Firefox); * use Parallels Management Console; * use the vzctl set command. - Parallels Management Console 4.0 uses a light-weight ssh client based on the plink utility to connect to Hardware Nodes running SWsoft Virtuozzo 3.0. Sometimes, this client may fail to upload large OS (operating system) and application templates to such Hardware Nodes or large binary files to Containers residing on such Nodes. If you experience this problem, replace the light-weight client with your own one (e.g. with the cygwin ssh client). To this effect: * back up the original ssh.exe file located in the X:\\ssh folder on your Node where is the path to the Parallels Management Console program files (by default, this path is C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Parallels Management Console 4.0) and * copy the executable files of your new ssh client to this folder. - Virtuozzo Management Console 3.5.1 does not allow you to configure the periodicity of refreshing the resources consumption information in the logs for Hardware Nodes running Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. - Virtuozzo Management Console 3.5.1 cannot be used for managing the Parallels Agent configuration parameters on Hardware Nodes running Virtuozzo Containers 4.0. - Parallels Management Console 4.0 cannot be used to restore separate files and folders from backups of those Containers that reside on Hardware Nodes running the Virtuozzo 3.5.1 software. - Virtuozzo Management Console 3.5.1 cannot be used to browse the backup contents of Containers residing on Hardware Nodes running the Virtuozzo Containers 4.0 software and to restore separate files and folders from such backups. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. TROUBLESHOOTING To contact the Parallels support team and inform it of the problem you encounter, please use the Submit Support Issue Wizard that can be accessed by selecting Programs --> Parallels --> Parallels Virtuozzo Containers --> Submit Support Issue on the Windows Start menu or typing "vzreport.exe" in the command line. The Submit Support Issue Wizard collects the logs, network, system, and troubleshooting information into a single zip file and downloads it automatically to the Parallels technical support FTP server (if accessible) or stores it in the X:\vz\reports folder on your Node (where X:\vz stands for the Virtuozzo data folder) to be sent to Parallelst later. It DOES NOT send your private information to Parallels! Please provide your first and last name, company name, e-mail, subject and detailed problem description on the "Description" page of the Submit Support Issue Wizard. Otherwise, we will not be able to process your call. To grant the Parallels technical support access to your Node through a VPN, if necessary, use a special wizard by selecting Programs --> Parallels --> Parallels Virtuozzo Containers --> Virtuozzo Support Tunnel on the Windows Start menu.