Hi guys, new to unraid and Xen. I have plenty of experience in Hyper-V and ESXi, windows and some unix (solaris in particular) due to my work, but have never tried implementing a virtualised solution at home and have some questions on Xen.

I've currently have a box built with version 6b4 and am happy with the unraid side of things, also managed to create a windows 7 VM using the guideline .cfg files and threads listed in this sections threads (many thanks for those)

My first post containing my hardware info etc can be found here - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=32803.0

 

onto my questions -

 

1, Can a management tool such as XenCenter be used with this unRaid / Xen build? or at least a webui? I couldnt get it to work, just used putty, tightVNC for the VM then RDP once built.

 

2, Can physical CD/DVD drives be used? I have a spare DVD drive fitted in the unraid box, it would be nice if i could attach it to the windows VM, but not essential.

 

3, Wireless! I have a PCI wireless card fitted to the box also, obviously unraid doesnt see the interface, but if i was to install the drivers and create another bridge surely it would be possible for the VM then to use this? Second to that my board doesnt support vt-d but i can see the device id using lspci, can this be passed through to the VM? if either way is possible please help, I will explain my need for this shortly.

 

 

As for an explanation for the wireless need. I currently live in an area where the average broadband speed is circa 1-2mb at best, come evenings this can drop to below a meg and is beyond a joke, especially considering the prices they charge. Therefore i have since cancelled my home broadband and run everything through a pair of android mobile phones. Myself and my wife both have unlimited data (tethering included) contracts and the average speeds are 6-8MB on 3G and 4G is to hit our area this summer. This have been faultless for the last 3 months.

 

I currently have it set on another windows box that it will autoconnect to our phones when in range (i.e. at home) and the shares its wireless connection via ICS on the eth port to the rest of the house. i also use utorrent rss features on it atm, which i wish to transfer to the vm until i get apps like SB, trans and sabnzb set up.

 

My plan is to replicate this with a vm inside the unraid box dropping my hardware usage by one machine and have a single 'always on' box storing media with parity (unraid), proving the ICS bridge (windows vm) and possibly another vm for testing. Somewhere in there the apps will be implemented also.

 

Help on any of the above would be great. Thanks in advance

 

forgot to ask earlier,

 

4, what are gplpv drivers?

 

 

thanks again

1, Can a management tool such as XenCenter be used with this unRaid / Xen build? or at least a webui? I couldnt get it to work, just used putty, tightVNC for the VM then RDP once built.

 

As of right now, there are some limited VM management tools included via the unRAID webGUI.  If you go to the Extensions Tab and click on the Domain Manager, you can do some basic VM Management from there.

 

In short, you cannot use XenCenter to manage Xen within unRAID at this time.  There are some open source management tools out there like Xen Orchestrator, but its "use at your own risk" for now.

 

2, Can physical CD/DVD drives be used? I have a spare DVD drive fitted in the unraid box, it would be nice if i could attach it to the windows VM, but not essential.

 

Generally speaking, yes, this is possible using pass through.  Your machine must support VTd in order to do pass through of any sort.

 

3, Wireless! I have a PCI wireless card fitted to the box also, obviously unraid doesnt see the interface, but if i was to install the drivers and create another bridge surely it would be possible for the VM then to use this?

 

I would defer to others on this.  This has nothing to do with virtualization, but rather, getting custom drivers installed.  Hopefully someone else can chime in on this as I don't know the answer here.

 

Second to that my board doesnt support vt-d but i can see the device id using lspci, can this be passed through to the VM? if either way is possible please help, I will explain my need for this shortly.

 

If your board doesn't support VTd, you cannot do PCI pass through.  lspci will show you PCI devices regardless of whether or not you have VTd, but attempts to pass through will fail without it.  To go a step further, if you have a K series Intel Processor, it doesn't even matter if your board supports it, because the K processors don't support it.

 

As for an explanation for the wireless need. I currently live in an area where the average broadband speed is circa 1-2mb at best, come evenings this can drop to below a meg and is beyond a joke, especially considering the prices they charge. Therefore i have since cancelled my home broadband and run everything through a pair of android mobile phones. Myself and my wife both have unlimited data (tethering included) contracts and the average speeds are 6-8MB on 3G and 4G is to hit our area this summer. This have been faultless for the last 3 months.

 

I currently have it set on another windows box that it will autoconnect to our phones when in range (i.e. at home) and the shares its wireless connection via ICS on the eth port to the rest of the house. i also use utorrent rss features on it atm, which i wish to transfer to the vm until i get apps like SB, trans and sabnzb set up.

 

My plan is to replicate this with a vm inside the unraid box dropping my hardware usage by one machine and have a single 'always on' box storing media with parity (unraid), proving the ICS bridge (windows vm) and possibly another vm for testing. Somewhere in there the apps will be implemented also.

 

Ok, I totally get what you are doing with your phones and I know multiple people that do the same thing due to living in areas that don't have good service.  That said, I'm still a little confused on what you are trying to accomplish.  Can you please better explain how your Windows box "auto connects" to your phones today?  Is that wifi hotspot you use?  Does it connect to BOTH of your phones and bridge those connections together?  I think what you're trying to accomplish is doable, but need to clarify those points.

 

Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk

 

forgot to ask earlier,

 

4, what are gplpv drivers?

 

 

thanks again

 

Copied from the Xen Wiki:

 

These drivers allow Windows to make use of the network and block backend drivers in Dom0, instead of the virtual PCI devices provided by QEMU. This gives Windows a substantial performance boost...

 

You can get digitally signed versions of these GPLPV drivers for free from the univision.de website.  There are other threads in this forum with links to that, but let us know if you cannot find them.

 

Essentially when you virtualize windows with Xen, post install, if you go into device manager, you'll see that there are a bunch of drivers not installed.  Yes you can get on the internet and whatnot, but its highly recommended to install these drivers for two reasons:  Increase performance and increase reliability.

 

Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk

 

 

And make sure you install the .net framework in the windows vm before you install the gplpv drivers otherwise you may crash unraid. I did. A couple of times.

And make sure you install the .net framework in the windows vm before you install the gplpv drivers otherwise you may crash unraid. I did. A couple of times.

 

Hmm, .net framework?  Is that installed automatically with Windows Update or did you download this manually?  I have never installed the .net framework manually but I always would perform all the Windows Updates before installing the GPLPV drivers.

As of right now, there are some limited VM management tools included via the unRAID webGUI.  If you go to the Extensions Tab and click on the Domain Manager, you can do some basic VM Management from there.

 

In short, you cannot use XenCenter to manage Xen within unRAID at this time.  There are some open source management tools out there like Xen Orchestrator, but its "use at your own risk" for now.

 

ok, that's odd then, there is no option for me to click anything under xen domains. if i go inot the unraid web ui > extensions tab > xen domains > *nothing but domain-0 listed, i cannot do anything more there.

tbh i'm not sure how much management i will want to do once i have this windows box running fully, but it would be good to have for future, ease of use etc. may have a look in the xen orchestrator at some point then.

 

 

Generally speaking, yes, this is possible using pass through.  Your machine must support VTd in order to do pass through of any sort.

 

i guess thats a no for the disk drive as from what i gather while googleing is that my asus p5q (p45 chipset) does not support vt-d even though my x9650 cpu will. unless anyone on here is more knowledgeable perhaps?

 

I would defer to others on this.  This has nothing to do with virtualization, but rather, getting custom drivers installed.  Hopefully someone else can chime in on this as I don't know the answer here.

If your board doesn't support VTd, you cannot do PCI pass through.  lspci will show you PCI devices regardless of whether or not you have VTd, but attempts to pass through will fail without it.  To go a step further, if you have a K series Intel Processor, it doesn't even matter if your board supports it, because the K processors don't support it.

 

right, from that i guess it will be an attempt at getting the unraid host to see the wireless card, then creating a bridge for the vm to use. the card i have is a TP-Link TL-WN951N (PCI wireless n card), appears under lspci as 'Atheros AR5416 [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn].

Can anyone suggest where to start to get this working in unraid 6b4?

 

Ok, I totally get what you are doing with your phones and I know multiple people that do the same thing due to living in areas that don't have good service.  That said, I'm still a little confused on what you are trying to accomplish.  Can you please better explain how your Windows box "auto connects" to your phones today?  Is that wifi hotspot you use?  Does it connect to BOTH of your phones and bridge those connections together?  I think what you're trying to accomplish is doable, but need to clarify those points.

 

ok to explain it better, all i do is connect the one windows machines wifi to the hotspot of the phone, then using ics shares out the internet connection to the rest of my network (wired). the windows machine is configured to autoconnect to either of our phones when in range, we only use one at a time (no crazy bridging or anything)

 

also thanks for the explanation on gplpv drivers and the fact i need to install .net first, i will bear that in mind.

 

 

i'm hoping to get this working as it would be my preferred method, my second choice would be going down esxi route with raw device mapping for the disks, but from what i gather you loose the ability to spin down disks and smart monitoring etc, that imo would also be a shortfall

 

 

ok, that's odd then, there is no option for me to click anything under xen domains. if i go inot the unraid web ui > extensions tab > xen domains > *nothing but domain-0 listed, i cannot do anything more there.

tbh i'm not sure how much management i will want to do once i have this windows box running fully, but it would be good to have for future, ease of use etc. may have a look in the xen orchestrator at some point then.

 

Whoops, forgot to give you the most important steps for the webGUI management stuff to work in beta 4.  First, make sure each of your VMs have their own folder.  Each folder should have a .cfg and .img.  Using SSH, connect to your unRAID tower.  Type the following command:

 

xenman register /path/to/cfg_file.cfg

 

This will "register" the VM with the Domain Manager and now the VM should show up in the list on the webGUI.

 

i guess thats a no for the disk drive as from what i gather while googleing is that my asus p5q (p45 chipset) does not support vt-d even though my x9650 cpu will. unless anyone on here is more knowledgeable perhaps?

 

Correct.  Both your motherboard and processor have to support VTd in order to do any type of PCI device pass through.  I would love it if someone could help us figure out how to get around that requirement but I don't see how we could...

 

right, from that i guess it will be an attempt at getting the unraid host to see the wireless card, then creating a bridge for the vm to use. the card i have is a TP-Link TL-WN951N (PCI wireless n card), appears under lspci as 'Atheros AR5416 [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn].

Can anyone suggest where to start to get this working in unraid 6b4?

 

Exactly.  Which you'll have two problems on this front for wireless.  Drivers is one thing, but the other is that there is no option in the webGUI right now to configure your "SSID" to connect to.  Definitely hoping you / some others can figure this out though.  Would be nice!

 

ok to explain it better, all i do is connect the one windows machines wifi to the hotspot of the phone, then using ics shares out the internet connection to the rest of my network (wired). the windows machine is configured to autoconnect to either of our phones when in range, we only use one at a time (no crazy bridging or anything)

 

Ok, makes total sense.  That said, I got to imagine that when you turn on the hotspot on your phone, you're then plugging the phone into some power source because hotspots are big battery drainers, right?  If so, another option if you're doing that already would be to get a wireless router that has support for a USB hotspot device.  I believe my Asus AC66U router supports this.  I could test for you if you'd like.  The downside is that your phone would need to remain plugged into it as long as you wanted to share out your internet.

 

also thanks for the explanation on gplpv drivers and the fact i need to install .net first, i will bear that in mind.

 

i'm hoping to get this working as it would be my preferred method, my second choice would be going down esxi route with raw device mapping for the disks, but from what i gather you loose the ability to spin down disks and smart monitoring etc, that imo would also be a shortfall

 

Exactly.  unRAID as Dom0 is the right answer and I think solving challenges like yours.  It just sucks that your motherboard doesn't support vtD.  I bet if it did, you could possibly pass through a USB or PCI based wireless device to a Windows or Linux VM that has the drivers you need and could handle it that way.

 

Above all else, if you had budget for a new mobo, that would be the most ideal.

Whoops, forgot to give you the most important steps for the webGUI management stuff to work in beta 4.  First, make sure each of your VMs have their own folder.  Each folder should have a .cfg and .img.  Using SSH, connect to your unRAID tower.  Type the following command:

 

xenman register /path/to/cfg_file.cfg

 

This will "register" the VM with the Domain Manager and now the VM should show up in the list on the webGUI.

 

brilliant, thats sorted that. i see what you mean in their not being the ability to do much, but i at least used it to auto start the vm, didnt have that set previously

 

Correct.  Both your motherboard and processor have to support VTd in order to do any type of PCI device pass through.  I would love it if someone could help us figure out how to get around that requirement but I don't see how we could...

 

doubt it, nothing is ever easy

 

Exactly.  Which you'll have two problems on this front for wireless.  Drivers is one thing, but the other is that there is no option in the webGUI right now to configure your "SSID" to connect to.  Definitely hoping you / some others can figure this out though.  Would be nice!

 

Drivers would be the main thing, just to get unraid to see the interface. from there it should just be a matter of attaching it to the vm and then any ssid / password entry would be done in the windows vm

 

Ok, makes total sense.  That said, I got to imagine that when you turn on the hotspot on your phone, you're then plugging the phone into some power source because hotspots are big battery drainers, right?  If so, another option if you're doing that already would be to get a wireless router that has support for a USB hotspot device.  I believe my Asus AC66U router supports this.  I could test for you if you'd like.  The downside is that your phone would need to remain plugged into it as long as you wanted to share out your internet.

 

not always. the hotspot does drain the battery, but we dont tend to leave the phones plugged in as it knackers the battery. i have an xperia s and the wife has a nexus 5, hers lasts longer than mine but you're still taking 4-5hrs with the hotspot on and only about an hour or so to charge with a good charger.

just had a quick look at your router and there are quite a few that support this, it could very well be an option, wouldnt need the vm either.

 

Exactly.  unRAID as Dom0 is the right answer and I think solving challenges like yours.  It just sucks that your motherboard doesn't support vtD.  I bet if it did, you could possibly pass through a USB or PCI based wireless device to a Windows or Linux VM that has the drivers you need and could handle it that way.

 

Above all else, if you had budget for a new mobo, that would be the most ideal.

 

new board wouldnt be out of the question, but thats what i was trying to avoid. fact is im recycling old hardware, so trying to piece a board to fit my cpu, ram, vt-d etc requirements would be a waste i reckon.

 

 

And make sure you install the .net framework in the windows vm before you install the gplpv drivers otherwise you may crash unraid. I did. A couple of times.

 

Hmm, .net framework?  Is that installed automatically with Windows Update or did you download this manually?  I have never installed the .net framework manually but I always would perform all the Windows Updates before installing the GPLPV drivers.

 

I am not sure. I installed win 8 recently in a vm and applied all the updates,  but I still had to manually download and install .net and only after that shutdown and reboot through unraid started working. Without .net, issuing those commands from unraid command line or the web interface, crashed the whole server after a 2-3 min delay

 

On the following page someone is claiming that by default .net is not enabled in windows (but is installed apparently): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13034701/pre-installed-net-frameworks-on-windows-8

 

And on the following page, it mentions the .net 2.0 requirement, but sadly, this is the only place i saw it at, the univention wiki or the download pages omit that detail: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Windows_GplPv/Installing

And make sure you install the .net framework in the windows vm before you install the gplpv drivers otherwise you may crash unraid. I did. A couple of times.

 

Hmm, .net framework?  Is that installed automatically with Windows Update or did you download this manually?  I have never installed the .net framework manually but I always would perform all the Windows Updates before installing the GPLPV drivers.

 

I am not sure. I installed win 8 recently in a vm and applied all the updates,  but I still had to manually download and install .net and only after that shutdown and reboot through unraid started working. Without .net, issuing those commands from unraid command line or the web interface, crashed the whole server after a 2-3 min delay

 

On the following page someone is claiming that by default .net is not enabled in windows (but is installed apparently): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13034701/pre-installed-net-frameworks-on-windows-8

 

And on the following page, it mentions the .net 2.0 requirement, but sadly, this is the only place i saw it at, the univention wiki or the download pages omit that detail: http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Windows_GplPv/Installing

 

Thank you so much for sharing all that. I am still having difficulties with shutdowns, but strange ones.  Win 8.1 tends to hang after I issue a shutdown through vnc. Windows server 2012 r2 doesn't. It shuts down cleanly through vnc. Neither of these shutdown via command line through dom0 (nor the webgui).

 

I tried installing the older .net framework yesterday and had some difficulties. Couldn't get shutdown working right. Got a few more things to try, but again, thank you for sharing.

 

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Oh and mossie, on the xenman register command, the .cfg and .img files need to be named the same (e.g. win81.cfg and win81.img).

 

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