Using CA AppLogic › Appliance Developer Guide › Appliance OS Installations › Windows Installations › Windows OS › Windows Base Class › Windows 8 Base Class

Windows 8 Base Class

For Windows appliances and applications, these instructions allow you to create Windows Server 8 base classes. The Windows.exe contains the APK.

The instructions have been tested with the following Windows Server versions:

Notes:

• This installation is based on the Installation DVD.
• The install size could change as Microsoft releases new updates to the OS.
• The contents of the X:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder can be removed to save disk space.

  For the example, the ISO image for the installation has been downloaded from Microsoft MSDN and copied to the impex volume of the grid as en_windows_8_enterprise_x86_dvd_u_677651.iso. Refer to the iso2class reference for other methods to specify an ISO image for the installation.

• The TurboGate PV drivers v2.0 can be used with the Windows 8 32-bit versions. The 64-bit versions are not supported. Version 3.0.1 of these drivers work with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 8.
• Do not execute the TurboGate installer until after you have completed installation of the basic OS.
• The host name must be different than any user name.
• In the following text of this topic, the y placeholder in WIN8y corresponds to the Windows edition, such as E for Enterprise, on which the appliance is based.

The Windows exe contains the APK. The APK performs an automated prep script prior to installing the APK.

You can disable the automated prep script, if you have already prepared the machine. During the Install, select Custom and disable the Prep script. You can then manually perform the APK prep script. To review the manual steps, refer to Manually Perform APK Prep Script.

Install and Configure Appliance

Follow these steps:

1. Open a 3T shell, execute the following command, and select either 32-bit or 64-bit and OS:

   util iso2class app_name=win8_install install_size=20G console_type=graphic iso_volume1=en_windows_server_8_enterprise_x86_dvd_677651.iso virt_options=acpi=1 cpu=1 mem=1G
   

   The win8_install application starts, booting the singleton iso2class from the specified ISO image.

   For SCSI based appliance creation, use the following command:

   util iso2class app_name=win8_install install_size=20G console_type=graphic iso_volume1=en_windows_server_8_enterprise_x86_dvd_677651.iso virt_options=acpi=1 cpu=1 mem=1G scsi=1
   

   The volume size of 20 GB provides enough space for the OS installation and subsequent Windows updates, which results in an appliance with approximately 1GB or more of free space when the process completes. This size requirement can change as Microsoft introduces more updates to the OS.

   The boot volume is formatted as ntfs08. You can only increase the size of the ntfs08 boot volume.

2. Access the graphical console of the singleton using one of the following methods:
   • In the GUI, select the Application tab, then select the application in the application list and click the icon for Login (graphic).
   • To open the application in the Infrastructure Editor, click the application, then select the singleton iso2class and select the Login (graphic) icon.
3. After the graphical console displays, the installation interface displays.

Complete the Installation and Windows Setup

Windows 8 recommends using a Local account, rather than a Microsoft account during the installation.

The singleton reboots during installation, rendering the graphical console inoperative. When the reboot occurs, simply close and re-open the graphical console. On a rare occasion, when using Mozilla Firefox to access the graphical console, a repeatable error of Application is not started or graphical console misconfigured displays. If an error occurs, simply close and open Firefox.

To complete the installation and Windows setup, the singleton reboots. Windows requests a user name, computer name, and password.

Follow these steps:

1. In the Windows pop-up window, enter the computer name, user name, and password. The user name must be different than the host name.

   Note: This is not the credentials for the Administrator.

   Windows sets a new password for the specified user and automatically logs in to the desktop.

2. After reboot, open the graphical console and log in to the appliance.
3. Enable the Administrator User and set the password.
   1. Go to Administrative Tools, Computer Management.
   2. Expand the Local Groups and Users.
   3. Select Users, then right-click Administrator and select Properties.
   4. Clear the Account is disabled option and click OK.
   5. To set the password for the administrator, right-click the Administrator user and select the Set new password option.
   6. Log off from the current user and log in as the Administrator to complete the appliance creation process.
4. To configure the external interface of the singleton to provide access to the Internet, use one of the following methods. The singleton has two network interfaces: Ethernet which is the external interface and Ethernet 2 which is the internal interface.
   • Open the Control Panel, Network and Internet, Network and Sharing Center, Ethernet, Properties, TCP/IPv4, Properties.

     Click Use the following IP address and enter an available IP address from the grid's assigned external network and the corresponding netmask and gateway for that network. To locate the IP address and other values, access the Network Resources section of the dashboard.

   • Or, execute the following commands in the command shell:

     netsh interface ip set address name="Ethernet" static [ip-address] [netmask] [gateway] 1 
     netsh interface ip set dns name="Ethernet" static [dns-ip] 
     

5. Install the high priority and optional Windows updates:
   • Open the Control Panel, System and Security and select Windows Update, then select the Turn on the automatic updates and Install updates options.
   • Reboot when prompted.
   • Close the graphical console, and, after approximately one minute, open the graphical console.
   • Repeat the procedure until there are no updates to install.

   In Internet Explorer, the Windows Update option is available under Security, Windows Update.

6. Activate Windows by searching for slui 3 utility.
   1. Launch the utility.
   2. Enter a valid product key.
7. Shut down the OS.
8. Continue the iso2class installation using the following steps:
   1. In the command shell, type the following command and press Enter:

      shutdown -s -t 0
      

   2. Wait approximately five seconds.
   3. In the 3tshell that is running the iso2class utility, press Enter, Y, Enter.

      The second volume becomes available to the singleton.

9. Wait approximately one minute, then open the graphical console and log in to the Windows desktop.

   If the graphical console starts in the System Recovery Options dialog, perform the following steps:

   • Select Next and log in as Administrator.
   • Restart and wait approximately one minute.
   • Reopen the graphical console and log in to the Windows desktop.
10. To transform this singleton into a fully managed appliance, execute the Windows Server exe installer.
    1. Locate this self-executing installer on the drive of the singleton. The drive is typically drive D or E.
    2. Double-click the Server Windows exe file to perform the base class appliance installation.

    The Windows APK is installed as a prerequisite.

11. If there are junction points on the volume, delete junction points to prevent Windows volume resize failures.

    Search for junction points using the command prompt.

    dir/S /A:L
    

    The output of the command reports the path for any junction points:

    The following are examples of junction points on a Windows boot volume. The names on your volumes can differ.

    • WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_32\System.EnterpriseServices\2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\
    • WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\IEExecRemote\2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\
12. If installing the TurboGate PV drivers, execute the following command. The drive is typically drive D or E.

    copy E:\TurboGate-Tools-Setup-V3.0.1.exe C:\
    

    Note: Do not execute the TurboGate installer until after you have completed installation of the basic OS.

13. To complete the system configuration, shutdown the OS.
    1. In the command shell, type the following command and press Enter:

       shutdown -s -t 0
       

    2. Wait approximately five seconds.
    3. Within the 3tshell running the iso2class utility, press Enter, Y, Enter.
    4. When prompted in the 3t shell, select The Appliance is fully managed option.

       The iso2class stops the application, changes the singleton boundary to that of a generic server appliance, and starts the application.

Create Catalog Appliance Class

You can change the resulting singleton into a catalog appliance class.

Follow these steps:

1. Stop the application.
2. Open the application in the Infrastructure Editor.
3. Right-click the singleton and select Attributes. The Instance Settings window displays.

   Change the instance name to WIN8y and click OK.

   The Infrastructure Editor displays.

4. Right-click the singleton and select Modify Boundary.

   The Class Definition window displays.

5. In the General page, change the class name to WIN8y.
   1. Enter the description as: Windows Server Appliance – based on Windows 8 Enterprise Edition 32-bit
   2. Select the OS icon as Windows.
   3. Set the documentation URL to the appliance datasheet using the following URL:

      http://doc.3tera.com/AppLogicxx/index.htm?toc.htm?CatGenericWindows8.html
      

      where xx indicates the current version of AppLogic.

   4. Verify the Virtualization modes.
6. Select the Resources tab.

   The Resources page displays.

   Modify the resource settings based on the following resource table

1. Click OK. The Infrastructure Editor displays.
2. To save the application, click Save.

Complete the Appliance

Completing the appliance includes making changes if you are installing the TurboGate PV drivers.

If not, refer to steps at the end of this procedure.

Follow these steps:

1. Right click the singleton, then select Modify Boundary.

   The Class Definition window displays.

2. Select the Interfaces tab.

   If the appliance virtualization mode is not VMware, add terminals to the appliance until there are a total of 7 listed interfaces. With the default interface, you will have the maximum 8 interfaces. This step is required to avoid manual user intervention when adding terminals to future appliances based on this appliance.

   If the appliance virtualization mode is vmware, add terminals to the appliance for a total of 9 interfaces. With the default interface, you have the maximum 10 interfaces.

3. Select the Volumes tab.

   To ensure that new volumes added to an appliance are properly recognized and brought online, create three raw 50 MB volumes as placeholder volumes.

   Do not assign mount points for these volumes.

4. Click OK.

   The Infrastructure Editor displays.

5. Click Save.
6. SSH into the appliance and set the Administrator password (net user administrator new password). You are changing the administrator password because the Server Windows EXE sets a new random password on initial boot. You must know the Administrator password before installing the TurboGate PV drivers.
7. Log in through the graphical console.
8. Execute diskpart in a cmd.exe shell in the graphical console to format and mount the three raw volumes. In the diskpart command line interface, execute the command list disk.
   1. Execute the following commands for each disk, except the boot disk:

      select disk #  [specify the number]
      online disk # [skip this step if the disk is online]
      clean
      create partition primary 
      assign letter=[specify a different letter for each disk, such as D, E, F]
      

   2. Exit the diskpart interface.
   3. Format each volume in the cmd.exe shell. For example: format /fs:ntfs d:.
9. Execute the PV driver installer. For example: C:\TurboGate-Tools-Setup-V3.0.1.exe.

   Select the Install Anyway option. Do not reboot after the install.

10. Open a 3T shell and execute the following command:

    app restart win8_install -debug
    

11. Wait approximately one minute after the application begins to start, then log in using the graphical console and wait approximately one minute until the driver installation completes and the pop-up window requests a restart.

    To restart the appliance, click the Restart icon.

    Note: Perform one of the following sets of steps, depending on whether the app start has timed out:

    • If the application start has not timed out, it may complete normally.
    • If the application start has timed out, execute the following command in the 3T shell, followed by shutdown in the graphical console:

      app stop win8_install 
      

12. In the 3T shell, execute app start win8_install and verify the appliance starts without error.
13. Log in through the graphical console:
    1. Verify all the disks are online using diskpart in a cmd.exe shell:

       diskpart
       list disk
       exit
       

    2. If you have installed version 3.0.1 of the TurboGate PV drivers, select Start, Run, services.msc to disable the service gkservice.

       This service is installed with the PV drivers and, if there is more than one virtual network interface associated to the appliance, fails to start. Disabling this service does not affect the performance of the PV drivers.

14. In a bash shell on the appliance perform the following steps:
    1. Set a new complex password, such as net user administrator pq398hpaowht0293j^LWOIFH9htfw9jfe.
    2. Exit the SSH session.
15. SSH into the appliance and execute the following command:

    rm -f ~/.bash_history /cygdrive/c/TurboGate* /appliance/passwd.stamp
    

16. Stop the application, then modify the appliance boundary by removing the extra terminals and 3 placeholder volumes added in the previous steps.

Not Installing TurboGate PV

If you are not installing the TurboGate PV drivers, perform the following steps to complete the appliance.

Follow these steps:

1. Start the application and securely log in to the appliance using SSH.
2. Execute the following command:

   rm -rf /appliance/passwd.stamp ~/.bash_history
   

Enabling the Appliance to be Compliant using Sysprep

The Windows APK includes a script to prepare catalog appliance instances to be specialized during the initial start. This process uses the Microsoft sysprep utility. Sysprep checks for the license key and returns the appliance to the factory default.

If you used a Microsoft site license key in the preceding steps, you do not need to sysprep. The site license key allows the key to be used each time you branch your singleton.

If you do not have a site license key and need to license multiple appliances individually, you must sysprep each appliance.

Follow these steps:

1. Log in through the graphical console.
2. From the cmd.exe shell, execute

   mountvol /e 
   

3. Restart the OS using the command:

   shutdown -r -t 0
   

4. After a few minutes, reopen the graphical console.
5. From the cmd.exe shell, cd to the C:\applogic directory.
6. Execute the run_sysprep_generalize.bat script

   This runs the Sysprep /generalize phase and takes less than 3 minutes to complete

7. When complete, stop the application

   The singleton is ready to be moved to the /system_ms catalog with Sysprep enabled to run upon instantiation.

Moving Appliance to Catalog

Follow these steps:

1. Verify that you have full access rights to the catalog. These rights are required to move the singleton.
2. Move the singleton to the /system_ms catalog.