Parallels Virtuozzo Technology which is used to create Virtual Environments or Containers for both Windows and Linux Based Servers. Each Virtual Environments has it’s own CPU, RAM and Disk Space in which OS is installed. Virtuozzo for Windows allows user to use VE Disks of Two types; they are

1) Plain :
This is a default Disk type for VE’s in Virtuozzo. In this type at the time of VE creation all nominal disk size is being allocated or assigned to the VE’s at once. For Example, if you have assigned Disk Space of 100 GB; 100 GB out of available Disk Space will be assigned to the VE. The biggest disadvantage Plain Disk Type is it consumes heavy disk space of Host server even if the VE is not using that much of Disk.

2) Compact:
This Disk Type was introduced with Virtuozzo Update VZU35159 for Virtuozzo 3.5.1 and VZU40006 for Virtuozzo 4.0. Here, disk file of the VE starts small at the time of creation and it becomes larger as soon as user add’s more data. Every newly created VE (without OS) comes with default Disk quota of 17 MBs and goes increasing as more data get added. Compact disks experience slight performance degradation compared to plain disks, but allow to save considerable amount of disk space.

Creating VE with Disk Type.
User can assign Disk Type at the time of VE creation. Following are the commands for the same:

For plain disks:
vzctl create 101 –pkgset w2k3 –disktype plain

For compact disks:
vzctl create 101 –pkgset w2k3 –disktype compact

Setting the VE Disk Type

Disk Type of a VE can be set or changes at any moment during the VE life-cycle by entering following commands from command prompt:

For plain disks:
vzctl set 101 –disktype plain

For compact disks:
vzctl set 101 –disktype compact

Converting Disk Type will include downtime for a VE as it takes sometime for conversion which depends upon total Disk Usage of the VE

Querying Disk Type of the VE

Following is the command to see the Current Disk Type of the VE

After login into a VPS using RDP it stuck on Blue screen (Not BSOD) and doesn’t load next screen or Desktop of the VPS like below given image

OR if you get following Error after login to VE by RDP

“You are connected to the remote computer. However, an error occurred while an initial user program was starting, so you are being logged off. Contact the system administrator for assistance.“

Such problems occurs due to corrupted or missed C:/Windows/explorer.exe of the VPS or VE.

This problem can be fixed by copying C:/Windows/explorer.exe file of the host server to the VPS. Following are the steps to copy

1) Stop the VPS
#       vzctl stop VEID

2) Mount the VPS
#      vzctl mount VEID

Now we will able to access VPS files from host server in C:/vz/private/VEID/ Directory.

3) Copy “C:/Windows/explorer.exe” from Host server to “C:/vz/private/VEID/Windows/explorer.exe“

4) Unmount and start the VPS
#      vzctl umount VEID
#      vzctl start VEID

Please try to login to the VPS now.

Note: Here, VEID will be the VPS ID of the VE which is facing problem.

Sometime Schedule tasks on Microsoft doesn’t run and which checking them from Schedule tasks it give a pop up with following Error

ERROR: General page initialization failed. The specific error is: 0x8007000d: The data is invalid. An error has occurred attempting to retrieve task account information. You may continue editing the task object, but will be unable to change task account information.

Following are the steps to fix this problem/Error

1. Delete the offending “SYSTEM” account tasks in Task Scheduler.

2. Stop the Task Scheduler Service.

3. Delete all files in C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/Microsoft/Crypto/RSA/S-1-5-18

4. Restart the service (I’d restart the system).

Sometime it happens that your Customers complains that they are not able to connect their Windows VPS Throug Remote Desktop Protocol i.e. RDP even if the VPS is responding ping requests. The most common reason for this is that the VPS is running out of memory, check the VPS memory using Virtuozzo Power Panel and reboot the VPS if required.

But in some VPS is running fine, domains, FTP and all the services are running fine but still RDP is not connecting; Please check the following are steps which can help to diagnosis the problem.

1) Check Terminal Services are running or not. To check that first login into the VPS using command prompt of the host server and execute command net start “terminal services” and if it show the output given below than the service is already running.

C:\>vzctl enter 99999
Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]
(C) Copyright 1985-2003 Microsoft Corp.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>net start "terminal services"
The requested service has already been started.

More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2182.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

2) Check Remote Desktop Port. By default RDP use Port 3389 to connect the server/machines remotely. You can use command “netstat -aon |findstr :3389″ to see if Port 3389 is responding or not on the VPS.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>netstat -aon |findstr :3389
  TCP    0.0.0.0:3389           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       12308

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

If you get the above reply then the VPS is using Default RDP port (:3389) but you get following output that the RDP port has been changed by the VPS administrator

C:\WINDOWS\system32>netstat -aon |findstr :3389
C:\WINDOWS\system32>

To find the exact port you will have to execute the following commands on the command prompt of the VPS.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>tasklist /svc | find "erm"
svchost.exe                 324380 TermService
C:\WINDOWS\system32>netstat -aon | find "324380"
TCP    0.0.0.0:1050           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       324380

Here, RDP port has been changed from 3389 to 1050. So, try to connect the RDP using IPADDRESS:PORT

3) Check Firewall Configuration. As we have seen above that if the server is responding to port 3389 or any other port locally (inside the VPS) then there is a possibility that the firewall is blocking the access. Firewall of the VPS can be stopped using Parallel Management Console or using following commands.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>net stop sharedaccess
C:\WINDOWS\system32>net stop ipnat
C:\WINDOWS\system32>net stop policyagent

These Commands will stop the firewall service on your VPS.

4) Check for Virus/Infection. If the VPS is infected with Viruses or Trojans or any other malicious scripts then these script can also block the RDP access for the VPS. You can scan the VPS using Cureit anti-virus which is free and can be downloaded from http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/.

NOTE: Make sure to mount the VPS (vzctl mount VEID) and then scan the private area of the VPS. If any viruses found by the Anti-virus the best option to get this issue fixed is to create a new VPS and copy the data (You can access the data of infected VPS while it’s mounted).

If everything seems to be fine then I would suggest to contact Parallels OR the Vendor from where you have purchased the License (they will contact Parallels on your behalf) for more help.

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft and it’s Installation is quite Easy using GUI where a user has to selects the options which he/she needs with the database server and install it. We can automate the installation procedure and make it so simple that MSSQL can be installed using a single command.

Automating SQL server installation is made easier in MSSQL 2005 version and we can define the components which need to be installed with setup.exe via command prompt OR we can create an ini file which will contain all the information about the installation. In this post I will explain the steps to install MSSQL 2005 using command prompt with the help of single command.

Install MSSQL using Command Prompt (By Defining all modules in command)

1) Insert the MSSQL installation media into the disk drive.

2) Open Command Prompt (Start >> Run >> cmd >> Enter)

3) Execute following command

Here, ADDLOCAL is set to “All” which will install all the components and modules bundled with the MSSQL. If you want customized modules then you can declare the modules instead of “All“.

Install MSSQL using .ini file

1) Open Notepad (Start >> Run >> Notepad >> Enter)

2) Insert all the “Installation Parameters” in that file. Following is the sample file which I have used to install MSSQL on my System

Here, PIDKEY will be the Product Key of the product shipped with MSSQL.

3) Save this file with extension .ini (like sqlsetup.ini)

4) Execute following command to run the setup

Points to Note:

1) While specifying the accounts like SQLACCOUNT, AGTACCOUNT and SQLBROWSERACCOUNT make sure you define proper users. Users can be

2) Microsoft provides a template.ini file in the installation media but I would strongly recommend to remove the options that you don’t want.

You can refer to Microsoft tutorial for more information and component help at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms144259.aspx

While starting one of the Container on Windows Node it shown following Error.

After trying everything we were not able to figure out the exact reason for the problem. So, we asked SWSoft/Parallels for further support regarding this issue. Accoding to them root.efd file (which is HDD of Container) was in mounted stated due to which Virtuozzo was not able to start the Container. To fix the issue they have unmounted the Container using it’s GUID.

To find GUID you can execute following command from the command prompt of the Host Server

Or you can open E:/vz/conf/101.conf and look for Following

Once you find GUID execute following command to unmount the Container

Now, try to start the container

While stopping any VPS it gets timeout and VPS gets locked. After that it’s impossible to stop the VPS even if the method here gets failed OR even after rebooting the Host server problem doesn’t get fixed. Following are the steps to fix this issue

1) The very first step is to find out which process still running inside the VPS. To find the VPS process login to the host server from RDP and open Task Manager (Right Click on task bar >> Task Manger).

2) Sort the processes using CTID which will list all the processes on the basis of VPS ID or Container ID

If you find any processes named “winlogon” and “csrss” under problematic VPS then it’s not possible to kill these processes as they are critical windows services.

3) Disable “vzsrv” service from Service manager Or by executing following command from command prompt

4) Reboot the Host server.

5) As we have disabled vzsrv service non of the VPS will start but you will able to edit the VPS configuration file. Open VPS configuration file from [Path to VZ directory]:\vz\Conf\CTID.conf and add following string into the beginning of the file to disable on boot feature of the VPS.

6) Enable the vzsrv and reboot the host server again.

This will restart all the VPS except the problematic VPS. We would suggest you to scan the VPS using CureIT (after mounting it) as there is a possibility the the VPS is infected with Viruses.

Sometime when automated OR Manual Virtuozzo backup process gets stuck OR sometime a VPS stuck while starting up OR stopping during this stage its impossible to make any changes on that VPS. You can stop the VPS or kill the process which is running. Making any updates or trying to restart the VPS shows message “Container CTID is already locked”.

Solution:

In case of Linux this error can be fixed by deleting the lock file located at /vz/lock/CTID.lck but in Windows there is no such file.

Following are the steps to unlock the locked Container

1) vzctl stop CTID –skiplock (try this command twice till it doesn’t show that the container is not running)
This command might throw some ERROR but no need to worry.

2) vzctl start CTID –skiplock
This Command will throw an error if the VPS is stuck while starting or stopping.

3) After the both the above command the status of the VPS will be locked, so you will have to allow sometime to unlock the stuck processes.

4) If the above command doesn’t start the VPS, stop the VPS using –skiplock option again and kill “vzlpl” process from the Task Manager. After that you will able to start the VPS normally.

I have personally tested these steps on few Windows Servers and 90% of time this tweak worked. If it still doesn’t work its better to contact Parallels Support.

PROBLEM

Recently while recreating Service VPS (VPS ID 1) on a Windows Virtuozzo Node it was getting failed with following Error:

ERROR: Cannot adjust logon rights for vzagent user

SOLUTION

The error “Drop logon user rights” could fail when

1) the previous attempt of the service container recreation failed or
2) the vzagent user has the different then the default password.

This problem can be fixed by following steps (please, read the whole message, before proceeding):

1) Open Computer Management Console from Start >> Administrative tools >> Computer management (or just right-click on the My Computer icon of the Start menu and choose “manage”)

2) Expand “Local users and groups” section and enter into “Users“.

3) Locate vzagent user and remove it.

Try to re-create the Service VPS.

VPN on a Windows VPS can be configured using Routing & Remote Access service but before that VPN module for the VPS need to be enabled from the host server or Main Hardware Node using following command.

After that reboot the container and user will able to enable RRAS service from within the container but while starting/enabling RRAS on a VPS it shows following Error:

As per SW-Soft/Parallels Engineers this a bug in Virtuozzo which has been fixed by the Virtuozzo Developer in Virtuozzo VZU450011 Update. This update can be installed using Virtuozzo Update Wizard (vzupdate.exe) and follow the instructions. This wizard will install all the recent Virtuozzo updates and hot-fixes in the correct sequence OR you can download and install it manually using following URL but make sure you have already installed all previous updates before installing any update manually.

You can read more about installing updates manually on Parallels KB