Windows 8 Server – Enabling the Failover Cluster Feature via DISM Command Line

We tried to get a cluster up and running using Windows Server 8 Developer Preview and did not get too far with it.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Hyper-V Failover Cluster with Windows 8 – Well, Maybe Not Quite Yet

We put a question out to some fellow MVPs on what it was that may be wrong with the setup or what we were doing wrong.

We may have missed a point or two about how the stepped down version of the OS GUI install worked. While we could get some key features installed via the Server Manager we were stuck on enabling features.

Here are what we needed to do (assume [Enter] at the end of each command line in bold):

1. C:\>dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:D:\Sources\Install.wim

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Details for image : D:\Sources\Install.wim

   Index : 1
   Name : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTER
   Description : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTER
   Size : 12,033,121,111 bytes

   Index : 2
   Name : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTERCORE
   Description : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTERCORE
   Size : 7,244,246,005 bytes

   Index : 3
   Name : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTERREMOTIFIED
   Description : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERDATACENTERREMOTIFIED
   Size : 10,692,617,422 bytes

   The operation completed successfully.

2. C:
3. CD \
4. MKDIR MOUNT
5. C:\>dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:D:\Sources\Install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\MOUNT  /ReadOnly

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Mounting image
   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

• NOTE: We must user Index:1 for our setting as it contains all of the necessary install files!

6. C:\>dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-FullServer /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Image Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Enabling feature(s)
   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

7. C:\>dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-AutomationServer /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Image Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Enabling feature(s)
   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

8. C:\>dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-CmdInterface /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Image Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Enabling feature(s)
   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

9. C:\>dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-AdminPak /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS

   Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
   Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Image Version: 6.2.8102.0

   Enabling feature(s)
   [==========================100.0%==========================]
   The operation completed successfully.

10. C:\>dism /unmount-wim /MountDir:C:\MOUNT /discard

    Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
    Version: 6.2.8102.0

    Image File : D:\Sources\Install.wim
    Image Index : 1
    Unmounting image
    [==========================100.0%==========================]
    The operation completed successfully.

Note that we ran all of the feature component installs that were found in the DISM error log when we tried to run things from the GUI.

We now had what we were looking for (Start –> type: fail):

Kewl! :D

Quick access to the DISM log from the command line:

• notepad C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log [Enter]

The following can be copied and pasted into Notepad to run as a script:

C:
CD \
MKDIR MOUNT
pause
dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:D:\Sources\Install.wim /Index:1 /MountDir:C:\MOUNT /ReadOnly
pause
dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-FullServer /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS
dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-AutomationServer /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS
dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-CmdInterface /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS
dism /online /enable-feature /FeatureName:FailoverCluster-AdminPak /All /Source:C:\MOUNT\Windows\WinSxS
dism /unmount-wim /MountDir:C:\MOUNT /discard
pause

The pauses require a key press to allow the script to continue. They are there to allow for the viewing of any status messages. Each DISM command belongs on its own line as per the following Snip:

Here is a Snip of the script actually being run through:

Now that we have our cluster services in place we can go ahead and run the wizard:

Note the Microsoft MPIO warning.

Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600

The Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 threw up the same warnings via Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. So it is looking like there may be something proprietary with the HS unit that the Promise VTrak units do not share.

We did try and stand up the cluster but that failed on Disk Arbitration so we sent both nodes into a reboot cycle to see if things would come up properly as we had not done that since installing the Cluster features.

Once we had the nodes rebooted and we ran the wizard again we saw the following:

That was the same warning on the Oceanspace S2600 so:

We were then able to try and stand up our cluster!

But, not to be! :(

Error

The operation has failed.

The action “Validate Configuration…” did not complete.

The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)

No kidding:

The above error comes about when we try and run the Create Cluster Wizard. It seems that our second node has dropped right off.

We verified that the proper firewall exceptions where in place on the missing node.

So, we flipped over to Node-99 and ran the Create Cluster Wizard from there. Sure enough the wizard ran successfully there for some reason.

The in the Failover Cluster Manager we see:

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a Windows 8 Hyper-V Failover Cluster via Oceanspace S2600 SAS based DAS connections!

BTW, gone is the link to enable Cluster Shared Volumes, there is now a link under the storage node as shown above called Add Storage to Cluster Shared Volumes.

From there we were good to go to stand up a highly available VM!

Some Failover Cluster Manager menu goodness:

That  is _so_ much better than the current convoluted menu we get when we right click on a highly available VM in FCM.

New VHDX goodness:

We now get up to 16TB of disk space available to us!

From here we will run a few tests to see how things work and then flatten everything to run through the process again but with a Promise VTrak E610sD RAID Subsystem attached instead.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Failover Cluster Manager: Deleting a Cluster

Now that we have gone through our preliminary testing with the Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 storage system, we are looking to reset the cluster nodes so that we can hook them up to another storage device for more testing or for client backup recovery purposes using a Promise VTrak E610sD.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 Entry Level Storage System
• MPECS Inc. Blog: Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 Configuration

To remove the cluster we start by deleting any highly available VMs from the cluster.

Once all VMs are removed we then evict Node-2 from the cluster.

The final step is to Destroy the cluster:

Are you sure?

After clicking the Destroy button we see:

Failover Cluster Manager then removes all reference to the previously existing cluster.

When we check Active Directory the object for the cluster was disabled:

We then deleted the AD object and moved on to clean-up on the nodes themselves which included removing the MPIO settings for the Oceanspace S2600.

We may leave them configured as they are for the next job or we may wipe them clean and start fresh. That all depends on what cluster related project is coming down the pipe!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 Configuration

We now have our RAID Group set up with the configuration set at RAID 10.

We then went ahead and configured our LUNs:

We have our two Intel Server System SR1695GPRX2AC units plugged in and turned on as can be seen under the Host section (4 Initiators).

At the bottom of the left hand column under Mappings in the ISM we find our four SAS initiators for the two nodes:

It took a bit to figure out just how to get the SAS IDs mapped to the LUNs. First we shut down the second node so that we would know which IDs belonged to which server:

We mapped them to the appropriate node:

Then we went to map the actual LUNs to the Hosts:

So, we moved to the Host Groups node in the left hand column of the ISM and went through the Add LUN Mapping wizard. Despite the way things looked, when we selected all of the LUNs they were given a sequential LUN ID.

That Host LUN ID drop down list near the bottom is a bit misleading.

We then had our LUNs mapped to the Default Host Group:

With that the shared storage showed up in both node’s Disk Management!

Now on to setting up MPIO in the Hyper-V node, running the Cluster Validation Wizard, and finally standing up a Hyper-V Failover Cluster for some further testing.

Some Initial Observations

Disk and LUN Configuration

Our primary DAS product has been the Promise VTrak E610sD and E310sD RAID subsystems. So, working with the Oceanspace S2600 has been a bit of a challenge since the management console and set up steps are quite different.

For one, the Oceanspace S2600 does not allow LUN level disk RAID configuration. The RAID Group that is configured with however many disks carries the RAID level.

This contrasts with the Promise VTrak’s ability to create a Disk Array and then set up whatever RAID level for each LUN we may set up in that Disk Array.

The cost is some storage space where RAID 1 would be specified for certain LUNs that would host low I/O needs such as RDS or SQL host OSs.

However, that would be balanced out with the fact that running RAID 10 underneath everything means that every LUN on the Oceanspace S2600 would receive the benefit of higher throughput.

Management Console

The Promise VTrak’s Web based management console is quite feature complex relative to the Oceanspace S2600’s console.

The plus side for the Oceanspace S2600 console is that it was quite simple to pick up on how to set up storage for our needs with very little reading needing to be done (primarily to get to know the nomenclature).

In the end, preference for one console over another is subjective. In both cases, the respective vendor’s Management Console gets the job done and that is what is most important to us.

MPIO Setup

It took a couple of reboots after removing any MPIO device references, then running:

• mpclaim –n –i –a (reboot)

Finally, in MPIOCPL.exe we saw the following on Node-01:

We then saw:

After a minute or two we finally had:

One reboot later:

But, our second node was still blank:

We manually added the Device Hardware ID as per the other node:

After a reboot and another mpclaim –n –i –a we finally had doubles of everything! One reboot later and we finally had our shared storage configured and ready for the Failover Cluster Manager’s Cluster Validation Wizard!

Long story short we had a lot of problems getting one of our nodes (they are identical all the way through) to recognize both SAS paths to the Oceanspace S2600.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 Entry Level Storage System

It is no secret that we are working on a commodity based 2 node Hyper-V Cluster to put our SMB clients into the running for high availability server systems.

As a result, Huawei Symantec (Huawei is pronounced: Wah-Way) graciously sent us one of their new entry level direct attached storage units the Oceanspace S2600.

• Huawei Symantec Oceanspace S2600 Entry Level Storage page

Once we had the S2600 out of the box and on the bench we plugged the supplied RJ45 to Serial Cable into our Tecra S10’s serial port and fired up TeraTerm using the default settings. We made sure to have controller A’s network connection plugged in as well.

Once the unit finished its first boot sequence we needed to change the default IP address using the serial connection.

• Oceanspace S2600 default username and password:
• admin
• 123456
• Oceanspace S2600 default network settings:
• IP: 192.168.128.101 or 102
• Subnet: 255.255.0.0
• Oceanspace S2600 Serial settings:
• Bits per second: 115200, Data bits: 8, Parity: None, Stop bits: 1, Flow: None.

To change the default IP address we logged into the command line on our Tecra and ran the following command:

• chgctrlip –c A –a 192.168.95.210 –s 255.255.255.0 –g 192.168.95.1

Once we had a successful IP change we were able to bring up the Oceanspace ISM:

Once we clicked on the Launch Oceanspace ISM link we needed to allow a file download which lead to:

We were then prompted for a Windows Firewall exception. Once made:

We left the default at English.

Despite being launched from the Oceanspace S2600’s web page found at the assigned IP address we had to go through a discovery process once into the ISM:

The device was promptly found:

We were then into the ISM console itself:

Now the next step will be to set up the storage subsystem and see how the S2600 hooks up to our 2 Intel Server Systems via SAS and set up a Hyper-V cluster for some performance testing.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.