Intel Server System R1208JP4OC Base System Device Driver ERROR Fix

We were asked to rebuild a cluster that had both Intel Server System R1208JP4OC nodes go blotto.

After installing Windows Server 2012 R2 the first step is to install the drivers. But, after installing the most recent Intel Chipset Drivers file we still saw the following:

Base System Device: Error

After a bit of finagling around we figured out that version 10.1.2.86_Public shown in the above snip cleared things up nicely.

PowerShell found in our Kepler-47 Setup Guide # DRIVERS section

Thanks for reading! :)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

CaseWare CaseView: DRAFT Watermark Not Printing on HP LaserJet Pro M203dw

We hit a very strange situation with a newly set up HP LaserJet Pro M203dw. This was the first printer to go in to replace a HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn that was not behaving well with Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit at an accounting firm client of ours.

It took a number of installs to get the printer to show up in Printers & Scanners for one. The rip and replace process got to be a bit tedious but we eventually got it to show there.

The catch was when the partner ticked the DRAFT option in CaseView and went to print the file the watermark was so light as to be practically invisible.

Print to PDF then to the printer and the DRAFT watermark would show up but weirdly due to the firm's logo.

Since this was a newly set up machine we tested a few other HP printers in the firm with the watermark showing just fine.

It became apparent that nothing we could do would get it to work.

So, we replaced the printer with a HP LaserJet Pro M402dw and it just worked. In fact, Windows 10 picked up the printer as soon as the USB port was plugged in to the laptop dock and set it as default.

Some observations:

• HP LJ Pro M203dw came with a _tiny_ toner cartridge
• HP LJ Pro M203dw has a separate toner and imaging drum a la Brother
• We do _not_ like this setup at all
• HP LJ Pro M402dw has a recent firmware update
• This took some time but ran flawlessly
• HP LJ Pro M402dw works great via Remote Desktop into the partner's laptop, Remote Desktop Session Host, and RemoteApp
• RD EasyPrint just works with this one

Conclusion

We won't be supplying anymore HP LJ Pro M203dw printers. All of our firms will be getting the M402dw and our cloud clients will get this printer as a recommendation.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Hypervisor, Cluster, and Server Hardware Nomenclature (A quick what's what)

100 Level Post

When helping folks out there seems to be a bit of confusion on what means what when it comes to discussing the software or hardware.

So, here are some definitions to help clear the air.

• NIC
• Network Interface Card
• The card can have one, two, four, or more ports
• Get-NetAdapter
• Get-NetLbfoTeam
• Port
• The ports on the NIC
• pNIC
• pNIC = NIC
• A physical NIC in a hypervisor host or cluster node
• vNIC
• The virtual NIC in a Virtual Machine (VM)
• In-Guest: Get-NetAdapter
• In-Guest: Get-NetIPAddress
• vSwitch
• The Virtual Switch attached to a vNIC
• Get-VMSwitch
• Gb
• Gigabit =/= Gigabyte (GB)
• 1 billion bits
• GB
• Gigabyte =/= Gigabit (Gb)
• 1 billion bytes
• 10GbE
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• Throughput @ line speed ~ 1GB/Second (1 Gigabyte per Second)
• 100GbE
• 100 Gigabit Ethernet
• Throughput @ line speed ~ 10GB/Second (10 Gigabytes per Second)
• pCore
• A physical Core on a CPU (Central Processing Unit)
• vCPU
• A virtual CPU assigned to a VM
• Is _not_ a pCore or assigned to a specific pCore by the hypervisor!
• Please read my Experts-Exchange article on Hyper-V especially the Virtual CPUs and CPU Cores section mid-way down it's free to access
• Set-VMProcessor VMNAME -Count 2
• NUMA
• Non-Uniform Memory Access
• A Memory Controller and the physical RAM (pRAM) attached to it is a NUMA node

A simple New-VM PowerShell script is here. This is our PowerShell Guide Series that has a number of PowerShell and CMD related scripts . Please check them out and back every once in a while as more scripts are on the works.

Think something should be in the above list? Please comment or feel free to ping us via email.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.commodityclusters.com
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Mellanox SwitchX-2 MLNX-OS Upgrade Stall via WebGUI and MLNX-OS to Onyx Upgrade?

Yesterday, we posted about our OS update process and the grids that indicated the proper path to the most current version.

A catch that became apparent was that there were two streams of updates available to us:

1. image-PPC_M460EX-3.6.4112.img
2. onyx-PPC_M460EX-3.6.4112.img
• ETC
• 

As can be seen in the snip above we read an extensive number of Release Notes (RN) and User Manuals (UM) trying to figure out what was what and which was which. :S

In the end, we opened a support ticket with Mellanox to figure out why our switches were stalling on the WebGUI upgrade process and why there was a dearth of documentation indicating anything about upgrade paths.

The technician mentioned that we should use CLI to clean-up any image files that may be left over. That's something we've not had to do before.

Following the process in the UM to connect via SSH using our favourite freebie tool TeraTerm we connected to both switches and found only one file to delete:

• WebImage.tbz

Once that file was deleted we were able to initiate the update from within the WebGUI without error on both switches.

Since we had MLNX-OS 3.6.4112 already installed the next question for the tech was, "How do we get to the most current version of Onyx?"

The process was as follows:

1. Up to MLNX-OS 3.6.4112
2. Up to Onyx 3.6.6000
3. Up to Onyx 3.6.8008

As always, check out the Release Notes (RN) to make sure that the update will not cause any problems especially with in-production NICs and their firmware!

Happy News! Welcome to Onyx

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

Mellanox SwitchX-2 and Spectrum OS Update Grids

We're in the process of building out a new all-flash based Kepler-64 2-node cluster that will be running the Scale-Out File Server Role. This round of testing will have several different rounds to it:

1. Flat Flash Intel SSD DC S4500 Series
• All Intel SSD DC S4500 Series SATA SSD x24
2. Intel NVMe PCIe AIC Cache + Intel SSD DC S4500
• Intel NVMe PCIe AIC x4
• Intel SSD DC S4500 Series SATA SSD x24
3. Intel Optane PCIe AIC + Intel SSD DC S4500
1. Intel Optane PCIe AIC x4
2. Intel SSD DC S4500 Series SATA SSD x24

Prior to running the above tests we need to update the operating system on our two Mellanox SwitchX-2 MSX1012B series switches as we've been quite busy with other things!

Their current OS level is 3.6.4006 so just a tad bit out of date.

The current OS level for SwitchX-2 PPC switches is 3.6.8008. And, as per the Release Notes for this OS version we need to do a bit of a Texas Two-Step to get our way up to current.

Now, here's the kicker: There is no 3.6.5000 on Mellanox's download site. The closest version to that is 3.6.5009 which provides a clarification on the above:

Okay, so that gets us to 3.6.5009 that in turn gets us to 3.6.6106:

And that finally gets us to 3.6.8008:

Update Texas Two Step

To sum things up we need the following images:

1. 3.6.4122
2. 3.6.5009
3. 3.6.6106
4. 3.6.8008

Then, it's a matter of time and a bit of patience to run through each step as the switches can take a bit of time to update.

A quick way to back up the configuration is to click on the Setup button then Configurations then click the initial link.

Copy and paste the output into a TXT file as it can be used to reconfigure the switch if need-be via the Execute CLI commands window just below it.

As always, it pays to read that manual eh! ;)

NOTE: Acronym Finder: AIC = Add-in Card so not U.2.

Oh, and be patient with the downloads as they are _slow_ as molasses in December as of this writing. :(

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

New PowerShell Guide Posted: Hyper-V Standalone Server

We've published a new PowerShell Guide for setting up a standalone Hyper-V server.

• PowerShell Guide - Standalone Hyper-V Server

Please check it out and feel free to chime in via the comments or ping us to let us know if anything is missing or wrong.
Thanks for reading.
Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
www.s2d.rocks !
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service

GitHub: SSH Key Error: Key is invalid FIX

We're following the GitHub Help instructions for Adding a new SSH key to your GitHub account.

The OS is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on Azure for a service we're in the process of setting up.

The following _did not work_ for us:

$ clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

So, we did this instead:

$cd .ssh

$ vi ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

And received the following:

Everything looked fine but no matter which way the Copy & Paste was done the Key is invalid. Ensure you've copied the file correctly error would happen.

In the end, the stackoverflow post at the bottom got us some joy.

We needed to run:

more id_rsa.pub

Highlight from the last character in the e-mail address to the front of ssh-rsa and it worked!

While it's been a few years since I've worked in a *NIX/*BSD environment it was just like riding a bicycle! Oh, and being somewhat fluent in PowerShell really helps too. :)

Thanks for reading!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Web Site
S2D.Rocks!
Our Cloud Service

Hyper-V Storage Live Migration Error: …not allowed because replication state is not initialized.

We had a Hyper-V server choke on some attached USB storage that was being used as a backup destination.

After getting things up and running we went to move one of the VM's VHDX file set and hit this:

Move Wizard

Storage migration for virtual machine 'VMName' failed.

Operation not allowed because the replication state is not initialized.

Storage Migration for virtual machine 'VMName' (GUID) failed with error 'The device is not ready.' (0x80070015).

Operation not allowed for virtual machine 'VMName' because Hyper-V state is yet to be initialized from the virtual machine configuration. Try again in a few minutes. (Virtual machine ID GUID)

The "fix" is to restart the VMM Service in an elevated PowerShell:

Restart-Service -Name VMMS

Once the service was restarted:

The move started without issue.

HT: Charbel Nemnom.

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Web Site
Our Cloud Service