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P2V 2.1.2 Release Notes

Check back frequently for additions and updates to these release notes.

Version 2.1.2 | 09/21/06 | Build 31118

What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

What's New in P2V Assistant 2.1.2

P2V Assistant 2.1.2 includes the following new support:

  • This release adds support for ESX Server 3.x and VMware Server 1.x.

P2V Assistant 2.1.2 includes the following fixes and features:

  • The installation wizard does not allow P2V Assistant 2.1.2 to be installed over VMware Virtual Machine Importer 2.0 or 1.5, to prevent interference with the P2V vmount functionality. See also P2V Assistant 2.1.2 Does Not Co-exist with Any VMware Product That Ships VIE Version 2.2.5 or Higher (KB 6659136)
  • P2V Assistant successfully clones a data disk that has no active partition.
  • The default minimum partition size is increased to 8 MB in the partition editor to prevent the "Too many small partitions at end of disk" error message.
  • P2V Assistant correctly detects 64-bit operating systems, and allows the user to continue with the cloning process but refuses the reconfiguration option.
  • The list of direct attached disks in the helper virtual machine or physical machine is displayed correctly without requiring the user to disable Altiris Client Service.
  • In some instances P2V would not detect if a Windows kernel file were missing, resulting in the virtual machine failing when booted up. With this release, the P2V application adds scsiport.sys to the system32/drivers folder if it finds its replacement in the NtUpdateRollupPackUninstall folder. Otherwise, it logs the error in the reconfiguation log file.
  • P2V successfully reconfigures a direct attached disk that is aligned per EMC's Best Practices presentation delivered at VMworld 2005.

What's New in P2V Assistant 2.1.1

The P2V Boot CD 2.1.1 includes several fixes to allow P2V cloning of a wider range of hardware. Specifically:

  • An issue preventing cloning of IBM eServers with large ServeRAID-backed volumes was fixed. (Disks with more than 65535 cylinders could not be cloned.)
  • Symmetric multi-processing (SMP) is disabled by default. Instabilities and failure to boot were noticed on some multi-processor systems, so the P2V Boot CD will only boot with one CPU enabled by default.
    Note: If you wish to boot with SMP enabled, enter smp at the P2V Boot CD prompt.
  • The DHCP timeout and retry limit were increased to resolve network failure on networks that require the network adapter be enabled for over a minute before traffic is allowed.

The P2V Assistant 2.1.1 includes several fixes as well:

  • An issue preventing the installation of the license when running P2V Assistant for the first time after Workstation 5.0 has run was fixed.
  • An issue preventing cloning of HP DL380 and similar machines with SmartArray 5i-backed volumes was fixed.

What's New in P2V Assistant 2.1

P2V version 2.1 contains many new features, including:

Graphical Desktop Interface

The P2V Boot CD now automatically boots into a network-enabled, full-featured graphical desktop interface upon startup.

Based on the Linux Live CD distribution Knoppix 3.8.1, this release includes all the tools you'd expect to have on a full desktop operating system installation, including web browser support, graphical tools for configuring and setting up disks and network devices, and many other features.

The P2V setup process itself has been streamlined and many bugs have been fixed. The interface has been optimized for the most common case (transferring data from a server on a network using DHCP).

Note: For machines with 64 megabytes of RAM or less, the P2V Boot CD will remain in text console mode. If you wish to start the P2V Boot CD in text console mode, at the boot prompt, please enter:

knoppix 2

to start the boot CD at run level 2 (console-only mode).

For more boot options to enable or disable specific hardware options, please see the Knoppix boot parameters document.

Hardware Support Customizer

Note: The Hardware Support Customizer has been provided as an experimental tool, intended to assist customers whose hardware is not explicitly listed in the P2V Boot CD's hardware database.

To ensure the P2V Boot CD works reliably across hardware that isn't explicitly recognized by the hardware support database shipped with the product, this graphical tool allows you to add your own hardware to the list of recognized devices.

To start the Hardware Support Customizer, click on its icon in the graphical desktop interface's toolbar.

To find your unrecognized devices and add them to the Hardware Support Customizer, check the most recent portion of the file /etc/bootcdlog.txt. Open a terminal or press Ctrl-Alt-F2, and run:

less /etc/bootcdlog.txt

Note down the vendor name and corresponding numeric PCI IDs for your unrecognized device. For example, if your Ethernet card was not recognized, check the corresponding two lines in bootcdlog.txt:

000:00:11.0 Ethernet controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Unknown Device (rev 10)
0000:00:11.0 0200: 1022:2000 (rev 10)

would tell me I had an AMD (vendor ID 1022) device with ID 2000.

To find the correct driver for this device, use your favorite search engine using the vendor name, ID, and device ID. Using the information in the example above you should be able to find the Linux pcnet32 driver, which is the correct driver for this device.

In the Hardware Customizer, select Add Device, enter the vendor and device details, as well as the name of the Linux driver to use for your device, and the P2V Boot CD will automatically re-scan your hardware and load the driver for your device.

While adding completely new drivers to the P2V Boot CD is not yet supported, by using the Hardware Support Customizer you can ensure even the latest revisions of your storage and network devices are correctly recognized by the corresponding Linux driver without having to wait for a new release of the P2V boot CD.

You can even save your customized hardware support list to external media (floppy, other hard drive partitions, or other device) and your customized list will be used on reboot.

From the Hardware Support Customizer, just click Export Hardware Support List and copy the exported file to your external media. Save the file with the filename pcitable in the top-level directory of your media. This allows system administrators running P2V on a large number of machines to use their own customized hardware support list.

Security Alerts for This Release

As of this writing, no security alerts have been identified specifically for P2V 2.1.

Please refer to KB 1107 for VMware product security alerts.

Known Issues

Check the VMware Knowledge Base for updates to the issues described in this document. To review all Knowledge Base articles related to P2V, search for the keyword "P2V".

For any known issue that has a Knowledge Base article link, please use this path to access the article. Change the Knowledge Base number in the URL.

www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=xxxx

Pertinent Knowledge Base Articles

Boot CD Ethernet Driver Tool

One of the most commonly reported issues with the P2V Boot CD is trouble on specific network and Ethernet card combinations where media speed and duplex autonegotiation fails.

To address this issue, P2V 2.1 includes a new program, ethtool. This program unifies media speed and duplex settings across all Ethernet drivers in Linux 2.6.

Here's an example, running ethtool on the first Ethernet device in the system, setting it to 100baseT speed and full duplex:
sudo ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full

Note: sudo is a program shipped with the P2V Boot CD to run specified programs as the administrative user, "root". By default, programs executed in a terminal are started safely as a non-administrative user, but ethtool requires root access to run.

You can also set the speed to 10baseT, 1000baseT, and the duplex to half, among other options.

Run man ethtool from a terminal for a full explanation of ethtool's functionality and options. Note that not all functions in ethtool apply to all Ethernet cards.

Installing on Windows 2000 with Terminal Services

Description:
The P2V Assistant cannot be installed on Windows 2000 systems with Terminal Services.

Action:

  1. Run a virtual machine on the Windows 2000 system with Terminal Services.
  2. Install the P2V Assistant in the virtual machine.
    The virtual machine you use should not be running Windows 2000 guest operating system with Terminal Services.

Cloning Multiboot Systems

Description:
P2V Assistant does not support dual-boot or multiboot systems. Although P2V Imaging will clone the image of your source disk into a virtual machine, System Reconfiguration reconfigures only the active Windows system.

Multiboot systems are those systems with multiple versions of Windows installed, either under Windows itself or through third party tools such as Linux LILO or V Communications System Commander.

Action:
Not supported. There is no workaround.

P2V Assistant Multi-Tasking

Description:
While the P2V Assistant is processing and showing a progress message do not start another P2V Assistant action.

Action:
Allow the P2V Assistant to complete its task before attempting another task.

Non-Standard Hardware Drivers

Description:
When a source machine uses non-standard hardware components, conversion to a virtual machine might cause the virtual machine to hang.

This includes non-standard keyboards and mice.

Action:

  1. Uninstall the non-standard hardware.
  2. Install standard hardware.
  3. Re-run the cloning process.

Physical Additional Extensions in NT 4 Systems

Description:
P2V Assistant cannot perform a system reconfiguration on NT systems with greater than 4 GB of RAM.

Action:
Reduce the RAM prior to performing the cloning process.

The Reconfigured OS Cannot find the Pagefile when it Boots

Description:
This can happen if the OS was configured to store the pagefile on a partition that was not cloned; or if the drive letter associated with that partition changed during the clone process.

Action:

  • Verify that the partition used to store the pagefile was cloned.
  • Verify that the drive letter associated with this partition did not change during the clone. You can modify the drive letter by following these steps:
    1. Launch the "Computer Management" applet from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.
    2. Select "Disk Management" on the left pane, and inspect/correct the drive letter assignment on the right pane.
  • Change the pagefile location in the reconfigured operating system to a different partition.

References:

RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff www.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555223&SD=tech

How To Move the Paging File in Windows XP www.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307886&sd=tech

Maximum Registry Size is Too Small

Description:
During system reconfiguration, Windows displays a message Your maximum registry size is too small.

Action:

  1. Increase the maximum registry size of the helper virtual machine.
  2. Re-run the P2V Assistant process.

Partition Size Extended During Cloning

Description:
P2V Assistant extends the size of cloned partitions. For example, your source partition might have been 1000 MB. After cloning the partition on the target disk might be created as 1300 MB.

Action:
This can occur during normal operation. No action is required.

De-referenced Files to Prevent System Freeze

Description:
Some Compaq product files (not used in a virtual machine) are disabled to prevent the system from hanging. These include:

  • cpqalert.exe - for Compaq's Insight Manager Agent
  • cpqdmi.exe - for Compaq's version of the Desktop Management Interface
  • cpqagent.dll - for Compaq application agent

Action:
No action required. Information only.

P2V Assistant Encounters an Error Accessing a Volume on the Source Disk

Description:
For P2V Assistant to be able to read the contents of a volume on the source disk, the Windows user account under which P2V Assistant is running must have permission to access the volume (partition) on the source disk.

This error message is displayed:
The boot.ini file in the active partition refers to an unformatted or inaccessible system volume. This may happen is the currently logged on user does not have the permissions to access the system volume.

Action:
Make sure that the Windows user account you are using to run P2V Assistant has permission to access the volume (partition).

Too Many Small Partitions Error

Description:
When adjusting the sizes of partitions to clone, if the last partition listed is less than 8 MB, an error is displayed:
Could not use new partition layout: Too many small partitions at end of disk

Action:
Set the last partition to at least 8 MB.

Migration Appears Successful During Network Failure

Description:
If a network failure occurs during the migration phase of the cloning process, the P2V Assistant does not stop the processes.

In the event of a clone and system reconfiguration together, error messages are displayed during the system reconfiguration phase:

System Reconfiguration Failed: Unable to locate system hive.
Exception in ShutdownVstorDisk from VieLib.Vielocator: error reading drive layout: Data error (Cyclic redundancy check).

Action:
Rerun the P2V Assistant process if a network error occurs during the cloning phase.

High Encryption Service Pack on NT 4

Description:
File version mismatch errors are displayed during reconfiguration of an NT 4 system with High Encryption Service Pack 4.

This is error is specific to the filename of the service pack only.

The error does not occur with Service Pack 5 or Service Pack 6.

Action:
Change the name of the high encryption service pack filename, Nt4sp4i.128.exe, to the name expected by the P2V Assistant, that is, sp4i386.exe.

Note: This does not change the encryption level of the Service Pack, only the name the P2V Assistant uses to apply it.

NT 4 Systems with Connectix Virtual PC Additions Errors

Description:
Connectix Virtual PC Additions may cause the cloned virtual machine to hang.

Action:
Uninstall the Additions and rerun the cloning and system reconfiguration processes.

Boot Error When Target Disk Accessed Through a Network Share

Description:
When the target disk for a clone or system reconfiguration process is a .vmdk formatted file and is stored on a network mounted (shared) drive, the virtual machine generates boot errors upon startup.

Action:
Cancel the error message(s) and reboot the virtual machine.

NTDETECT Error with NT 4 Systems

Description:
This error is displayed during startup. There are two possible situations that would cause this error to be displayed:

  • The first partition on the system is smaller than 32MB and was cloned using a tool such as PowerQuest DiskImagePro.
  • An NT 4 system has a machine specific system partition in the first partition, for example, Compaq Smart Start partitions or HP/Dell utilities partitions.

Action:
If the error is due to a small first partition combined with cloning using a third party tool such as PowerQuest, then resize the first partition to greater than 32MB using a tool like PowerQuest Partition Magic.

If the error is due to a machine specific system partition, perform the following:

  • Delete the machine specific system partition and edit the boot.ini file on the cloned machine
  • Reduce all the 'partition' numbers for all entries by 1.

One way to delete the partition is to use the P2V Assistant Boot CD itself to delete the partition from the cloned image.

To delete a partition using the P2V Assistant Boot CD:

  1. Attach the cloned disk in a virtual machine.
  2. Boot the virtual machine with the P2V Assistant Boot CD.
  3. When the Welcome screen is displayed, press ALT+F2 to switch terminals on the boot CD.
  4. Login as root. No password is required.
  5. Type fdisk /dev/sda.
    This example assumes the cloned disk is the first SCSI disk on the virtual machine being used. If it is the second disk then change the entry accordingly, for example to /dev/sdb and so on.
  6. Type p.
    This displays all the partitions of the selected disk to confirm you are working on the right disk.
  7. Type d to delete a partition.
  8. Select 1 to delete the first partition.
  9. Type w to save the changes and quit fdisk.
  10. Shut down the virtual machine.

Then make the changes to the boot.ini file on the cloned disk:

  1. Attach the cloned disk as a second disk in a helper virtual machine, running another working operating system (Windows NT 4 or 2000) on the first disk.
  2. Boot using the operating system on the first disk.
  3. Open the boot.ini file on the second cloned disk.
  4. Find all entries of the form partition( ). Reduce the number by 1 for all the entries in the boot.ini file.
  5. Close and save the file.
  6. Shut down the virtual machine.

The cloned NT 4 disk should no longer give the NTDETECT failure error and can be booted in its own virtual machine.

Supported Hardware

VMware has tested this software on a wide array of systems with a variety of hardware configurations, but as there are combinations we have not yet encountered in our labs, please contact VMware Support if your storage and network devices are not recognized by the P2V Boot CD.

VMware is interested in continuing to add support for all our customers' configurations; based on customer feedback, VMware will attempt to support your hardware configurations in a future release.

For the most up-to-date list of hardware on which VMware has tested the P2V Boot CD, please see:

www.vmware.com/pdf/p2v21_hardware.pdf

Currently Unsupported Hardware

The devices listed in this section were recognized by the P2V 2.0 boot CD but are currently not supported by P2V 2.1. If you want to use P2V to create an image of these machines containing these devices, you must use the most recent P2V 2.0 boot CD.

Devices Not Supported by Linux 2.6 megaraid_mbox Driver

The following MegaRAID devices no longer have support from Dell and LSI Logic in the Linux 2.6 megaraid_mbox driver. See the file /etc/bootcdlog.txt to see if your MegaRAID device ID is listed in the table below: 

    Vendor  Device
    ------  ------
    0x101e  0x9010
    0x101e  0x9060
    0x8086  0x1960

These devices are known by some of the following model names:

MegaRAID 428 Ultra RAID
MegaRAID 434 Ultra GT RAID
MegaRAID 438 Ultra2 LVD RAID
MegaRAID 466 Express Plus RAID
MegaRAID 467 Enterprise 1500 RAID
Dell PERC 2/SC
Dell PERC 2/DC
HP NetRAID-3Si
HP NetRAID-1M

Emulex Fibre Channel Devices

All Emulex Fibre Channel devices are currently unsupported in the P2V Boot CD release 2.1.

The Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel driver (lpfc) was not introduced to the stable kernel until the recent 2.6.12 revision, and the P2V Boot CD is based on 2.6.11. We hope to restore support for these devices in a subsequent release.

Until that time, we recommend that customers with Emulex Fibre Channel devices continue to use the P2V 2.0.3 release.

Alternatively, you can move your data to your virtual machine by connecting your target virtual machine server directly to your Fibre Channel network. Refer to the KB article, KB 1885, for additional information.

The Application and the Boot CD

Please ensure that you have the P2V Assistant application downloaded and installed on a computer separate from the source machine which you plan to boot from the P2V Boot CD.

The P2V Assistant application (a Windows .exe file) and the P2V Boot CD (a bootable .iso CD-ROM image) are separate downloads, so please ensure you have both downloaded before starting the P2V process.

Please note that there are known incompatibilities when the P2V Assistant application is installed on the same computer as certain other VMware applications. The list of VMware applications that conflict with the P2V Assistant includes:

  • VMware Virtual Center 1.x
  • VMware Virtual Machine Importer 1.0.x
  • VMware Diskmount Utility 5.0

We recommend that you install the P2V Assistant application on a clean helper machine (either a virtual machine or a physical machine) as documented in the P2V Assistant User's Manual, available online at:

www.vmware.com/support/pubs/p2v_pubs.html

Upgrading from P2V Assistant Version 1.0 to Version 2.1.x

There is no upgrade path from P2V Assistant 1.0 to version 2.1.x. Both versions can be installed on your system simultaneously. P2V Assistant 2.1.x is installed through the P2V Assistant setup.exe utility. You do not need to uninstall P2V Assistant 1.0. You do not upgrade P2V Assistant from version 1.0 to version 2.0.

NOTE: The licensing information in the registry is shared between the 1.x and 2.0 versions. This includes your system reconfiguration licenses.
P2V Assistant 1.x can use the same license keys as long as P2V Assistant 2.x has been installed. License encoding changed from 1.x to 2.x, so an update to the shared licensing subsystem is required, even if you're planning to do reconfigurations only with the 1.x tool. With both versions installed, a reconfiguration using either the 1.x or 2.x tool will pull from the same shared license pool. Likewise, adding new serial number in either tool will add to the shared pool.