Parallels Virtual Automation 6.1 Administrator's Guide PVA 61 AG EN

User Manual: parallels Virtual Automation - 6.1 - Administrator's Guide Free User Guide for Parallels Virtual Automation Software, Manual

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Introduction
Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation
Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure
Managing Physical Servers
Managing Virtual Environments
Managing Virtual Environment Backups
Managing Resource Library Tools
Managing Product Licenses
Managing Parallels Virtual Automation Security
Maintaining Parallels Virtual Automation Management Tools
Managing Parallels Network
Managing Parallels Containers OS and Application Templates
Updating Parallels Software
Advanced Tasks
Troubleshooting
Glossary
Index

Parallels Virtual Automation

6.1

Administrator's Guide

April 08, 2014

Parallels IP Holdings GmbH.

c/o Parallels International GmbH.

Parallels International GmbH

Vordergasse 49

CH8200 Schaffhausen

Switzerland

Tel: + 41 526320 411

Fax: + 41 52672 2010

www.parallels.com

This product is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The product’s underlying technology,

patents, and trademarks are listed at http://www.parallels.com/trademarks.

Microsoft, Windows, Windows Server, Windows NT, Windows Vista, and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft

Corporation.

Apple, Mac, the Mac logo, Mac OS, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, FaceTime HD camera and iSight are trademarks of Apple

Inc., registered in the US and other countries.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 12

About Parallels Virtual Automation ................................................................................. 12

About This Guide .......................................................................................................... 14

Organization of This Guide .................................................................................................... 14

Documentation Conventions ................................................................................................. 15

Getting Help .................................................................................................................. 16

Feedback ...................................................................................................................... 16

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation ................................................. 17

Logging In ..................................................................................................................... 17

Parallels Virtual Automation Interface Overview ............................................................... 18

Extending Standard Browser Functionality ..................................................................... 19

Using Drag-And-Drop ............................................................................................................ 19

Using Context Menu .............................................................................................................. 20

Customizing User Profile ............................................................................................... 21

Defining Interface Settings ..................................................................................................... 21

Defining Personal Settings ..................................................................................................... 22

Organizing Logical Structure .......................................................................................... 23

Adding New Folder ................................................................................................................ 24

Editing Folder Properties ....................................................................................................... 25

Moving Folder ........................................................................................................................ 25

Moving Physical Servers to Another Folder ............................................................................ 25

Adding Physical Servers to Folders ....................................................................................... 26

Adding Virtual Environments to Folder ................................................................................... 26

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure .......................................... 27

Viewing Summary Information ....................................................................................... 27

Viewing Physical Servers Information ............................................................................. 29

Viewing Virtual Environments Information ....................................................................... 31

Viewing Resource Consumption .................................................................................... 32

Viewing Infrastructure Logs ........................................................................................... 33

Viewing Infrastructure Task Logs ........................................................................................... 33

Contents

Viewing Infrastructure Alert Logs ........................................................................................... 34

Viewing Infrastructure Event Logs .......................................................................................... 35

Managing Physical Servers ..................................................................................... 37

Backing Up and Restoring the Master Server ................................................................. 37

Registering Physical Server in Parallels Virtual Automation .............................................. 38

Managing Disk Images .................................................................................................. 39

Configuring Disk Image Parameters ....................................................................................... 40

Rebooting Physical Server ............................................................................................. 41

Physical Server Dashboard Overview ............................................................................. 41

Managing Physical Server General Settings ................................................................... 44

Monitoring Physical Server Resources Consumption ...................................................... 45

Viewing Resource Consumers ....................................................................................... 45

Logging into Physical Server .......................................................................................... 46

Accessing Physical Servers via SSH ...................................................................................... 46

Accessing Physical Servers via RDP ...................................................................................... 47

Viewing Physical Server Logs ........................................................................................ 48

Viewing Physical Server Task Logs ........................................................................................ 48

Viewing Physical Server Alert Logs ........................................................................................ 48

Viewing Physical Server Event Logs ...................................................................................... 49

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels Server Technology .................................... 49

Configuring Parallels Server Settings ..................................................................................... 49

Managing Templates on a Physical Server ............................................................................ 50

Managing Offline Services Configuration ........................................................................ 50

Creating Offline Service ......................................................................................................... 52

Editing Offline Service ............................................................................................................ 52

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels Containers Technology ............................. 52

Configuring Virtuozzo Physical Server Settings ...................................................................... 52

Managing Virtual Environments .............................................................................. 54

Starting to Create Virtual Environments .......................................................................... 55

Starting, Stopping, Pausing and Restarting Virtual Environments .................................... 56

Suspending and Resuming Virtual Environments ............................................................ 57

Changing Virtual Environment Root/Administrator Password .......................................... 58

Setting Power Panel Access for Customers ................................................................... 58

Managing Containers .................................................................................................... 59

Contents

Container Dashboard Overview ............................................................................................. 59

Creating Containers ............................................................................................................... 63

Logging In to Containers ....................................................................................................... 69

Managing Virtual Environment Files and Folders .................................................................... 70

Managing and Monitoring Container Resources .................................................................... 73

Viewing Container Logs ......................................................................................................... 83

Adjusting Container Template Resource Parameters for Multiple Containers ......................... 83

Managing Container Services and Processes ........................................................................ 84

Managing Container Applications .......................................................................................... 90

Cloning Containers ................................................................................................................ 94

Migrating and Converting Containers..................................................................................... 96

Reinstalling Containers ........................................................................................................ 103

Repairing Containers ........................................................................................................... 104

Mounting External Volumes Inside Containers ..................................................................... 105

Adjusting Container Configuration and Advanced Settings .................................................. 107

Installing Plesk ..................................................................................................................... 110

Working with Plesk Control Panel ........................................................................................ 110

Logging In to Confixx Control Panel .................................................................................... 111

Managing Container Templates ........................................................................................... 111

Managing Virtual Machines .......................................................................................... 119

Virtual Machine Dashboard Overview .................................................................................. 119

Creating Virtual Machines .................................................................................................... 120

Registering Virtual Machines ................................................................................................ 122

Changing Virtual Machine Root/Administrator Password ..................................................... 123

Unregistering Virtual Machines ............................................................................................. 123

Installing Parallels Tools in Virtual Machines ......................................................................... 123

Connecting to Virtual Machines via VNC .............................................................................. 129

Monitoring Virtual Machine Resources Consumption ........................................................... 130

Monitoring Virtual Machine Traffic Usage ............................................................................. 130

Changing Virtual Machine Configuration .............................................................................. 131

Reinstalling Virtual Machines ................................................................................................ 142

Cloning Virtual Machines ..................................................................................................... 143

Migrating Virtual Machines ................................................................................................... 144

Migrating Physical Servers to Virtual Machines .................................................................... 145

Managing Virtual Machine Templates .................................................................................. 145

Contents

Viewing Virtual Machine Logs .............................................................................................. 148

Deleting Virtual Environments ...................................................................................... 148

Managing Virtual Environment Backups .............................................................. 150

Defining Global Backup Settings .................................................................................. 151

Managing Backups on Infrastructure Level ................................................................... 152

Managing Backups on Physical Server Level ................................................................ 153

Defining per-Physical Server Backup Settings ..................................................................... 153

Creating Virtual Environment Backups ................................................................................. 154

Managing Backups on Virtual Environment Level ......................................................... 156

Creating Virtual Environment Backup .................................................................................. 158

Backup Details .................................................................................................................... 158

Browsing Backup Contents ................................................................................................. 159

Renewing Container Backup ............................................................................................... 159

Managing Resource Library Tools ........................................................................ 160

Viewing the Resource Library Dashboard ..................................................................... 160

Managing File Shares .................................................................................................. 161

Registering File Share .......................................................................................................... 162

Viewing File Share Details .................................................................................................... 162

Configuring File Share Parameters ....................................................................................... 163

Managing Templates Storage ...................................................................................... 163

Setting Up an External Templates Storage .......................................................................... 164

Creating Template: Initial Configuration ............................................................................... 165

Managing Product Licenses ................................................................................. 166

Entering License Key ................................................................................................... 167

Uploading License File on Physical Server .................................................................... 167

Installing License Key .................................................................................................. 168

Reviewing Installed Licenses........................................................................................ 169

Transferring Licenses .................................................................................................. 171

License Statuses ......................................................................................................... 171

Managing Parallels Virtual Automation Security .................................................. 172

Understanding Role-Based Access Administration in Parallels Virtual Automation ......... 172

Typical Scenario of Parallels Virtual Automation Security Usage .................................... 173

Managing Parallels Virtual Automation Users ................................................................ 175

Viewing Users ...................................................................................................................... 176

Contents

Creating New User .............................................................................................................. 177

Viewing User's Details ......................................................................................................... 177

Configuring User's Parameters ............................................................................................ 178

Managing Parallels Virtual Automation Groups ............................................................. 178

Viewing Groups ................................................................................................................... 179

Creating New Group ........................................................................................................... 179

Viewing Group Details ......................................................................................................... 180

Configuring Group Parameters ............................................................................................ 181

Managing Roles .......................................................................................................... 181

Viewing Roles ...................................................................................................................... 181

Creating New Roles ............................................................................................................. 183

Configuring Role Parameters ............................................................................................... 188

Managing Authentication Databases ............................................................................ 189

Viewing Authentication Databases ....................................................................................... 190

Registering New Database .................................................................................................. 191

Viewing Database Details .................................................................................................... 192

Configuring Database Details .............................................................................................. 192

Managing User/Group Permissions.............................................................................. 193

Managing Physical Server Permissions ................................................................................ 193

Managing Container Permissions ........................................................................................ 194

Managing Virtual Machine Permissions ................................................................................ 195

Managing Server Group Permissions................................................................................... 195

Managing Logical Unit Permissions ..................................................................................... 196

Managing Power Panel Policies ................................................................................... 196

Creating New Policy ............................................................................................................ 197

Configuring Policy Parameters ............................................................................................. 198

Performing Main Operation on Policies ................................................................................ 198

Managing Policies ............................................................................................................... 199

Managing Policy Assignments ............................................................................................. 200

Maintaining Parallels Virtual Automation Management Tools ............................. 202

Provisioning Virtual Environments ................................................................................ 203

Setting Up Virtual Environment Requesting ......................................................................... 204

Checking Virtual Environment Requests .............................................................................. 205

Processing Virtual Environment Request ............................................................................. 205

Requesting New Virtual Environment ................................................................................... 206

Contents

Monitoring Operations and Viewing Logs ..................................................................... 207

Viewing Tasks Log .............................................................................................................. 207

Viewing Alerts Log ............................................................................................................... 207

Viewing Event logs .............................................................................................................. 207

Viewing Active Tasks ........................................................................................................... 208

Viewing Task Details ............................................................................................................ 208

Viewing Error Details ............................................................................................................ 209

Scheduling Tasks ........................................................................................................ 209

Choosing Tasks ................................................................................................................... 210

Managing Maintenance Tasks ..................................................................................... 212

Changing Maintenance Tasks ............................................................................................. 213

Viewing Parallels Virtual Automation User Sessions ...................................................... 214

Viewing Management Server Live User Sessions ................................................................. 214

Viewing Power Panel Live User Sessions............................................................................. 215

Viewing Audit Logs .............................................................................................................. 215

Viewing User Session Properties ......................................................................................... 216

Managing Parallels Network ................................................................................. 218

Managing Network Adapters on Physical Server .......................................................... 218

Listing Adapters .................................................................................................................. 218

Viewing Physical Adapter Properties .................................................................................... 219

Connecting Physical Adapter to Virtual Network .................................................................. 219

Creating VLAN Adapter on Physical Server ......................................................................... 220

Viewing VLAN Adapter Properties ....................................................................................... 220

Connecting VLAN Adapter to Virtual Network ...................................................................... 221

Managing Virtual Networks .......................................................................................... 221

Listing Virtual Networks on Physical Server ......................................................................... 224

Creating Virtual Network on Physical Server ........................................................................ 225

Viewing Virtual Network Details............................................................................................ 226

Configuring Virtual Network Parameters on Physical Server ................................................ 226

Listing Virtual Networks in Server Group .............................................................................. 227

Creating New Virtual Network .............................................................................................. 228

Configuring Virtual Network Parameters .............................................................................. 228

Managing Container Network Parameters .................................................................... 228

Viewing Container Network Parameters .............................................................................. 229

Configuring Container Network Parameters ......................................................................... 229

Contents

Managing Container Firewall ........................................................................................ 231

Configuring Firewall in Normal Mode ................................................................................... 232

Adding Access Rule in Normal Mode .................................................................................. 233

Selecting Mode ................................................................................................................... 233

Building Input Chain ............................................................................................................ 234

Building Output Chain ......................................................................................................... 235

Building Forward Chain ....................................................................................................... 236

Adding Rule in Advanced Mode .......................................................................................... 237

Editing Rule in Advanced Mode ........................................................................................... 237

Managing IP Pools ...................................................................................................... 238

Reviewing IP Pools .............................................................................................................. 238

Creating New IP Pool .......................................................................................................... 239

Viewing Leased IP Addresses .............................................................................................. 239

Viewing IP Pool Summary Information ................................................................................. 241

Changing IP Pool Configuration ........................................................................................... 242

Managing Network Accounting and Shaping ....................................................................... 242

Managing Email Gateway and Proxy Server ................................................................. 249

Specifying Proxy Server and Email Gateway ........................................................................ 249

Managing Email Notifications Settings .......................................................................... 249

Configuring Email Notifications ............................................................................................ 250

Managing Parallels Containers OS and Application Templates .......................... 251

Managing OS Templates in Group Context .................................................................. 252

Viewing OS Template Properties ......................................................................................... 253

Managing Application Templates in Group Context ...................................................... 254

Viewing Application Template Properties ............................................................................. 255

Managing OS Templates in Physical Server Context..................................................... 256

Viewing OS Template Properties ......................................................................................... 257

Managing Application Templates in Physical Server Context ......................................... 258

Viewing Application Template Properties ............................................................................. 259

Uploading and Installing Templates on Physical Servers ............................................... 260

Installing Application Templates on Physical Servers .................................................... 261

Installing OS Templates on Physical Servers ................................................................ 261

Caching OS Templates on Physical Servers ................................................................. 261

Uninstalling Templates From Physical Servers .............................................................. 262

Contents

Adding Application Templates to Containers ................................................................ 262

Updating Templates on Physical Server ....................................................................... 262

Updating Parallels Software ................................................................................. 264

Updating System software .......................................................................................... 265

Customizing Update Process .............................................................................................. 266

Installing New OS Templates ....................................................................................... 267

Displaying OS Template Information .................................................................................... 267

Choosing Application Templates for Updates ...................................................................... 267

Reviewing OS and Application Templates ........................................................................... 268

Installing New Application Templates ........................................................................... 268

Updating OS Templates .............................................................................................. 269

Updating Application Templates .................................................................................. 269

Configuring Access to Update Repository .................................................................... 270

Checking Update Repository Settings .......................................................................... 271

Advanced Tasks .................................................................................................... 273

Parallels Virtual Automation Command-Line Utilities ..................................................... 273

vzagroup ............................................................................................................................. 273

vzabackup ........................................................................................................................... 276

vzarestore............................................................................................................................ 281

Monitoring Parallels Objects via SNMP......................................................................... 284

Enabling SNMP Access on Hardware Node ........................................................................ 284

Accessing Parallels Objects via SNMP ................................................................................ 286

Description of Parallels Objects ........................................................................................... 287

Deploying RHCS Failover Cluster Support .................................................................... 288

Creating PVA Cluster Services ............................................................................................. 289

Troubleshooting .................................................................................................... 292

Services Inaccessibility ................................................................................................ 292

Network Problems ...................................................................................................... 293

Backup Problems........................................................................................................ 294

Invalid Credentials ....................................................................................................... 294

File Problems .............................................................................................................. 294

Listing Users ............................................................................................................... 295

Group Operations ....................................................................................................... 295

Contents

Elusive Problems ......................................................................................................... 296

Getting Support .......................................................................................................... 296

Reporting Problems to Technical Support ........................................................................... 296

Submitting Error Codes ....................................................................................................... 297

Downloading Documents and Software .............................................................................. 299

Setting Up Support Channel ................................................................................................ 299

Searching for Screens ......................................................................................................... 300

Glossary ................................................................................................................. 301

Index ...................................................................................................................... 304

This chapter outlines the key features and capabilities of Parallels Virtual Automation and briefly

describes other chapters of this guide.

In This Chapter

About Parallels Virtual Automation........................................................................... 12

About This Guide ................................................................................................... 14

Getting Help ........................................................................................................... 16

Feedback ............................................................................................................... 16

About Parallels Virtual Automation

Parallels Virtual Automation is a flexible and easy-to-use administration tool for managing groups of

physical servers running Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, Parallels Containers for Windows, Parallels

Server Bare Metal, and Parallels Cloud Server. With Parallels Virtual Automation, you can manage

both physical servers and virtual environments hosted on those using a supported Web browser.

Supported Web browsers:

• Internet Explorer 9.x, 10.x or 11.x,

• Firefox 26 or newer,

• Safari 5.x or newer,

• Chrome 31.x or newer.

Note: Other browsers should work as well, but only those listed above have been tested for compatibility

with Parallels Virtual Automation 6.1.

After Parallels Virtual Automation has been installed, you can register available physical servers with

it. As physical servers are registered with Parallels Virtual Automation, they form a group of physical

servers or a group of Nodes (further in this Guide other terms may also be used: Node Group,

Nodes registered in Parallels Virtual Automation, etc.). For the definitions, see Glossary (p. 301). As

an administrator, you can manage both single physical servers and physical server groups. With a

group of physical servers, you can perform a number of collective administration tasks, such as:

• creating a logical structure of physical servers and the virtual environments residing on them;

• migrating virtual environments between physical servers;

HAPTER

Introduction

• copying OS and application templates from one physical server to another;

• making virtual environment template stored on a VM Templates Storage (p. 163) available to

other registered physical servers;

• consolidating physical server IP addresses into a network address range.

Parallels Virtual Automation user accounts are managed by the administrator. An administrator can

add and remove users, and set user access privileges. The access privileges determine what

operations a user can or cannot perform on registered virtual environments.

To use the Parallels Virtual Automation for administering a physical server and the virtual

environments residing on it, you need to install Parallels Containers for Windows on the required

physical server. To learn on what operating systems Parallels Virtual Automation can be installed,

refer to the Parallels Virtual Automation installation guide. The Virtuozzo Containers software can be

installed on Windows 2003 Server and Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Fedora Core 7, etc.)

operating systems. Most of the Parallels Virtual Automation working principles are the same, or

similar, for both operating systems.

With Parallels Virtual Automation, you can perform the following actions:

• Customize the interface of Parallels Virtual Automation and define personal settings (p. 22)

• View and install licenses (p. 166)

• View physical server resource consumption (p. 45)

• Migrate a physical server to a Container (p. 98)

• Create new Containers and virtual machines (p. 120)

• Edit Container configuration (p. 107) and virtual machine configuration (p. 131), network

parameters, (p. 229) and other settings

• Manage Virtual Environment backups

• Clone a Container (p. 94) or a virtual machine (p. 143)

• Manage Container templates (p. 111) and virtual machine templates (p. 145)

• Manage and monitor virtual environment resources (p. 45)

• View logs and monitor virtual environment operations

• Manage Container group and perform virtual machine group actions

• Change a virtual environment's status (p. 56)

• Reinstall and/or repair a Container

• etc.

Introduction

About This Guide

This guide is aimed at a wide range of users who are new to Parallels Virtual Automation or just

want to make sure they are doing everything right. The next two subsections describe the structure

of the guide as well as the documentation conventions adopted for the guide.

Organization of This Guide

This guide includes the following chapters:

• Introduction (p. 12) provides the basic information about the product and the guide itself.

• Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure describes how you can use Parallels

Virtual Automation to manage relationships between different Parallels objects (physical servers,

virtual environments, etc.).

• Managing Physical Servers (p. 37) explains how to do the following with physical servers:

• register with Parallels Virtual Automation,

• configure,

• monitor resources,

• manage installed OS and application templates,

• reboot, etc.

• Managing Virtual Environments (p. 54) centers on how to do the following with virtual

environments:

• create, clone, configure, start/stop, reinstall, etc.,

• manage services and running processes,

• manage and monitor resources,

• manage virtual environment templates,

• migrate virtual environments to physical servers and vice versa.

• Managing Virtual Environment Backups (p. 150) provides information on the backup

hierarchy.

• Managing Resource Library Tools (p. 160) explains how to work with file shares, virtual

environment templates, IP pools, and virtual networks.

• Managing Product Licenses (p. 166) describes how to manage product licenses.

• Managing Parallels Virtual Automation Security (p. 172) provides instructions on setting up

Parallels Virtual Automation security policies.

• Maintaining Parallels Virtual Automation Management Tools (p. 202) explains how to

• create timetables to automate backup and restarting of virtual environments,

Introduction

• monitor virtual environment statuses,

• view alert and task logs,

• identify top resource consumers among virtual environments,

• get technical support from Parallels.

• Managing Parallels Network (p. 218) describes Parallels Containers network-related

concepts, such as configuring network accounting and shaping for physical servers and virtual

environments, etc.

• Managing Parallels Containers OS and Application Templates (p. 251) provides information

on how to manage Parallels Containers templates.

• Updating Parallels Software describes how to check for updates, update system software,

etc.

• Advanced Tasks (p. 273) explains how to

• use Parallels Virtual Automation command-line utilities,

• monitor Parallels objects via SNMP,

• set up the failover clustering service in Linux.

• Troubleshooting (p. 292) offers solutions to problems you might encounter while using

Parallels Virtual Automation.

Documentation Conventions

Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation conventions used

in it.

Formatting conventions used in this guide:

Font Meaning Example

Special Bold Selectable entities such as menu

options, buttons, or list items.

Go to the Resources tab.

Titles of chapters, sections and

subsections.

Read the Basic Administration chapter.

Italics Important points, terms, guide titles,

command variables.

These are the so-called EZ templates.

To destroy a Container, type vzctl destroy

CT_ID.

Monospace Names of commands, files, and

directories.

Use vzctl start to start a Container.

Preformatted

On-screen console output in

command line sessions, source

code.

Saves parameters for Container 101

Preformatted Bold

What you type as contrasted with on-

screen console output.

# rpm -V virtuozzo-release

Key+Key Key combinations. Ctrl+P, Alt+F4

Introduction

Besides the formatting conventions, you should also know about the common document structure

shared by all guides for Parallels products: chapters consist of sections, which, in turn, consist of

subsections. For example, About This Guide is a section, and Documentation Conventions is a

subsection.

Getting Help

Parallels Virtual Automation offers several options for accessing necessary information:

Parallels Virtual Automation Documentation

• Parallels Virtual Automation Administrator's Guide. Contains extensive information about

Parallels Virtual Automation, its usage, and troubleshooting. To access the PDF version of

the document, go to the Support link in the left pane and then click the Downloads pane.

You can download any document of the Parallels Virtual Automation documentation bundle

from the Parallels website.

• Parallels Virtual Automation Installation Guides for Linux/Bare Metal and Windows. Contain

extensive information on system requirements for physical computers as well as instructions

on how to install Parallels Virtual Automation on such computers.

• Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation. Contains the basic information how to

install, launch, and manage Parallels Virtual Automation.

• Parallels Power Panel User's Guide. Contains extensive information about Parallels Power

Panel.

• Parallels Virtual Automation Agent XML API Reference. A complete reference on all Parallels

Virtual Automation configuration files and physical server command-line utilities.

The documentation is available for download at

http://www.parallels.com/products/pva/documents/.

Parallels Knowledgebase

Visit http://kb.parallels.com/ for helpful articles on Parallels Virtual Automation, Parallels Virtuozzo

Containers, Parallels Server Bare Metal, and Parallels Cloud Server.

Feedback

If you want to report typos, share comments, suggestions or ideas on improving this guide, please

use the Parallels documentation feedback page at http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/.

In This Chapter

Logging In .............................................................................................................. 17

Parallels Virtual Automation Interface Overview ........................................................ 18

Extending Standard Browser Functionality .............................................................. 19

Customizing User Profile ......................................................................................... 21

Organizing Logical Structure ................................................................................... 23

Logging In

The Parallels Virtual Automation administrator logs into Parallels Virtual Automation from a browser

by using the IP address (or hostname) of the corresponding physical server and the TCP port (4648

by default). If the physical server you wish to manage is a Slave Server (p. 301), you should log in to

the Master Server (p. 301) of this Group. Logging in by the IP address/hostname to a Slave

physical server is not allowed. When connecting to the physical server, you should enter the OS

administrative credentials ( root/ Administrator and the corresponding password) and click the

The Parallels Virtual Automation administrator can endow other users with a certain scope of rights

and privileges in Parallels Virtual Automation (see Managing Parallels Virtual Automation

Security). These users can be created as Parallels Server or Parallels Containers internal users or

taken from an external LDAP-compliant database. They log into Parallels Virtual Automation by the

same IP address/hostname and port as the physical server administrator by using their respective

user names and passwords. The set of actions these users will be able to perform in Parallels

Virtual Automation will be defined by their privileges.

Whatever way you use, once you have connected to the virtual environment, you are

recommended to provide a valid email address on the Editing User's Personal Settings page (p. 22)

in order to be able to log into Parallels Virtual Automation in case you forgot your password. The

Forgot your password? link on the login page allows you to enter your user name and the email

address provided on the Parallels Virtual Automation configuration page in order to receive an URL

at this address informing you how to change your password.

HAPTER

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual

Automation

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

Parallels Virtual Automation Interface Overview

The Parallels Virtual Automation interface has been designed to let the Parallels Virtuozzo

Containers or Parallels Server administrator quickly perform all possible tasks through an intuitive

navigation system.

The main components the Parallels Virtual Automation interface consists of are:

• The left menu frame lists all your physical servers and virtual environments. You can access

main operations to be performed on them by right-clicking the server or virtual environment;

• The toolbar on top of the right frame allows performing most frequent actions on your physical

servers and virtual environments. When necessary, the toolbar includes a few more buttons for

performing additional actions;

• The content part on the right frame displays the content of the chosen object: a physical server,

a virtual environment or any management unit.

• The My Tasks pane at the bottom of the right frame allows viewing all operations of the current

user that run at the moment or have been finished. The pane is minimized by default.

The actual left menu appearance can be changed by clicking any of the following buttons located

at the bottom:

• Infrastructure - displays physical servers and virtual environments only. Other sections are

folded.

• Logical View - looks the same way as the Infrastructure menu, the only difference that the

virtual environments can be distributed between all folders or physical servers no matter what

physical servers they physically belong to. Other sections are folded.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

• Resource Library - displays the resource library sub-sections only: Software, Templates, IP

Pools, and Virtual Networks. Other sections are folded.

• Management - shows the Management sub-sections only: Workflow, Updates, Scheduler,

Alerts & Events, Tasks, and Support. Other sections are folded.

• Setup - displays the Setup sub-sections only: Network, Backups, Licensing, Security, and

Virtual Environment templates. Other sections are folded.

• Full view - makes the left menu display all the above as a tree.

Here and after, we use the full view of the left menu for description.

The upper most element on the menu is the Infrastructure link. If expanded, it displays your

hierarchical structure of physical servers and virtual environments hosted on them as lower levels.

Each of the physical servers and virtual environments that make up your Parallels Virtual

Automation infrastructure displays its name on the Infrastructure-oriented left menu, which, if

clicked, leads to its dashboard.

The content of the right frame always depends on what option you have clicked on the left menu

frame. If you have clicked a physical server, the right frame will show the physical server relating

information and operations, for a virtual environment the right frame will display the virtual

environment relating sections and operations, and so on. See the Using Context-menu section (p.

20).

Extending Standard Browser Functionality

Parallels Virtual Automation extends the basic functionality of standard web browsers by providing

you with the following facilities:

• support for the drag-and-drop operation within certain Parallels Virtual Automation

components;

• support for the use of the Parallels Virtual Automation context menu with certain Parallels Virtual

Automation objects.

Using Drag-And-Drop

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to drag-and-drop elements in the left menu frame by

selecting them with a mouse and moving them to another place in this frame. The list of main

operations for which Parallels Virtual Automation provides the drag-and-drop support is given

below:

• Moving any physical servers under the Infrastructure view to any folders available under this

view or within the Logical View item;

• Moving any virtual environments listed under the corresponding physical servers in the

Infrastructure view to any folders available under this view or under the Logical View item;

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

• Moving physical servers and virtual environments between folders under the Infrastructure

view;

• Moving a folder under the Infrastructure view to another folder within this view;

• Moving physical servers and virtual environments between folders under the Logical View

mode;

• Moving a folder under the Logical View mode to another folder within this view;

To perform a drag-and-drop operation, do the following:

1 Place the cursor over the object (e.g. a virtual environment) you wish to drag-and-drop and

press the mouse button.

2 Hold down the mouse button and drag the object (e.g. to some folder under the Logical View

item).

3 Release the mouse button to drop the object.

Upon the successful operation, the object will be shown in the place where it was dropped.

Using Context Menu

Parallels Virtual Automation supports quick access to the main features through the context-

menus. You can use context-menus to manage physical servers and virtual environments. Below

are some common uses for the context menus in Parallels Virtual Automation:

• Right-click the Infrastructure view to create a new virtual environment on any of your physical

servers, create a new folder under the Infrastructure view, or configure the security policy for

all the physical servers currently registered in Parallels Virtual Automation.

• Right-click a physical server to perform the most common operations on your physical servers:

create a new virtual environment, install a new OS or application template, reboot the physical

server, configure the security policy for the physical server, etc. The same menu is also available

if you right-click a physical server on the Hardware Nodes tab of the Infrastructure window.

• Right-click virtual environment to perform such operations as starting, stopping, or restarting

the virtual environment, creating virtual environment clones, migrating the virtual environment to

another physical server, etc. The same menu is also available if you right-click a virtual

environment on the Virtual Environments tab of the Infrastructure window.

• Right-click the Logical View to create a new folder, physical server, or virtual environment

under this item and to configure the security policy for all the physical servers currently

registered in Parallels Virtual Automation.

If you work with Parallels Virtual Automation via the Mozilla Firefox browser, you may encounter the

following problem: after right-clicking any of the aforementioned items, you will see the Parallels

Virtual Automation and the browser context menus displayed. To display only the Parallels Virtual

Automation context menu, perform the following operations:

1 In the Mozilla Firefox browser, open a new tab, type about:config in the address field, and

press the Enter key.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

2 Double-click the dom.event.contextmenu.enabled parameter to change its value from

false to true.

Now, if you right-click any of the aforementioned items, you will see only the Parallels Virtual

Automation context menu.

Customizing User Profile

Defining Interface Settings

On the Interface Settings tab of the User Profile screen, you can set a number of parameters

related to the Parallels Virtual Automation interface.

You can access the User Profile section by clicking the login name in the upper part of the screen.

The options provided on the Interface Settings tab are grouped into three sections: Navigation

Settings, Regional Settings and Visual Settings.

Option Description

Home Page One of the ways to tweak Parallels Virtual Automation is to choose the first screen to be

loaded when you log in to Parallels Virtual Automation from the Home Page drop-down

menu.

Interface Language As Parallels Virtual Automation is localized into a number of languages, this drop-down menu

lets you choose the default interface language for Parallels Virtual Automation. This setting

affects the language of both your current Parallels Virtual Automation session and all future

sessions if User Default is chosen as the interface language on the Parallels Virtual

Automation login screen.

Local Time Zone This setting affects the date and time information found on such Parallels Virtual Automation

pages as Tasks Log, Alerts and Events. Choose the time zone you wish to be used when

viewing different kinds of logs.

GUI Elements Style You may set the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar buttons to represent the operations

which can be performed by clicking them with only icons, or only text, or with both visual and

verbal elements.

Interface Skin Here you may choose a suitable interface colour for your Parallels Virtual Automation

affecting such elements as the Parallels Virtual Automation general layout (framed or non-

framed), icons and images, and the colour palette.

Menu Details Level You can choose what items will be displayed under the Infrastructure and the Logical View

on the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu: folders, the physical servers distributed over

them, virtual environments - those that run on the physical servers, in the Infrastructure

, and

sent to appropriate folders, in the Logical View.

Enable Tooltips Selecting or clearing this check box defines whether you will see short descriptions of the

elements of the Parallels Virtual Automation interface when pointing them with the cursor.

Show Top Right Buttons

Pane

Selecting this check box makes a button pane always appear at the top right corner of

Parallels Virtual Automation. You can also call up this pane by clicking an arrow in this

corner.

Allow Dynamic Status

Selecting this check box enables the statuses of virtual environments to be updated

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

Updates

automatically on the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, the virtual environment

dashboard screen and the Tasks pane without refreshing the current page manually. If you

have problems with the connection to the Master Server (e.g. the bandwidth is low or the

connection is unstable), enabling this function might make your work in Parallels Virtual

Automation inconvenient and slow. In this case it is better to clear the check box.

After you decide on the suitable configuration and click the Submit button, the settings will be

remembered for the current browser and user only. If you change the browser or the current user

within the same browser, the default settings will be used until you perform a new customization.

Defining Personal Settings

On the Personal Settings tab of the User Profile screen, you can configure some personal data.

You can access the User Profile section by clicking the login name in the upper part of the screen.

As a Parallels Virtual Automation user, on this page you can revise, change or add the following

personal data:

• The Login field is for information purposes only, you cannot change it.

• To change your password, enter the current password to the Old Password field, and a new

password into the Password and Retype the password fields. Please make sure it is difficult

enough to pick up, so using birthdays and relatives' names for a password is not probably the

best approach to ensuring your security.

Follow the PVA requirements to set up a reliable and secure password:

• Passwords must be at least six characters long.

• Passwords must contain elements from three of the four following types of characters:

• English uppercase letters (A, B, C, ... Z);

• English lowercase letters (a, b, c, ... z);

• Westernized Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, ... 9);

• Non-alphanumeric characters (special characters) ($,!,%,^).

If your user information is taken from an external authentication database registered in Parallels

Virtual Automation, you cannot change your password as it is taken from this database.

• The Full Name and Description fields are editable only if your user information is stored in the

regular Parallels database. If you are a user of the host OS (including root/Administrator) or of an

external authentication database having access to Parallels Virtual Automation, you cannot

change your full name as it is taken from the corresponding database.

• The Email field should be filled in with a correct email address to enable the functionality of

restoring your password, if you forgot it. If your user information is taken from an external

authentication database registered in Parallels Virtual Automation, you cannot edit your email

address as it is taken from this database.

To submit the changes, click Submit, otherwise click Cancel.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

Organizing Logical Structure

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to organize all your registered physical servers and with

virtual environments on them in the following ways:

• All of them present a logical and easily manageable structure (with as many levels as you like).

• The other Parallels objects, like OS, and application templates, and Container backups, are

automatically filtered to conform to the current level of the object hierarchy.

• The Parallels Virtual Automation security policies can be set up not on the physical server or

virtual environment level, but on the level of an arbitrary group of objects, provided these

objects are united into a folder.

There are two independent ways to design the structure organization. They are called

Infrastructure and Logical View and presented as top-level elements in the Parallels Virtual

Automation left menu. You can use either one of them or, better, both at once, as their functions

are different:

The Infrastructure view allows you to display the physical organization of the PVA infrastructure.

For example, all the physical servers will take place one level lower than the datacenter, and all the

virtual environments running on a certain physical server will be shown under it. You can create

your own folders in the Infrastructure group, but you cannot violate the order of nesting objects.

As a way to help with the visual representation of physical objects, the folders you create here can

also be called Datacenters and Racks.

Logical View allows you to group your physical servers and virtual environments in your own way

independently of the physical infrastructure. For example, by grouping all the financial department

activities under a common ‘FinDep’ folder, your organization will be able to manage them as a

single entity by collectively managing permissions, scheduling backups, applying system updates,

and more. Additionally, physical server or virtual environment may simultaneously appear in any

number of folders.

The main operations related to organizing the PVA infrastructure are available with the top toolbar

buttons visible if you are currently located in the Infrastructure/Logical View context (i.e. not in the

physical server or virtual environment context). Below are the ways to set about:

• Adding a folder. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder in which you want

to create a new folder. Then, if you are in the Infrastructure context, click the Add New

Subfolder button on the top toolbar. In the Logical View context, click the Add to Folder

button on the top toolbar, then click New Subfolder.

• Renaming a folder. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder you wish to

rename. On the top toolbar, click the Manage Folder button, then click Configure.

• Moving a folder. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder you wish to

move. On the top toolbar, click the Manage Folder button, then click Move.

• Deleting a folder. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder you wish to

delete. On the top toolbar, click the Manage Folder button, then click Delete.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

• Including a physical server in a folder. Click on Infrastructure on the left Parallels Virtual

Automation menu and go to the Hardware Nodes tab. Select the physical server(s) you wish to

include in a certain folder and click Move on top of the Hardware Nodes table. If you are

working with Logical View, the course of actions is a bit different, because any physical server

can belong to any number of folders. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the

folder where you wish to include the physical server. Then click the Add to Folder button on

the top toolbar, and select Hardware Node.

• Including a virtual environment in a folder. In the Infrastructure view, the virtual environments

always go with the physical server on which they are hosted, so you cannot include them

separately in folders. In Logical View, any virtual environment can belong to any number of

folders. On the left Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder where you wish to include

the virtual environment. Then click the Add to Folder button on the top toolbar, and select

Container.

• Moving a physical server or a virtual environment to another folder. These actions do not

essentially differ from including these objects in folders, so you should be guided by the

explanations given above.

• Removing a physical server or a virtual environment from the Infrastructure view. Unregister

the corresponding physical server (the Unregister button on The Hardware Nodes tab) or

delete the virtual environment (the Delete button on the Containers tab).

• Removing a physical server or a virtual environment from a Logical View folder. On the left

Parallels Virtual Automation menu, click the folder from which you wish to delete a physical

server/virtual environment, then go to the Hardware Nodes/Containers tab. Select the

object(s) you want to remove and click Remove on top of the table.

Using the built-in Parallels Virtual Automation functionality, you can create a logical structure of your

own:

• create new folders (p. 24) and edit them (p. 25);

• change the structure hierarchy by mowing folders (p. 25) and physical servers (p. 25);

• change the hierarchy by adding physical server (p. 26) and virtual environment (p. 26) to folders,

i.e. you can group the physical and virtual environments according to your needs.

Adding New Folder

The new folder you are creating will be placed directly under the currently selected folder in the

Infrastructure or Logical View hierarchies (p. 27).

Folders created are assigned a Folder Type. The default folder type is Folder. Folders created in

the Infrastructure hierarchy can be of type Folder, Datacenter, or Rack. Folders created in the

Logical View hierarchy can be of type Folder or Datacenter.

The Folder Title field is mandatory, as it sets the name of the folder. Duplicate folder names are not

allowed.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

For detailed information on working with Infrastructure of Parallels Virtual Automation and Logical

View trees, refer to Organizing Management Infrastructure.

Editing Folder Properties

On the Configure screen, it is possible to change the name of a folder and the icon representing

the folder type.

To change the name of the folder, enter a new folder name in the text box in the Title section. To

change the folder icon, select the radio button next to the desired icon in the Folder Type section.

Click the Submit button to apply any changes, otherwise click Cancel.

Any changes made to the folder name or folder type will not affect any physical server or virtual

environment settings.

For detailed information on working with Infrastructure of Parallels Virtual Automation and Logical

View trees, refer to Organizing Management Infrastructure.

Moving Folder

Folders under the Infrastructure and Logical View level can be moved to other locations within

their corresponding hierarchies. You cannot change the location of the following folders:

• the parent folder - a folder is already a child of its parent;

• the current folder - a folder cannot be a child of itself;

• any child folder - this would break the hierarchical structure by disconnecting any links to the

hierarchy (one or more folders directly under the folder being moved would have to become the

root physical server(s) in a new detached folder hierarchy).

In the drop-down within the Destination Folder section, select the folder you want to move the

currently selected folder to. Invalid destinations cannot be selected and are grayed out. Click the

Move button to commit the folder move operation, or Cancel to discard it.

For detailed information on working with Infrastructure of Parallels Virtual Automation and Logical

View trees, refer to Organizing Management Infrastructure.

Moving Physical Servers to Another Folder

Physical servers can be moved from folder to folder in the Infrastructure view only, because the

Logical View mode allows one and the same object to be simultaneously included in different

folders, so this mode deals with objects inclusion, and not their moving.

For the selected physical server(s) to be included in the folder of your choice, select this folder from

the Destination Folder drop-down menu and click Submit. The physical server(s) will be displayed

on the Parallels Virtual Automation left menu as sub-levels of the selected folder.

Getting Started With Parallels Virtual Automation

For detailed information on working with Infrastructure of Parallels Virtual Automation and Logical

View trees, refer to Organizing Management Infrastructure.

Adding Physical Servers to Folders

On the Add Hardware Node(s) screen you can include any registered physical server in the

current folder of the Logical View hierarchy. To do that, press the Add button below the

Hardware Nodes section, select the physical servers to belong in the folder, click Use Selected,

and finally click Save.

For detailed information on working with Infrastructure of Parallels Virtual Automation and Logical

View trees, refer to Organizing Management Infrastructure.

Adding Virtual Environments to Folder

On the Add Virtual Environment(s) screen you can include any of the existing virtual environments

in the current folder of the Logical View hierarchy. To do that, press the Add Virtual

Environments button below the Virtual Environments section, select the virtual environments to

belong to the folder, click Use Selected, and finally click Save.

This chapter describes the Infrastructure tabs and management commands available on them.

In This Chapter

Viewing Summary Information ................................................................................. 27

Viewing Physical Servers Information ...................................................................... 29

Viewing Virtual Environments Information ................................................................ 31

Viewing Resource Consumption ............................................................................. 32

Viewing Infrastructure Logs ..................................................................................... 33

Viewing Summary Information

The Summary tab of the Infrastructure section provides you with general information of all the

physical servers and virtual environments. It allows you to quickly and timely assess the current

situation and, if necessary, take the required actions. The tab is available by clicking the

Infrastructure submenu in the Navigation tree.

The Overall Status section shows the virtual environments that have signaled resources

consumption alerts or those physical servers whose licenses have expired or are going to expire.

Note: You can configure Parallels Virtual Automation to not show alerts for specific mount points on your

system even if disk usage on them is close to or exceeds the set limit. For detailed information on how

you can do this, see Base Types and Interfaces > System Interface and Special Packets > system >

Calls > configuration in the PVA Agent XML API Reference guide.

Virtual Environment

The section displays information on all virtual environments registered in the PVA infrastructure.

Section Description

Status The column displays the number of running and stopped virtual environments. Upon clicking one

of the statuses, you are redirected to the Virtual Environments tab, with the virtual environments

grouped according to the chosen status.

OS The column displays types of operating systems running on virtual environments. Upon clicking an

OS name, you are redirected to the Virtual Environments tab, with the virtual environments

grouped according to the chosen OS.

HAPTER

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation

Infrastructure

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Technology The column displays virtualization technologies running on the virtual environments. Upon clicking

an OS name, you are redirected to the Virtual Environments tab, with the virtual environments

grouped according to the chosen technology.

Hardware Nodes

The section displays information on all physical servers registered in the PVA infrastructure.

Section Description

Status The column displays the number of online, offline, and requiring attention physical servers. Upon

clicking one of the statuses, you are redirected to the Hardware Nodes tab, with the servers

grouped according to the chosen status.

OS The column displays types of operating systems running on physical servers. Upon clicking an OS

name, you are redirected to the Hardware Nodes tab, with the servers grouped according to the

chosen OS.

Node Type The column displays virtualization products running on the physical servers. Upon clicking an OS

name, you are redirected to the Hardware Nodes tab, with the servers grouped according to the

chosen type.

The Tasks section includes a number of links:

• The New Virtual Environment and Migrate Server to Container links enable you to create

another virtual environment and/or migrate a physical server to a Container.

• The New Hardware Node link opens the Parallels Virtual Automation screen where you can

connect to a physical server and register it in Parallels Virtual Automation.

• The New Backup link brings about the New Virtual Environment Backups screen allowing

you to define the Container to be backed up and to configure various backup options.

• The New Subfolder link allows creating a new folder under the Infrastructure or Logical View

levels.

If you are on the Infrastructure level, the Manage Infrastructure section allows you to perform the

following operations:

• Manage Power Panel policies on the global level by following the Global Policies link. The

policies set on this level will be applied to all virtual environments that reside on all physical

servers registered in Parallels Virtual Automation.

• View detailed information on the Management Server by following the Management Node link.

If you are on the Logical View level, the Add Existing Objects to This Folder section allows you

to perform the following operations:

• Add more virtual environments to the main level of the Logical View hierarchies. To do this:

• Follow the Virtual Environments link and click Add Virtual Environments.

• In the displayed table, select the check boxes of the virtual environments you want to add to

Logical View, click Use Selected, and then click Save.

The chosen virtual environments will be displayed on the Logical View main level.

• Add more physical servers to the main level of the Logical View hierarchies. To do this:

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

• Follow the Hardware Nodes link and click Add.

• In the displayed table, select the check boxes of the physical servers you want to add to

Logical View, click Use Selected, and then click Save.

The chosen physical servers will be displayed on the Logical View main level.

If the Logical View level contains a folder and you want to add a virtual environment or a physical

server to the main level of this folder, go to the folder Summary tab and perform the

aforementioned operations.

Viewing Physical Servers Information

Hardware Nodes is a common term for physical servers running Parallels Virtuozzo Containers,

Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server. Physical servers can be of the following types:

• a Windows computer with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Windows;

• a Linux computer with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Linux;

• a bare metal computer with Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server;

• a Mac computer with Parallels Server for Mac.

The Parallels Virtual Automation functionality enables you to register, group under logical units, and

manage a number of such servers.

If you deal with a large number of registered physical servers (and virtual environments), it can be

convenient to organize them into multiple logical units divided by architecture, virtual environment

type or other principles. For details on how to do this, consult Organizing Logical Structure (p.

23).

You can also set up a convenient and automated structure of IP pools. The IP addresses within

these pools can be automatically assigned to the certain groups of virtual environments, thus

eliminating possible IP conflicts between virtual environments and physical servers. Doing this will

also let you save time on manual IP assignment. For details, see Managing IP Pools (p. 238).

To distribute workload, you can migrate virtual environments between physical servers registered in

the Parallels Virtual Automation infrastructure.

Linux-based Containers can be migrated to Parallels Server Bare Metal physical servers or to

Linux-based physical servers with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers installed. Windows-based

Containers can be migrated between Windows-based physical servers. Virtual machines can be

migrated between Parallels Server Bare Metal and Mac OS physical servers.

On the Hardware Nodes screen, you can review the list of physical servers currently registered in

Parallels Virtual Automation and see the physical server details shown as the following table:

Column Name Description

Hostname The hostname of the physical server.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Description The description of the physical server.

Default IP Address The IP address of the physical server used to connect to Master Server (the physical server

with the PVA Management Server component of Parallels Virtual Automation installed).

Product The name of the product the physical server is based on.

VT The virtualization solution used on the physical server.

OS The operating system installed on the physical server.

Operating System The name and version of the operating system installed on the physical server.

Arch The microprocessor architecture of the physical server.

CPU The percentage of the current CPU load on the physical server. Updated every 10 seconds.

Disk The percentage of the current disk space usage of the physical server. Updated every 10

seconds.

Memory The percentage of the current memory consumption of the physical server. Updated every

10 seconds.

Alert The level of the physical server resources usage signaled by a corresponding alert.

Alerted The number of virtual environments which reside on the physical server and whose level of

the resources usage is signaled by a corresponding alert.

Running The current number of running virtual environments residing on the physical server.

Stopped The current number of stopped virtual environments residing on the physical server.

Total The total number of virtual environments residing on the physical server.

Status The status of the physical server.

Note: If this screen is loaded in the Logical View mode, the physical servers displayed in this table are

those which have been added to the Logical View, otherwise the physical servers list is empty. To add a

physical server to the Logical View, click Add To Folder on the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar,

select Hardware Nodes from the menu, and click Add, choose the physical server(s) in the displayed

window, and click Use Selected, then Save.

To manage any of the physical servers registered in Parallels Virtual Automation, click its hostname

in the leftmost column of the table. To display a certain physical server from a long list, click the

Show Search link on top of the table, enter the name of the physical server and click Search; to

restore the list of the physical servers, click Reset Results.

To stop managing a physical server via Parallels Virtual Automation, tick its check box and click

Unregister; to add a new physical server to the list of the servers managed via Parallels Virtual

Automation, click New > Hardware Node on the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar. Selecting

one or more physical servers in the table and clicking the Move button opens the screen where

you can sort the selected physical server(s) by distributing them across Parallels Virtual Automation

folders.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Viewing Virtual Environments Information

The table contains all virtual environments hosted on physical servers registered in Parallels Virtual

Automation. You can access it from the Infrastructure > Virtual Environments screen. Here you

can create new virtual environments and delete existing ones, perform various management

operations on them.

The Virtual Environments table comprises the following information:

Column Description

ID The ID assigned to the virtual environment. An ID is a Container characteristic only. It can be

set manually or automatically generated.

Name The name of the virtual environment.

Hostname The hostname of the virtual environment.

Description The description of the virtual environment, if any.

IP Address The IP addresses assigned to the virtual environment.

Hardware Node The hostname or IP address of the physical server where the virtual environment is hosted.

VT The virtualization solution the virtual environment is based on. Currently, Parallels Virtual

Automation allows you to manage Containers and virtual machines.

OS The operating system installed on the host physical server.

Architecture The microprocessor architecture of the host physical server.

Operating System The OS template the virtual environment is based on.

Original Template The virtual environment template the virtual environment is based on.

CPU Presents a visual representation showing how much host physical server CPU time the

virtual environment is consuming at the moment.

Disk Presents a visual representation showing the current host physical server disk space

consumption by the virtual environment.

Memory Presents a visual representation showing the current consumption of the memory resources

allocated to the virtual environment.

Alert Every time a virtual environment consumes more of a resource than is specified by the limit

on that resource, or is coming close to that limit, an alert is generated and logged. The

green, yellow, or red circle in this column indicates the cumulative resource consumption by

the virtual environment.

Enabled A green tick opposite a virtual environment indicates that this virtual environment is enabled

and can be started, a red cross means that the virtual environment is disabled and cannot

be started.

Status The current status of the virtual environment.

Notes:

1. The CPU, Disk, and Memory columns provide a simplified representation that gives you a very

general idea of the current resource consumption. The information is retrieved every 10 seconds and

Parallels Virtual Automation displays the latest values. To have a more comprehensive resource

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

consumption report for a virtual environment, click its name to open the virtual environment dashboard

and open the Resources tab to view a minute resource consumption description.

2. Information such as IP addresses, hostnames, or statuses of all virtual environments presented in the

Virtual Environments table is displayed according to the settings made on the Select Columns drop-

down menu.

To facilitate working with virtual environments residing on your physical servers, you may have the

Virtual Environments table display only those virtual environments that conform to particular

parameters. Above the table, click the Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify

the parameters the virtual environments should meet; you can also customize these fields by

clicking Customize. Then click on the Search link. To view all the virtual environments residing on

your physical servers, click on the Reset Results link to the right of the parameter fields.

Viewing Resource Consumption

Knowing how virtual environments consume host resources may help you prevent physical servers

from overusing resources and reducing the performance of virtual environments.

The Resource Consumers table keeps track of the resource usage on the physical servers.

Access the Resources page by going to Infrastructure -> Resources tab.

In the List Settings section, you can specify the time interval for which you want to view the

resource consumption statistics. To specify the time interval, choose one of the following items

from the corresponding drop-down menu:

• Last Hour

• Last Day

• Last Week

In the Resource Consumers section, you can see information such as disk usage, memory usage,

incoming and outcoming traffic of all the virtual environments. This information is presented in the

Virtual Environments table and displayed according to the settings made on the Select Columns

drop-down menu. If all the columns are selected, this table presents the following:

Column Description

Virtual Environment The virtual environment name.

Hardware Node The physical server that hosts the virtual environment.

CPU Usage The host CPU time consumed by the given virtual environment for the selected time frame.

Disk Host Usage The host disk space consumed by the given virtual environment, in percents.

Disk Quota Usage The percentage of the disk space usage compared to the total amount of disk space

allocated to the virtual environment.

Disk Usage The usage of the disk space by the virtual environment.

Memory Host Usage The host memory consumed by the virtual environment, in percents.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Memory Quota Usage The percentage of the memory usage compared to the total amount of memory allocated to

the virtual environment.

Memory Usage The usage of the memory by the virtual environment.

Incoming Traffic The amount of the virtual environment incoming traffic, in bytes.

Outgoing Traffic The amount of the virtual environment outgoing traffic, in bytes.

If you click a column name, you will see an upward triangle displayed to the right of the column

name and virtual environments consuming the corresponding resource in ascending order. If you

click the column name once again, you will see a downward triangle displayed to the right of the

column name and virtual environments consuming this resource in descending order.

Viewing Infrastructure Logs

This section provides information on the Infrastructure level logs.

Viewing Infrastructure Task Logs

You may turn to the Tasks subtab to check the status of any Parallels Virtual Automation operation

recently performed.

By default, 20 records are shown, but you may have more records displayed by pressing the

appropriate link on top of the table. You may also have the Tasks table display only those log

records that have a particular date or refer to a specific operation status. On top of the table, click

the Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify the boundaries of the time interval

and the status of the operation you are interested in; then click on the Search link. You can have

Parallels Virtual Automation display only those parameters you need at the moment. To show or

hide certain columns, click the Select Columns link and select the parameters you want to be

displayed or clear those you do not. Click the Reset Results button to check all the operations

performed.

The tasks list is presented as the following table:

Column Name Description

Time The date and time when the execution of the task was started.

Hardware Node The physical server or the Master Server where the task is performed. This option is available

only at the Infrastructure level.

Object The name of the virtual environment or other object that is performing the task.

Task The kind of the task.

User The user who initiated the process.

Status Indicates whether the task was successful or failed.

Details The detailed information on a particular task. Click the Details link opposite the needed task

to view the details.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Viewing Infrastructure Alert Logs

The Alerts subtab enables you to view the physical and virtual environment resource consumption.

Every time a physical server or any of its virtual environments consumes more of a resource than is

specified by the limit on that resource, or is coming close to that limit, an alert is generated and

logged. You shall pay attention to the problem resource and correct the situation.

You may have the Alerts table display only those alerts that have a particular date, relate to a

particular category or parameter, are logged for the particular physical or virtual environment. Over

the table, click the Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify the parameters

that the log should meet; then click the Search link.

The Alerts table provides you with the following data:

Column Name Description

Time The date and time when the alert was generated.

Object The physical server the alert was logged for.

Category One of the two alert categories: Resource (alert on a single virtual environment's resource

consumption) or Group (alert on the whole Group's resource consumption).

Details The problem description.

Type The alert sign displays the type of alert for the given virtual or physical server. See the detailed

description below.

Parameter The type of the resource that required the consumption value alert due to its overusage.

There are three alert types in total that have a visual representation in the Type column and

correspond to the three resource consumption zones. A green circle with a white tick means the

green zone, an orange circle with a white exclamation mark points to the yellow zone, and a red

circle with a white exclamation mark refers to the red zone.

Note: The alert threshold cannot be changed or adjusted according to your needs.

The meaning of these zones differs slightly depending on the parameter under alert.

For CPU-related parameters the meaning of the three zones is the following:

Zone Description

Green The physical server (or virtual environment) consumes less than 90% of the CPU time allowed to it. This

means that you can run more applications inside the physical server (or virtual environment) without violating

the performance of the current ones. If the physical server consumes more than 90% of the allowed CPU

time, but for an insignificant time, the color remains green as this situation is not dangerous.

Yellow The physical server (or virtual environme

nt) consumes between 90% and 100% of the CPU power allowed to

it for a relatively long while. Usually this means that the running processes consume too much CPU power. It

is up to you to decide whether this situation suits you, but you should bear in mind that additional

applications launched inside the physical server might experience shortage of available CPU power. You

may need to consider the possibility of cutting down the number of processes.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

Red The physical server (or virtual environment) consumes 100% of the CPU power allowed to it, i.e. all the

available CPU power, for a long time. Usually this means that currently there is some CPU-intensive process

inside the physical server caused by a temporary task. For example, this may happen if you are compiling a

package in the physical server (or virtual environment) or in similar cases. In this case you should simply wait

for this task to complete.

However, if you do not know the reason for the CPU overconsumption, turn to the Parallels Virtual

Automation System processes page to determine which processes are causing the problem and take the

corresponding measures. For example, you might want to terminate or kill the offending process. Otherwise,

the system performance may continue low for a long while.

For disk-related parameters the meaning of the three zones is the following:

Zone Description

Green The physical server (or virtual environment) consumes less than 90% of disk resources allowed to it. This

means that the physical server has currently no problem with disk resources.

Yellow The physical server (or virtual environment) is using between 90% and 100% of the disk resources available

to it on the physical server. The situation is rather dangerous since the next disk resource allocation request

can be refused by the physical server (or virtual environment). Therefore, you should erase unnecessary data

from the physical server immediately. On a Linux physical server, a physical server (or virtual environment) is

allowed to consume more than 100% of its disk quota only during the grace period (see the quotatime

parameter in the resources consumption details). If you do not solve the problem during this time, the

physical server will be denied some of the disk resources and you might lose valuable data.

Red The physical server (or virtual environment) has exceeded the soft limit and a disk resource allocation has

been refused by it. This might have resulted in a loss of some valuable data or other problems inside the

physical server. To discontinue this very serious situation, you should erase unnecessary data from the

physical server immediately.

For memory-related parameters the meaning of the three zones is the following:

Zone Description

Green The physical server (or virtual environment) consumes less than 90% of the memory-related resource

allowed to it.

Yellow The physical server (or virtual environment) consumes between 90% and 100% of the memory-related

resource allowed to it. It is up to you to decide whether this situation suits you, but you should bear in mind

that additional applications launched inside the physical server might experience shortage of the

corresponding resource. Judging by the offending resource, you might determine the reason for its shortage

and take the corresponding measures.

Red The physical server (or virtual environment) has been denied this memory-related resource due to its

overusage. This might have resulted in application crashes or other problems inside the physical server (or

virtual environment).

Viewing Infrastructure Event Logs

The Events subtab keeps track of all the changes in the statuses of all the virtual environments

registered on Parallels Virtual Automation physical servers. These changes may happen due to the

virtual environment routine management via Parallels Virtual Automation, Parallels Management

Console, command line operations, or due to the operation of some programs.

Organizing Parallels Virtual Automation Infrastructure

The Status Changes table on the Events subtab displays the information on the physical server

and virtual environment changes as follows:

Column Name Description

Time The time when the status of a physical server or virtual environment was changed.

Object The name of a physical server or virtual environment whose status was changed.

Old Status The previous status of a physical server or virtual environment.

The description of all possible physical server and virtual environment statuses is provided in the

Physical Server, Container and Virtual Machine Statuses section.

Status Obtained The current status of a physical server or virtual environment.

The description of all possible physical server and virtual environment statuses is provided in the

Physical Server, Container and Virtual Machine Statuses section.

By default, the table shows 20 records, but you may have more records displayed by clicking the

appropriate link above the table.

You may also have the Status Changes table display only those log records that have a particular

date and time. On top of the table, click the Show Search link to display the fields where you can

specify the boundaries of the time interval for which you wish to view the log; then click the Search

link. To view all the status changes again, follow the Reset Results link.

This chapter describes ways to register and manage physical servers.

In This Chapter

Backing Up and Restoring the Master Server .......................................................... 37

Registering Physical Server in Parallels Virtual Automation ....................................... 38

Managing Disk Images ........................................................................................... 39

Rebooting Physical Server ...................................................................................... 41

Physical Server Dashboard Overview ...................................................................... 41

Managing Physical Server General Settings ............................................................. 44

Monitoring Physical Server Resources Consumption ............................................... 45

Viewing Resource Consumers ................................................................................ 45

Logging into Physical Server ................................................................................... 46

Viewing Physical Server Logs.................................................................................. 48

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels Server Technology ............................. 49

Managing Offline Services Configuration ................................................................. 50

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels Containers Technology ...................... 52

Backing Up and Restoring the Master Server

In the Parallels Virtual Automation 6.1 infrastructure, Master Server is a uniting element that ensures

successful communication between all Slave physical servers in the system and their virtual

environments. It also serves as a storage for management, security and other sorts of data. Just as

you make a backup of any physical server or virtual environment in Parallels Virtual Automation, you

can back up the Master Server and store this backup for the case of emergency.

You can learn how to download the backup script from the Parallels Knowledgebase

http://kb.parallels.com/en/6830.

Backing Up Physical Server

The PVA backup script pvabackup.vbs, after default download, is stored in the C:\Program

Files\Parallels\Parallels Virtual Automation\Management

Server\bin\location. To back up a Master Server with the help of the PVA script, start it with the

following parameters:

cscript.exe pvabackup.vbs BACKUP c:\mn_backups

HAPTER

Managing Physical Servers

Where "c:\mn_backups" is an automatically generated location for the target backup. The

backup name consists of the year, month, day, hour, minute, and second when the backup was

made, for example "20091027222544". To give a backup a specific name, use the script with a

concrete backup name:

cscript.exe pvabackup.vbs BACKUP c:\mn_backups b1

Where "b1" stands for the concrete backup name, and the storage location will be

c:\mn_backups b1.

Restoring Physical Server

To restore the Master Server, the script should look as follows:

cscript.exe pvabackup.vbs RESTORE c:\mn_backups 20091027222544

Where 20091027222544 is the name of the target backup you want to restore from.

Note: The Master Server will be restored with all the values overwritten from the backup. The changes in

the Master Server made after the date of this backup will be lost after the server has been restored.

Registering Physical Server in Parallels Virtual

Automation

The following physical servers can be registered in the PVA infrastructure system:

• a Windows computer with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Windows or Parallels Containers

for Windows installed;

• a Linux computer with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers for Linux software installed;

• a bare metal computer with Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server installed;

To register a hardware node in Parallels Virtual Automation, the following firewall ports should be

opened:

• PVA Slave physical server: 4433, 4434, 4435;

• PVA Management server: 4533, 4534;

Important: For the proper functioning of the registered server, you may need to open more ports. To

learn information on other ports, refer to the KB article.

The newly registered physical server will be displayed in the physical server list on the Hardware

Nodes screen (p. 29) and accessible via Parallels Virtual Automation for all the usual managing and

monitoring PVA operations. Besides, physical servers registered in Parallels Virtual Automation form

a joint physical servers pool which provides with the following collective actions:

• creating a logical structure of physical servers and the virtual environments residing on them;

Managing Physical Servers

• migrating virtual environments between physical servers;

• copying OS and application templates from one physical server to another;

• making virtual environment templates stored on a Virtual Manager Server available to other

registered physical servers;

• reserving pools of IP addresses and organizing IP ranges inside them;

Registering a new physical server to be managed through Parallels Virtual Automation is a simple

action and all it takes is entering the following information on the new Node:

• The valid IP address of the physical server that will be used by Parallels Virtual Automation to

connect to this physical server. The physical server's IP address can be either of version 4 or of

version 6. Enter this IP address to the Node Address field in the Connection to Hardware

Node section. Note, that once you have added the hardware node under its current hostname,

you cannot change it. If you want to change the hostname of a registered physical server, you

should first unregister it from Parallels Virtual Automation. After you have edited the hostname,

you can re-register it in the PVA system again.

• In the Administrative Login to Hardware Node section, you need to indicate the login name

and the password which are used to connect to the physical server as the administrator. Write

the login name in the User Name field and the password in the Password field.

Selecting the Force registration even if Node is already registered in another Server Group

checkbox is the option to choose when the physical server you are registering has already been

and is still registered on another physical server and you need this physical server to be registered

from your physical server. If you forcibly register the physical server, this physical server will be

removed from the cluster it currently belongs to.

Clicking the Register button initiates the registering procedure.

When the registration procedure is over, the physical server is added to the list of registered

servers. You can view the list by clicking the Infrastructure in the left menu and switching to the

Hardware Nodes tab.

Managing Disk Images

If you have any file shares registered in Parallels Virtual Automation, the CD/DVD disk images

available on these shares will be displayed on the CD/DVD Images tab of the Software screen.

The information, such as the name, size, status of all the disk images, presented in the Disk

Images table is displayed according to the settings made on the Select Columns drop-down

menu. If all the columns are selected, this table presents the following:

Column Name Description

Name The name of the disk image.

Description The description of the disk image.

Managing Physical Servers

Full Path The full path to the place where the disk image is stored.

Share The name of the file share hosting the corresponding disk image.

Size The size of the corresponding disk image.

Enabled A green tick opposite a disk image indicates that this disk image is enabled and can be

used, a grey circle means that the disk image is disabled and cannot be used.

Status The current status of the disk image.

To facilitate working with CD/DVD disk images available on the file shares registered in Parallels

Virtual Automation, you may have the Disk Images table display only those disk images that

conform to particular parameters. Above the table, click the Show Search link to display the fields

where you can specify the parameters the disk images should meet; you can also customize these

fields by clicking Customize. Then click on the Search link. To view all the CD/DVD disk images

available on the file shares registered in Parallels Virtual Automation, click on the Reset Results link

to the right of the parameter fields.

To manage several disk images at once, make use of the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar right

above the table. You are able to execute the following operations on disk images groups:

• Enabling any number of disk images (the Enable button).

• Disabling any number of disk images (the Disable button). You may need to disable a disk

image because of the following reasons:

• the CD/DVD disk image has become corrupted

• you want other users not to use the CD/DVD disk image.

To perform anything of the above, select the check boxes opposite the corresponding disk images

and press the appropriate link on the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar.

Clicking the disk image name in the Name column will lead you to the Configure Disk Image

screen described in the following subsection.

Configuring Disk Image Parameters

The Configure Disk Image screen allows you to do the following:

• In the General Settings group, you can:

• Review the disk image name, the network path to the place where the disk image is stored,

and the disk image size.

• Add some description to the disk image or modify the existing one.

• Specify whether the disk image is enabled or not by selecting or deselecting the Enabled

check box.

• In the File Share Information group, you can:

• Review the name of the file share storing the disk image and the network path to the share.

Click the Save button to save the changes, otherwise, click Cancel.

Managing Physical Servers

Rebooting Physical Server

You may want to reboot your physical server. For example, this may happen if you have installed a

new Linux kernel on the physical server and wish to start using it.

Before rebooting the physical server, keep in mind that usually this process takes 3-5 minutes.

During this time, the physical server and all virtual environments residing on it will be unavailable. To

reboot the physical server, click the Reboot Node button on the Physical server dashboard pane.

Note: When a physical server is accidentally powered off, the PVA system generates an alert message

and notifies that the physical server resources are not available. The alert is generated after 10-15

minutes after the physical server failure.

Physical Server Dashboard Overview

The Physical Server Summary page provides an overview of the configuration and the current

status of the given physical server and enables you to quickly launch the most typical server

management tasks.

Depending on the physical server virtualization technology, the set of the commands and the

configuration information differ. However, the tables below provide you with the joined description.

A command or information, being specific for a concrete product, has the corresponding notice.

The Server State section informs you on everything related to resources and updates:

Field Description

Status Shows if the physical server is running (online) or not (powered off, offline). If the physical

server goes offline, the status is changed automatically.

License Refers to the state of the license. If your current license status (a red circle) suggests that

you install the license, you can do it on the Licensing page (the Licensing option in the left

menu).

Alerts Informs you if any of the virtual environment on this Server consumes more of some

resource than is specified by the limit on that resource (a red circle) or is coming close to

the limit (a yellow circle). To see the resource alerts logs, click the Show link.

RAM + Swap Usage The total percentage of the current physical server utilization in terms of both allocated

memory and, if swapping is on, swap space.

Disk Usage The percentage of the available disk space currently in use by the Server.

CPU Usage The percentage of the CPU power used by the physical server at the moment the current

Parallels Virtual Automation page was generated.

CPU Load Average The last 1, 5, and 15 minutes system load averages.

Uptime The time that has passed from the last Physical Server start.

Managing Physical Servers

The Server Configuration section displays the configuration of the physical server:

Field Description

Software

Automation Product The automation software installed on the physical server. As long as you have Parallels

Virtual Automation installed, this field shows you the product version as well.

Virtualization Product The virtualization product installed on the physical server.

Host OS Info The name of the operating system installed on the physical server.

Host OS Kernel The version of the OS kernel installed on the physical server.

Hardware

Architecture The description of the processor model(s) installed on the server.

CPU The Physical server CPU power. If the physical server has several processors, the column

shows the summation of their powers.

Cores per CPU The number of cores per one CPU.

CPU Hyperthreads The number of hyper-threads per all CPU cores.

Network

Hostname The hostname of the physical server.

IP Address Enumerates all the IP addresses the server has on all its network interfaces.

In the Virtual Environments section, you can quickly see such information as the number of

running and stopped virtual environments, check how many of those are depleting the physical

server resources and how many virtual environments you can have on the physical server

according to your license.

The Tasks section lets you quickly access some of the common server maintenance tasks.

Depending on the technologies installed on this physical server, the range of options can change.

If the physical server has the Parallels Server Bare Metal technology installed, the list of option will

contain both Parallel Server and Parallels Containers related options. If the physical server has the

Parallels Container technology installed, only Parallels Container and general options will be

available.

Operate subsection

Option Name Description

New Virtual Environment Create a new virtual environment. The option is available on the physical server with

Parallels Server Bare Metal technology installed.

New Container Create a new Container. The option is available on the physical server with Parallels

Containers technology installed.

New Virtual Machine Create a new virtual machine. The option is available on the physical server with Parallels

Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server technology installed.

Managing Physical Servers

Support Channel Install a new certificate or establish a support channel (p. 299). The option is available on

the physical server with Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server technology

installed.

registered on the physical server. Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server

only.

Terminal Login Connecting to the physical server via SSH. The option is available on the physical server

with Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server technology installed.

Migrate Server to virtual

Machine

Migrate a physical server to a virtual machine with the help of Parallels Transporter tool.

The option is available on the physical servers with Parallels Server Bare Metalor Parallels

Cloud Server technology installed.

Migrate Server to Container

Migrate a physical server to a Container with the help of the Parallels Transporter tool. The

option is available on the physical servers with Parallels Containers or Parallels Server

Bare Metal technology installed.

Reboot Node Reboot the physical server. Note that rebooting can take considerable time during which

the virtual environment hosting on this server won't be available.

Remote Desktop Connect to the physical server via the remote desktop.

Configure subsection

Option Name Description

General Settings Configure general settings, such as physical server description.

Container Backup

Settings

Configuring the default backup settings that will be used for all the Containers on this

physical server. These settings can be overridden individually for each Container on the

corresponding screens.

Parallels Server Settings Manage the general server settings for virtual machines. Parallels virtual machines specific.

Proxy Settings Changing the SMTP relay server IP address and the proxy server address or hostname of

the current physical server. The physical server uses the SMTP mail server to send emails.

The reasons to establish an email connection may be different, a password reminder or an

alert notification among them.

Virtuozzo Server Settings Manage the general server settings for Parallels Containers.

Logging Changing the periodicity of refreshing the resources consumption information in the

Parallels logs

Manage subsection

Option Name Description

Virtual Machine Templates

Parallels Server specific. Manage virtual machine templates.

Container Templates Manage Container templates.

Software Updates Check for software updates.

Install App/OS Templates Upload and install new templates on the physical server.

Virtual Networks Create and manage virtual networks.

Offline Services Create new and configure the offline management policies (p. 50).

Power Panel Policies Assign new policies and manage the existing policy rules for Power Panel usage.

Managing Physical Servers

Unregister Node Unregister the physical server from Parallels Virtual Automation 6.1.

The Disk Partitions and Memory sections inform you about the respective resources

consumption on the physical server.

The information on the Disk Partitions size usage in all the Linux partitions or Windows logical

disks existing on your physical server is presented in the following tables (corresponding to the

number of partitions/logical disks):

Column Name Description

Mount Point The name of the partition/logical disk using the resource.

Used Used amount of disk size in the partition/logical disk

Free Free amount of disk size in the partition/logical disk.

Total The total amount of disk size allocated for the partition/logical disk.

The information on the Memory usage is displayed in the following way:

Field Description

Physical memory The percentage of the current physical server utilization in terms of allocated memory.

Swap Space The percentage of the current physical server utilization in terms of allocated swap space.

The bar is not displayed if swapping is not configured on the physical server.

RAM+Swap The simple average of the resources above.

The Resources Commitments section provides summarized information on the disk and

memory resources promised to all the virtual environments hosted on the physical server. The

Value column displays how much resources have been promised; the Percentage column shows

how much of them are currently being used by virtual environments. If at least one virtual

environment is promised unlimited resources, the Value column shows "Unlimited", and the

Percentage column - "n/a" for the corresponding resource.

For more details on the physical server resource consumption, see Monitoring Physical Server

Resources Consumption (p. 45).

Managing Physical Server General Settings

The Configure General Settings page allows specifying some general configuration settings.

In the Hardware Node Description, you can add some details on the physical server.

When finished, click Submit to save the changes.

Managing Physical Servers

Monitoring Physical Server Resources

Consumption

The Hardware Node Monitor subtab shows the graphical statistics on the resource consumption

of the virtual environments on this physical server, i.e. the physical server resources consumed by

all virtual machines or Containers on this physical server and by the host system itself. The resource

consumption is shown in percentage.

Note: The consumption changes are shown with regards to your time zone. If time is incorrect, check

User Profile settings (p. 21).

Select Graph subsection

• CPU, Disk and Memory Usage. Each of the three resources has its own colour on the chart. If

you need to monitor the changes only for one resource, whatever it is, you can disable the

others.

• Disk I\O Usage. The chart shows the density of Hard Drive usage, i.e. the amount of read/write

kilobytes.

• Traffic Usage. The chart shows the volume of the incoming/outgoing traffic through the

network. If you view a daily, monthly or annual chart, the history changes are shown per hour,

day and month, accordingly.

Graph Period subsection

The chart can show the changes for the defined period. The chart can include the data for a

particular date, month, year or for any other period of time. To implement the changes, click Apply.

The chart will change its appearance.

Partially, the information on memory and disk resource consumption is available on the physical

server dashboard (p. 41).

Operations subsection

The Export Data link allows you to save the graphical data in the format of a plain text (.csv file)

on your computer.

Viewing Resource Consumers

Knowing how virtual environments consume host resources may help you prevent physical servers

from overusing resources and reducing the performance of virtual environments.

Managing Physical Servers

To view resource consumption of the selected physical server, click Infrastructure > physical

server > Resources tab > Resource Consumers subtab. For detailed information on monitored

resources, see Viewing Resource Consumption (p. 32).

Logging into Physical Server

Accessing Physical Servers via SSH

If you are managing a physical server with the Linux operating system installed, you can use

Secure Shell (ssh) to remotely connect to the physical server you are operating and work inside its

directory tree using standard Linux command line tools. To connect to the physical server by ssh,

you should make sure that you are launching Parallels Virtual Automation in Internet Explorer. SSH

connection to the physical server is supported by other browsers only if you have a Java virtual

machine on your computer.

Notes:

1. If you are managing a Windows-based physical server, please see Accessing Physical Servers via

RDP (p. 47) to learn to manage the physical server by means of the Remote Desktop Protocol.

2. To learn the port numbers that should be open to ensure a successful SSH connection, refer to

http://kb.parallels.com/en/9516.

The Terminal Login window is opened upon clicking on the Terminal Login icon on the physical

server toolbar or dashboard. You are presented with the Login and Password fields where you

should enter the relevant information (root or any other user name you might have created for this

physical server and this user's password) to be passed to the ssh server inside the physical server.

After you have filled in these two fields, click the Login button. If you are doing this for the first time,

your browser may display a window like this asking you to install additional components:

Managing Physical Servers

Figure 1: Installing Remote Desktop ActiveX Control

Note: if you establish an SSH connection to the physical server using the a browser other than Internet

Explorer, this window does not appear. The SSH connection through browsers on the Mozilla engine is

provided by the Java technology.

Click Yes in this window and wait for the ssh terminal window to appear, whereupon you get

connected to the physical server and may start sending commands to it via ssh.

Accessing Physical Servers via RDP

You can use Remote Desktop Connection, a standard Windows tool, to connect to a physical

server via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The feature is only available for the Internet

Explorer.

Notes:

1. If you are managing a Linux-based physical server, see Accessing Physical Servers via SSH (p. 46)

to learn to manage the physical server by means of Secure Shell.

2. To learn the port numbers that should be open to ensure a successful RDP connection, refer to

http://kb.parallels.com/en/9516.

The Remote Desktop window is opened upon clicking on the Remote Desktop icon on the

physical server toolbar or dashboard. You are presented with the Login button that you should

click to open a Remote Desktop session. If you are doing this for the first time, your browser may

display a window like this asking you to install additional components:

Managing Physical Servers

Figure 2: Installing Remote Desktop ActiveX Control

Click Yes in this window and wait for the Remote Desktop terminal window to appear, whereupon

you will be presented with the Login and Password fields. After entering the necessary information

(Administrator or any other user name you might have created for this physical server and this

user's password) in the fields provided, click Enter to get connected to the physical server and

working with Remote Desktop.

Viewing Physical Server Logs

Viewing Physical Server Task Logs

The Tasks subtab lists recent operations on virtual environments hosted on the selected physical

server. For more details on information shown, see Viewing Infrastructure Task Logs (p. 33).

Viewing Physical Server Alert Logs

The Alerts subtab lists resource consumption alerts for the selected physical server and virtual

environments hosted on it. For more details on information shown, see Viewing Infrastructure

Alert Logs (p. 34).

Managing Physical Servers

Viewing Physical Server Event Logs

The Events subtab lists status changes of the selected physical server and virtual environments

hosted on it. For more details on information shown, see Viewing Infrastructure Event Logs (p.

35).

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels

Server Technology

This section contains the information specific for the physical servers running Parallels Server.

Configuring Parallels Server Settings

The Parallels Server Settings page enables the administrator or the user that has enough rights to

change the physical servers general settings, for example, to add the physical server description or

to set the memory limits.

To change the settings, you can use the following subsections:

VM Default Settings

In this section, you can specify the following:

• VM Folder. The folder where newly created virtual machines will be stored by default. When

you change the location, the virtual machines that were earlier placed to a different location

won't be moved to the new one. If you want to have them in a new location, you should

manually move them.

• VM Backup Folder. The folder where virtual machine backups will be stored by default.

To specify the location, you can either type it in the field or use the Select button.

Parallels Service Settings

In this subsection, you can specify the memory limit that will be true to every virtual machine stored

on this Parallels Server.

• Auto. The memory will be automatically allocated to a virtual machine depending on its needs.

• Manually. Specify the amount of the memory that any virtual machine will use. Irrespective of

the virtual machine needs, it won't be able to exceed the memory limit.

Managing Physical Servers

VM Remote Console Service Settings

With the help of these settings, you can establish a remote control of the virtual machine using the

VNC protocol.

• In the Default Service Address field, specify the IP address for the VNC protocol to connect to

the virtual machine. You may need to do it if the Server has several IP addresses, out of which

you need only one for connection.

• In the Service Base Port field, specify the base port starting from which the running virtual

machines will be assigned with port numbers.

When finished, click Submit to save the changes.

Managing Templates on a Physical Server

The VM Templates page enables you to monitor and manage the state of all the templates stored

on this physical server. The templates are listed in the table that can have up to three columns: a

Name, OS, and Description column. To add or remove any of the columns, use the Select

Columns button above the table.

The Search section also comprises three fields: Name, OS, and Description. This allows you to

search the templates according to any of these parameters. If you use only some of these fields,

you can add or remove them according to your needs with the help of the Customize button. If

you do no need the search section at all, just hide it with the Hide Search button above the table.

To restore the Search section, click the Show Search button that appears on the place of the Hide

Search one.

On the VM Templates page, you can perform any of the following actions:

• Create a clone of the template and store it in the Library (the Clone to Library button);

• Convert the template into a virtual machine (the Convert to VM button);

• Create a clone of the template and store it on the same physical server (the Clone button);

• Delete a template (the Delete button).

To perform an action, you should select one or more templates by enabling the check box in the

left column.

If you click a template name, the template properties page will open.

Managing Offline Services Configuration

The Offline Services subtab available on clicking the Network tab on the corresponding physical

server dashboard allows you to configure the offline services parameters that will be applied to all

virtual environments on your physical server. Offline services ensure the manageability of your virtual

Managing Physical Servers

environments from any browser at their IP addresses. Configuring the offline services is supported

for the virtual environments with IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

By default, the vzpp service (for managing Containers by means of Parallels Power Panel) and the

vzpp-plesk service (for managing Containers by means of the Plesk control panel integrated with

Parallels Power Panel) are enabled for all Containers on the physical server, which means that you

can start using these offline services for managing Containers right after their creation. All offline

services currently available on your physical server are listed in the Offline Services table:

Column Name Description

Name The name of the service.

Destination Container ID The ID of the destination Container where the requests to/from virtual environments

are redirected.

Redirected Port The port number inside the Container where the requests to/from virtual

environments are redirected.

Global Shows if the service is enabled or disabled globally.

By default, 20 services are shown on the screen, but you may have more services displayed by

clicking the appropriate link on top of the table. You may also have the Offline Services table

display only those services that have a particular name or conform to some other criteria. On top of

the table, press the Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify the name or any

other parameters of the service you wish to view; then click on the Search link. To view all the

services, click on the Reset Results link to the right of the Search link.

You can have Parallels Virtual Automation display only those parameters you need at the moment.

To show or hide certain columns, click the Select Columns link and select the parameters you

want to be displayed or clear those you do not.

Note: Before you can start managing your virtual environments using certain offline services, make sure

that the offline service is globally enabled on the physical server.

On the Offline Services subtab, you can manage your offline services as follows:

• To subscribe all virtual environments on the physical server to an offline service, select the

check box next to this service and click Enable Globally.

• To unsubscribe all virtual environments on the physical server from an offline service, select the

check box next to this service and click Disable Globally.

• To create a new offline service on the physical server, click New Offline Service.

• To edit an existing offline service, click its name in the table.

• To remove an offline service that you do not need anymore from the physical server, select the

check box next to this service and click Delete.

Managing Physical Servers

Creating Offline Service

To create a new offline service on the physical server, provide the following information on the

service:

• In the Name field, specify an arbitrary name for the service.

• In the Destination Container ID field, specify the ID of the destination Container where the

requests to/from your Containers will be redirected.

• In the Redirected Port field, specify the port number inside the Container where the requests

to/from your Containers will be redirected.

• If necessary, enable the service for all virtual environments on the physical server by selecting

the Use Globally for All Containers check box.

When you are ready, click the Submit button to create the offline service.

Editing Offline Service

To edit an offline service on the physical server, provide the following information on the service:

• In the Destination Container ID field, specify the ID of the destination Container where the

requests to/from your Containers will be redirected.

• In the Redirected Port field, specify the port number inside the Container where the requests

to/from your Containers will be redirected.

• If necessary, enable the service for all virtual environments on the physical server by selecting

the Use Globally for All Containers check box.

When you are ready, click the Submit button to update the configuration of the offline service.

Managing Physical Servers Running Parallels

Containers Technology

This section contains the information specific for the physical servers running Parallels Containers

software.

Configuring Virtuozzo Physical Server Settings

The Virtuozzo Server Settings page enables the administrator (or a user with enough rights) to

specify paths to Container's private area and root directory as well as change its file system type.

To change the settings, you can use the following fields:

Managing Physical Servers

Private Area. The default location of Container private area on the physical server. The default

folder name is Container's unique ID.

Root Directory. The path to the mounted Container contents. The default folder name is

Container's unique ID.

File System Type. Container file system type, if a choice is available: VZFS or ploop.

When finished, click Submit to save the changes, otherwise click Cancel.

Virtual environment is a generic term for Containers and virtual machines. A virtual environment is

created on the basis of a virtualization technology and can be managed via Parallels Virtual

Automation. Physical servers running Parallels Virtuozzo Containers or Parallels Containers for

Windows can host Containers while physical servers running Parallels Cloud Server or Parallels

Server Bare Metal can host both Containers and virtual machines.

You can find the list of all virtual environments hosted on servers registered in Parallels Virtual

Automation on the Infrastructure > Virtual Environments screen (see Viewing Virtual

Environments Information (p. 31)). On this screen, you can either right-click a virtual environment

and select an operation from the context menu or select multiple virtual environments and click an

operation button on the toolbar above the list. Available operations include:

• Create one or more virtual environments (New Virtual Environment):

• Start/restart/stop the selected virtual environments (Start/Restart/Stop).

• Pause the selected virtual environments (Pause). Pausing frees up the host CPU resources

while the consumption of other resources remains the same.

• Stop the selected virtual environments without executing shutdown scripts (Power Off). This

operation is only available to users with administrative privileges in Parallels Virtual Automation.

It can be used, for example, if a virtual environment has become broken and cannot be shut

down properly.

• Suspend the selected virtual machines or Linux-based Containers (Suspend). This operation is

similar to putting a regular computer to sleep. The current virtual environment state (including

the state of all running applications and processes) is saved to a special file on the host. After

returning from the suspended mode, the virtual environment resumes operation from the same

state it has been in before suspension.

• Back up the selected virtual environments (Back Up).

• Migrate the selected virtual environments a physical server registered in Parallels Virtual

Automation (Migrate).

• Clone the selected virtual environments (Clone).

• Delete the selected virtual environments (Delete).

• Configure the general settings of the selected virtual environments (Configure).

• Convert the selected virtual machines to templates (Convert to template).

• Clone the selected virtual environments to templates (Clone to template).

HAPTER

Managing Virtual Environments

Notes:

1. You can perform operations on multiple virtual environments only if they are based on the same

virtualization technology.

2. You can also perform operations on a single virtual environment from its summary screen accessible

by clicking that virtual environment's name.

The sections of this chapter describe operations on multiple virtual environments in more detail. For

operations specific to Containers or virtual machines, see Managing Containers (p. 59) and

Managing Virtual Machines (p. 119), respectively.

In This Chapter

Starting to Create Virtual Environments ................................................................... 55

Starting, Stopping, Pausing and Restarting Virtual Environments ............................. 56

Suspending and Resuming Virtual Environments ..................................................... 57

Changing Virtual Environment Root/Administrator Password ................................... 58

Setting Power Panel Access for Customers ............................................................ 58

Managing Containers ............................................................................................. 59

Managing Virtual Machines ..................................................................................... 119

Deleting Virtual Environments .................................................................................. 148

Starting to Create Virtual Environments

First of all, you should decide on the virtual environment type. You can create either a Container, or

a virtual machine.

If you need to have virtual environments with guest OS different from the hosting physical server

OS, create and use virtual machines. Using Parallels Server virtual machines, you can have a wide

range of guest OSs installed in them. At the same time, you can create Parallels Containers. Their

operating system should always coincide with the operating system of the hosting server. But they

are less resource consuming than virtual machines.

Hardware Node Selection

Select the physical server where the created virtual environment is to reside. You can choose one

of the following options:

• Select Hardware Node Automatically. Check this option to let the wizard automatically

choose a physical server from the list of servers registered in PVA Control Center. If you are

going to make a Container, you should additionally indicate the server platform in the Specify a

Platform list.

Managing Virtual Environments

• Select Hardware Node Manually. Check this option if you wish to select the physical server

yourself. In this case, you will be able to select the desired physical server in the Select Node

list.

Virtual Environment Configuration

Specify the number of virtual environments you wish to create. By default, only one virtual

environment is created. You can additionally select the template to be used as the basis for the

virtual environment creation in the Virtual Environment Template (p. 165) list. If you create a virtual

environment on the basis of a template, a new MAC address, different from the template's MAC,

will be generated.

To proceed with the virtual environment creation, click Next. Your further steps will differ depending

on whether you are creating a Container (p. 63) or virtual machine (p. 120).

Starting, Stopping, Pausing and Restarting Virtual

Environments

A virtual environment may be started up, restarted, paused, and shut down like an ordinary

computer. Depending on the virtual environment state, only those operations are accessible that

comply with its current state. For example, a running virtual environment cannot be started for

obvious reasons, and so on. The following virtual environment states can be characterized as

stable:

Status Description

Running The virtual environment is running; therefore, it may only be restarted or stopped.

Down The virtual environment is stopped; therefore, it may only be started.

Repairing The virtual environment is being repaired. You cannot perform any action on the virtual environment

until you click the Finish Repair button on the Start Container in Repair Mode page (p. 104).

The current status of the virtual environment is available in the Status table of the virtual

environment dashboard. The history of the status changes can be viewed from the Logs -> Tasks

page of the virtual environment.

Note: Some operations are available either for virtual machines or Containers. For example, only virtual

machines can be paused.

Besides these states, during virtual environment operations a virtual environment may be in one of

the transitional states: mounting, starting, stopping, etc. When in a transitional state, you cannot

perform any action on the virtual environment until the operation is finished. For descriptions of all

possible virtual environment statuses, see Physical Server, Container and Virtual Machine

Statuses.

Click the Start Virtual Environment, Stop Virtual Environment, or Restart Virtual Environment

button to perform the corresponding action. On clicking one of these buttons, this action is logged.

Managing Virtual Environments

If you are managing a virtual environment residing on the physical server with the Linux operating

system installed and wish to stop your virtual environment, bear in mind that there is a two-minute

timeout for the virtual environment shutdown scripts to be executed. If the virtual environment is not

stopped in two minutes, the system forcibly kills all the processes in the virtual environment. The

virtual environment will be stopped in any case, even if it is seriously damaged. To avoid waiting for

two minutes if you are operating a virtual environment that is known to be corrupt, you may use the

Power Off link. that is situated in the Tasks section of the virtual environment dashboard.

Suspending and Resuming Virtual Environments

A virtual environment can be suspended or resumed like an ordinary computer. Depending on the

virtual environment state, only those operations are accessible that comply with its current state.

For example, a running Container cannot be resumed for obvious reasons, and so on.

You may temporarily suspend the virtual environments if you need to restart the physical server

hosting them. After the restart, the virtual environments can be easily resumed.

To suspend a virtual environment, you can do one of the following:

• Expand the name of any physical server listed under the Infrastructure or Logical View items

in the left Parallels Virtual Automation pane and choose Suspend from the Parallels Virtual

Automation context menu.

• Click the Suspend button in the Tasks section on the virtual environment Summary tab.

• Click the Infrastructure item, go to the Virtual Environments tab, select the check box to the

left of the virtual environment you want to suspend, and click the Suspend button.

• Select a physical server, go to the Containers or Virtual Machines tab (it depends on the

virtualization software installed on the physical server), select the check box to the left of the

virtual environment you want to suspend, and click the Suspend button.

To resume a virtual environment, you can do one of the following:

• Expand the name of any physical server listed under the Infrastructure or Logical View items

in the left Parallels Virtual Automation pane and choose Start from the Parallels Virtual

Automation context menu.

• Click the Start button in the Tasks section on the virtual environment Summary tab.

• Click the Infrastructure item, go to the Virtual Environments tab, select the check box to the

left of the virtual environment you want to resume, and click the Start button.

• Select a physical server, go to the Containers or Virtual Machines tab (it depends on the

virtualization software installed on the physical server), select the check box to the left of the

virtual environment you want to resume, and click the Start button.

Managing Virtual Environments

Changing Virtual Environment Root/Administrator

Password

A virtual environment(s) administrator can benefit from the Change Password option on the screen

where, to perform this operation, you should enter a new root/Administrator password for the

current virtual environment into the fields provided and click Change.

Note that Parallels Virtual Automation does not check the entered password as to its length and

non-conformity to dictionary entries, so choosing a simple password rests entirely at your own risk.

It is recommended to use a chaotic set of lowercase (a-z) and uppercase (A-Z) letters, digits (0-9),

and punctuation marks as root/administrator password. The following punctuation marks are

allowed: ! " $ % & , ( ) * + - . / ; : < = > ? [ \ ] ^ _ { | }. The space character, #, and @ symbols are

not allowed. The password should not be less than 5 or more than 14 characters.

Note: The password of the Virtuozzo servers administrator proper can be changed on the Personal

Settings tab of the User Profile screen which is displayed through the User Profile link on the right of

the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar.

Setting Power Panel Access for Customers

Providing a particular customer with an access to a particular virtual environment stands for

sending the customer the virtual environment Administrator/root login and password after the virtual

environment has been created. The privacy of this information ensures the customer being the only

user of the subject virtual environment.

Parallels Virtual Automation does not provide any built-in instruments for binding a specific

customer to a concrete virtual environment.

When creating a virtual environment, please be aware of the notes concerning the control panels

functionality - that is Parallels Power Panel and Plesk Control Panel. Thus, the Parallels Power

Panel is susceptible to the network adapter type and can be used only with the Bridges or Host-

Only network adapters.

After the virtual environment creation, provide the customer with the IPv4 or IPv6 address (or

hostname) and TCP port of the virtual environment proper.

Additionally, the Power Panel Policy (p. 196) functionality is aimed at creating a set of rules (i.e. a

policy) that restrict users access to certain functionality in Parallels Power Panel or set limitations on

performing certain operations in the virtual environment context. You can create a Power Panel

policy to be assigned deliberately to a concrete virtual environment or use one and the same policy

for numerous virtual environments.

Managing Virtual Environments

Managing Containers

This section contains information on how to create, use, and manage Parallels Containers.

Container Dashboard Overview

The Container dashboard is divided into five sections, each reflecting the following Container

details:

Status section

The section provides the following information:

• The current status of the Container.

• The information on the resources consumption by the Container: coming close to, reaching, or

going beyond the limits set for the Container generates a resources alert.

• The current status of the templates and packages. The Container software which does not

suggest updating is marked as Up-to-date.

• The hostname of the physical server where the Container is hosted (it is possible to migrate the

Container to another one).

• The Container last 1, 5, and 15 minutes system load averages.

• The last performed and next scheduled backups.

• The total period of time during which the Container has been on without rebooting or stopping.

With the icon, you can migrate the Container from one physical server to another, create a

backup or schedule a backup task.

Configuration section

The data to be found in the Container Configuration section have to do with the Container identity

- you can see its name and ID (you can set a new Container ID by clicking Change). Additionally,

you may learn what sample defines the settings of the Container (and apply another one by clicking

Change), and see what OS template the Container is based on (and update the OS template by

clicking Update), and which application templates are currently installed in it (and add a new

application template or remove an installed one by clicking Add/Remove).

With the icon, you can change the container name or ID, update the OS software, manage

Container applications or apply a new template.

Managing Virtual Environments

Network Configuration section

The section allows you to see:

• the Container hostname (if set);

• the information on the IP addresses of the Container eth (bridged) and venet0 (routed)

interfaces. The information is available only if the IP addresses were set during the Container

creation.

With the icon, you can change the Container hostname.

Tasks section

The section provides quick access to performing the following operations:

Operate

• Starting or stopping the Container (the Start/Stop link). Depending on the Container state, only

that operation is accessible that complies with its current state.

• Restarting the Container (the Restart link).

• If you are managing a virtual environment residing on the physical server with the Linux

operating system installed and wish to stop your virtual environment, bear in mind that there is a

two-minute timeout for the virtual environment shutdown scripts to be executed. If the virtual

environment is not stopped in two minutes, the system forcibly kills all the processes in the

virtual environment. The virtual environment will be stopped in any case, even if it is seriously

damaged. To avoid waiting for two minutes if you are operating a virtual environment that is

known to be corrupt, you may use the Power Off link.

• suspending the selected Container(s): a suspended Container stays put, and so its

processes and services do, to be later resumed from the checkpoint. Suspending Containers is

a good method to disengage the Hardware Node recourses for a certain period of time or

saving the state of current operations which can be quickly launched again afterwards.

Remember, that repairing, restarting and reinstalling a suspended Container can change the

saved state of the Container, so these actions are not recommended for suspended

Containers.

Note: The availability of the start/stop/restart/suspend operations depends on the Container current

status. Both PVA Control Panel and Power Panel display the same operations

(start/stop/restart/suspend) being available at a moment.

Configure

• Changing the Container name, description, OS template version, start-up and offline

management options (the General Settings link (p. 107)).

• Changing the root/Administrator password of the Container (the Password link).

Managing Virtual Environments

• Changing the Container hostname, IP address, DNS server IP address and search domains

and configuring the mode of the Virtual Network adapters (the Network Settings link (p. 229)).

• Configuring the network bandwidth of the outgoing traffic for this Container (the Network

Shaping link). To define the default Container network shaping settings on the given physical

server, see the Configure Shaping screen.

• Changing the resources share allocated to the Container (the Resources link).

• Activating the firewall and configuring its mode (the Firewall link).

• Configuring the virtual disk volumes of the Container (the Volumes link). The C: volume is

always present in the Container as the mount point for the root.efd image file.

• Changing the Container resources configuration by changing the template the Container is

based on (the Apply Template link).

Manage

• Connecting to the Container via SSH (the Terminal Login link).

• Connecting to the Container via VNC (the Open Console link).

• Logging in to the Container via Remote Desktop Connection (the Remote Desktop link).

• Launching Parallels Power Panel to manage the Container in a separate window (the Open

Power Panel link).

• Installing new applications to or uninstalling existing ones from the Container (the Software

link).

• Managing the services running on the Container except for the xinetd-dependent services

(the Services link).

• Managing the Container files and folders (the Files link).

• Backing up the Container, renewing or removing the existing backup, restoring the Container

(the Backups link).

• Manage the policies on the Container level. The policies set on the level will be applied to the

given Container only (the Power Panel Policies link).

• Creating a Container clone (the Clone link).

• Cloning a Container to template (the Clone to Template link).

• Removing the Container if you don't need it any more (the Delete link).

Maintenance

• Getting detailed information on Container resources consumption (the Resources Monitor

link).

• Configuring all the parameters of the backup operation and performing that operation on the

current Container (the Back Up link).

• Saving important data from the damaged Container and repairing the Container by creating

a new temporary Container (the Repair link).

Managing Virtual Environments

• Recovering the original state of the Container in case you have unintentionally modified,

replaced, or deleted any file that is part of an application or OS template, and the action has

brought about the Container malfunction (the Reinstall link).

• Moving the Container to another physical server or converting it into a virtual machine (the

Migrate link).

Resources section

The section summarizes the information on the current consumption of the CPU, memory and disk

share allocated to the Container: the Resources column lists these resources, the Used, Free, and

Total columns display the corresponding values in percentage terms and in diagrams. The percent

value is calculated not in proportion to the total disk space of the Hardware Node, but in proportion

to the quota on using the Node disk space by the Container.

Note: CPU and memory statistics for Windows-based Containers will be displayed as "n/a" if

performance counters are disabled on the hardware node.

Apart from the operations available in the Tasks section, the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar

provides you with access to the following operations:

• starting or stopping the Container (the Start/Stop link);

• restarting the Container (the Restart link);

• backing up the Container (the Backups link on the Manage menu);

• launching Parallels Power Panel to manage the Container (the Open Power Panel link on the

1. The offline management for the Container is enabled.

2. A valid IP address is assigned to the Container.

3. The IP address you have used to log in to Parallels Virtual Automation does not coincide

with that of the corresponding Container.

• connecting to the Container via SSH (the Terminal Login link on the Login menu);

• logging in to the Container via Remote Desktop Connection (the Remote Desktop link on

the Login menu);

• suspending the selected Container(s): a suspended Container stays put, and so its

processes and services do, to be later resumed from the checkpoint. Suspending Containers is

a good method to disengage the Hardware Node recourses for a certain period of time or

saving the state of current operations which can be quickly launched again afterwards.

Remember, that repairing, restarting and reinstalling a suspended Container can change the

saved state of the Container, so these actions are not recommended for suspended

Containers;

• changing the Container name, description, resources management configuration and start-up

and offline management options (p. 107) (the General Settings link on the Configure menu);

Managing Virtual Environments

• changing the root/Administrator password of the Container (p. 107) (the Password link on the

Configure menu);

• changing the network settings (p. 229) (the Network link on the Configure menu);

• configuring the network bandwidth (the Shaping link on the Configure menu);

• changing the Container resource settings (the Resources link on the Configure menu);

• configuring the virtual disk volumes of the Container (the Volumes link on the Configure

menu);

• changing the firewall settings (the Firewall link on the Configure menu);

• changing the Container resources configuration by changing the template the Container is

based on (the Apply Template link on the Configure menu).

• installing new Container applications (the Software link on the Manage menu);

Creating Containers

Having chosen to create a Container as described in Starting to Create Virtual Environments (p.

55), you can proceed to define general and network settings, customize and validate resource

settings, install applications, and review the resulting configuration. This section describes these

operations in detail.

Defining General Settings

The second page of the New Container wizard enables you to define the Container general

settings that are divided into several groups for your convenience. You can choose between

creating a single Container and multiple Containers by entering the necessary number on the first

step of the Container creation wizard, and it is only in the latter case that the Multiple Container

Configuration group is displayed.

The General Configuration group enables you to perform the following operations:

• Provide a name and a description for the Container; available when configuring settings for a

single Container only. If you need a specific name and description for one of Containers created

simultaneously, you can assign them after the Containers are created (p. 107).

• Choose an OS template and its version you wish the Container to be based on.

• Start the Container after its creation;

The Multiple Container Configuration group appears if you are creating more than one Container

at a time. Following is an explanation of the five drop-down menus that you find in this group:

• Container IDs

Option Description

Assign Container IDs automatically Parallels Virtual Automation will assign Container IDs randomly.

Assign Container IDs starting from a specified one On the following screen, you will be able to specify the

Container ID for the first Container created. Other Container IDs

Managing Virtual Environments

will be assigned based on the sequential incrementation of this

first Container ID.

Set Container IDs manually On the following screen, you will be able to specify the

Container IDs manually for each Container.

• Names

Assign names based on a specified template On the following screen you will be able to specify a template

for assigning Container names, with the Container ID as the

changing part.

Set names manually for every Container

On the following screen you will be able to specify the Container

names manually for each Container.

• Hostnames

Assign hostnames based on a specified template On the following screen you will be able to specify a template

for assigning Container hostnames, with the Container ID as

the changing part.

Set hostnames manually for every Container On the following screen you will be able to specify the

Container hostnames manually for each Container.

• Routed Interface IP Addresses

Assign according to the Container template The host-routed interface settings are taken from the

Container template used to create the Containers. These

settings just define if the host-routed interface is created inside

the Containers (one interface in each Container). If it is created,

its IP address is taken from the global IP addresses pool.

Get from the global IP addresses pool The IP addresses for the host-routed interfaces will be taken

from the global pool of IP addresses (that can be configured

on the IP Address Pool tab of the Setup --> Network

screen).

Assign from a specified IP addresses range On the following screen you will be able to specify the IP

address for the first Container created. All the remaining

Container IP addresses will be assigned based on the

sequential incrementation of this first IP address.

Specify manually for every Container On the following screen you will be able to specify the IP

addresses manually for each Container.

• Bridged Interface IP addresses

Assign according to the Container template The bridged interface settings are taken from the Container

template used to create the Containers. These settings define

the number of bridged interfaces to be created inside each

Container, and if this number is 1 or more, whether their IP

addresses are received from the DHCP server or is taken from

the global IP addresses pool.

Get from the DHCP server The IP addresses for the bridged interfaces will be received

from the DHCP server.

Get from the global IP addresses pool The IP addresses for the bridged interfaces will be taken from

the global pool of IP addresses (that can be configured on the

IP Address Pool tab of the Setup --> Network screen).

Assign from a specified IP addresses range On the following screen you will be able to specify the IP

address for the first Container created. All the remaining

Container IP addresses will be assigned based on the

Managing Virtual Environments

sequential incrementation of this first IP address.

Specify manually for every Container On the following screen you will be able to specify the IP

addresses manually for each Container.

In the Administrative Password group, you should define and confirm the root/Administrator

password. You will need this password to access the Container in the future, for example, through

Parallels Power Panel.

Note: Remember that each virtual environment user with the privileges of an administrator exercises full

control over his/her virtual environment, has his/her own user credentials (name and password) to access

the virtual environment and enjoys an unlimited access to other user accounts inside this virtual

environment, i.e. s/he has any right granted to a privately owned physical server as opposed to the

physical server administrator's authority or the rights of the other virtual environments users in regard to

the given virtual environment. Any virtual environment user can be a member of an Active Directory

domain (e.g. access any of the network shares to which the virtual environment user has rights).

The Advanced Configuration group allows you to do the following:

• Specify the Container ID, a 32-bit (ranging from 0 to 4294967295) integer number over 100.

This option is available only if you are creating a single Container. For detailed information on

Container ID allocation, see the Parallels Containers for Windows User's Guide.

WARNING! When deciding on a Container ID, do not use the ID of any Container that was ever present

in the system unless you are sure that no data belonging to the old Container remains on the physical

server. The fact is that the administrator of the newly-created Container might have access to these

data in this case, i.e. to the backups of the old Container, its logs, statistics, etc.

• Specify the paths to the Container Private Area and Root Directory;

• Have the Container started on every boot of the physical server.

The Capabilities subgroup of options in the Advanced Configuration group appears if you

are creating more than one Container at a time. It enhances the operation of the Windows-based

Containers you are creating by providing you with the ability to:

• Switch on the network browsing feature for the Container being created. The Windows 2003

browser service allows the Container on a Windows 2003 network to view the whole network

environment available. The browser service maintains a list (called the browse list) of all available

domains and computers. The browse list can be viewed using Windows 2003 Explorer and is

provided by a browser in the Container. The default for the feature is the off status. You can

learn more on the option from the Network Places overview article of the Windows 2003 Help

system invoked by selecting Help and Support on the Windows Start menu.

• Allow the packet QoS scheduler for the Container. This is one of the Quality of Service

components in MS Windows 2003 Server that enable differentiation and preferential treatment

for subsets of data transmitted over the network. The packet scheduler is the traffic control

module that regulates how much traffic various applications are allowed, essentially enforcing

the QoS parameters that are set for each particular application. For instance, you can use the

feature to restrict a web site throughput to a certain maximum bandwidth value or differentiate

between the data transmitted by critical applications (e.g. Plesk) and excessive data (e.g.

multimedia applications), and allow preferential treatment for the important web sites or critical

Managing Virtual Environments

applications. The option is disabled by default. For additional information on the packet

scheduler, address the MSDN Library > Win32 and COM Development > Network

Protocols > Quality of Service (QOS)

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/qos/qos/qos_start_page.asp).

Note: The concept of Quality of Service in MS Windows 2003 Server differs from that of Virtuozzo

Quality of Service used to provide a fair share of the main system resources (disk space, CPU time, etc.)

among Containers.

• Have the Container ID displayed on the Container desktop when connected to it by the RDP

protocol.

• Enable/disable the Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) software to run inside the Container. The

MSCS software integrated into the Windows Server 2003 operating system is designed to allow

servers to work together as one server, thus, providing greater reliability for your applications

and services. Running one and the same application on two or more servers in the cluster helps

ensure high application availability if one of the servers fails. The clustering software controls the

failover process so that the application continues running on the second server without any loss

of data and without interruption in service. The Virtuozzo Containers software allows you to

include Containers in a server cluster so that they can act as full participants (nodes) in the

cluster. To learn more about the MSCS software, address MSDN Library > Servers and

Enterprise Development > Windows Server > Windows Server 2003 > Technical Articles

> Introducing Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) in the Windows Server 2003 Family

(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms952401.aspx).

To enable/disable any of the features listed under the Advanced Configuration group, select/clear

the corresponding check box.

The Terminal Services group allows you to define in which one of the two standard Windows

TS modes (Remote Desktop for Administration and Terminal Server) the created Containers will

operate. By default, any Container is automatically set to work in the Remote Desktop for

Administration mode during its creation. So, you do not need to perform any additional operations

to start connecting to Containers using this mode. Like in any other system with Windows Server

2003 installed, the Remote Desktop for Administration mode allows you to simultaneously open no

more than two remote sessions and a console session to any Container on the physical server.

If you are planning to have more than 2 remote sessions to a Container at the same time, you

should enable the Terminal Server mode for this Container. You may also need to switch on this

mode in case some of the Container applications require Terminal Server for their functioning. While

set in the Terminal Server mode, the Container starts using the same Terminal Server License (TSL)

server as the physical server does. So, you can log in to the Container in this mode provided the

TSL server for the physical server is accessible by the Container and has a number of free client

access licenses (CALs) installed. You can also redefine the TSL server to be used by the Container

or set additional TSL servers for it in the License Server Address field.

The Offline Management group allows you to set the offline service options by selecting the

appropriate option. Offline Service of the corresponding Container ensures the Container

manageability by means of one or more offline services from any browser at its own IP address.

After offline service is enabled for the Container, one port of its IP address becomes permanently

active whatever the Container state. The currently supported services are Parallels Power Panel

Managing Virtual Environments

and Plesk Control panel (for managing Containers with the Plesk control panel installed in them).

You can:

• Disable the offline service of the Container.

• Enable the offline service of the Container via the offline service settings operating on the

physical server. Whenever you need to manage the Container offline, its offline service settings

will be brought into synchronization with those in effect on the physical server. Should any

service be removed from the default services list, the Container will be unable to be managed

via the service off the list. This option subscribes the Container to the default offline services.

• Manually compose the Container offline services list. You can select the service(s) you would

like the Container to be subscribed to in the corresponding checkbox(es).

The Permissions group lets you create one or more permissions for the Containers to be created.

As any permission is by definition a combination of a user or a group of users and a role in respect

of a certain Parallels Virtual Automation object, you can indicate the corresponding user/group and

role in the provided fields, thus creating a permission with respect to the Containers being created.

To add more permissions, click the green plus sign to the right of the fields.

Click Next to submit the settings and move on to the next New Container wizard stage.

Specifying Multiple Container IDs, IP Addresses, and Hostnames

The New Containers: Multiple Configuration screen comes after determining the general

Container settings.

You need to set the following:

• Container IDs. Depending on what you have specified on the General Settings screen, you will

let Parallels Virtual Automation assign Container IDs automatically or will need to manually

specify the starting Container ID, or every Container ID.

• Container Names and Hostnames.

When assigning Container names and hostnames, remember that both fields should contain

the @ctid@ tags. Those tags will be automatically replaced with suitable IDs for all Containers

you are creating. For example, if you are creating 4 Containers and have entered MYCT@ctid@

in the hostname field, and 105 is the highest Container ID on the hardware node, then

Containers with the following hostnames will be created: MYCT106, MYCT107, MYCT108, and

MYCT109.

• Network parameters.

The IP addresses can be assigned, if at all, either manually or on the "start from the one

specified" basis, which means entering an IP address only once for the 1st Container of the

Containers you are creating, with all the rest of the Containers IP addresses being calculated

from this one. If you are creating 4 Containers and have entered 10.10.0.1 to the IP Address

/ Subnet Mask field, then the Containers will be created with these IP addresses: 10.10.0.1,

10.10.0.2, 10.10.0.3, and 10.10.0.4.

Click Next to proceed to customizing Container resources.

Managing Virtual Environments

Configuring Container Network Parameters

The Network Configuration page lets you define all the major network parameters of the

Container you are creating. For more information, see Configuring Container Network

Parameters (p. 229).

Customizing Resource Settings

The Resources Customization screen allows you to adjust the resources the Container being

created. For more information, see the descriptions of Linux-related CPU (p. 75), disk (p. 76), and

memory (p. 78) resources; or Windows-related CPU (p. 75), disk (p. 77), and memory (p. 80)

resources.

Validating Resource Configuration

The system resource control parameters have complex interdependencies, or constraints.

Violation of these interdependencies can be catastrophic for the Container. In order to ensure that

the Container under creation does not break them, it is important to validate the Container

configuration file before creating Containers on its basis.

The utility checks constraints on the resource management parameters and displays all the

constraint violations found. There can be three levels of violation severity, represented by the

following icons on the Container dashboard:

Recommendation This is a suggestion, which is not critical for the Container or physical

server operations. The configuration is valid in general; however, if the

system has enough memory, it is better to increase the settings as

advised.

Warning A constraint is not satisfied, and the configuration is invalid. The Container

applications may not have optimal performance or may fail in an

ungraceful way.

Error An important constraint is not satisfied, and the configuration is invalid.

The Container applications have increased chances to fail unexpectedly,

to be terminated, or to hang.

After setting the reasonable values for the parameters, the Container can be safely run.

Installing Applications into Containers

The New Containers: Application Selection page of the New Container wizard allows you to

choose applications to install them to the Container directly after its creation. All available

applications that can be added to the Container are listed in the Available Applications table in

the left part of the displayed page. The type and number of applications vary depending on the OS

template the Container will be based on, i.e. only those applications are displayed that are

compatible with the Container OS template.

Managing Virtual Environments

To add the applications you need to the Container, tick the check boxes opposite the applications

you wish to add and click the >> button. After that, the applications appear in the Scheduled for

Installation table in the right part of the page. To remove any application from the Container being

created, tick its check box in the Scheduled for Installation table and click the << button. If you

are not sure what applications you need to add to the Container, you can add them after the

Container has been created, as is described in Managing Container Applications.

After you have selected the applications to be installed and checked their dependencies, click the

Next> button.

Reviewing Container Configuration

The last page of the New Container wizard lets you review the major settings of the Container

configuration you provided on the previous steps. If you are satisfied with the information entered,

click Create to start creating the Container. Otherwise, you can return to the previous steps by

clicking the Back button and change the corresponding parameters.

Logging In to Containers

Accessing Containers via Parallels Power Panel

Parallels Power Panel is the tool designed for the administrators of a particular Container. A

Parallels Virtual Automation user can also use it to take a closer look at a particular Container

(provided the corresponding rights are granted to them).

Parallels Power Panel can be opened in one of the following ways:

• On a list of Containers, right-click the needed Container, then select Log In -> Open Parallels

Power Panel;

• On the Container dashboard, select Log In -> Open Parallels Power Panel on the top

toolbar;

• On the Container dashboard, click Open Parallels Power Panel in the Tasks group of links.

Sometimes it is not possible to open Parallels Power Panel due to the following reasons:

• An IP address might not be assigned to the corresponding Container;

• Offline service might be disabled globally on the physical server;

• Offline service might be disabled for the corresponding Container (though enabled globally).

So, to make sure Parallels Power Panel can be opened for any Container, you should enable Offline

Service both globally and for the particular Container, as well as assign this Container an IP

address.

Managing Virtual Environments

Accessing Containers via SSH

You can use the Secure Shell (ssh) application to remotely connect to running Containers and

work in their directory trees using standard Linux command line tools. To connect to a running

Container via ssh, make sure you have the Java Virtual Machine installed on your computer (you

can also launch Parallels Virtual Automation in the Internet Explorer). For more information, see

Accessing Physical Servers via SSH (p. 46).

Notes:

1. If your Container is running a Windows Server operating system, see Accessing Containers via RDP

(p. 70) to learn to manage Containers by means of Remote Desktop Connection.

2. To learn the port numbers that should be open to ensure a successful SSH connection, refer to

http://kb.parallels.com/en/9516.

Accessing Containers via VNC

In Parallels Virtual Automation,The VNC Console screen displays the VNC console opened to

the Container. You can use the Refresh button to update the displayed information, if necessary.

If the VNC connection to the Container could not be established, check the following:

• The Sun Java(TM) plug-in and JRE are installed and enabled in your browser.

• The server where the Container resides is running Parallels Cloud Server.

• The Container is running.

Accessing Containers via RDP

You can use Remote Desktop Connection, a standard Windows tool, to connect to a running

Container via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The feature is only available for the Internet

Explorer. For more information, see Accessing Physical Servers via RDP (p. 47).

Notes:

1. For Linux-based Containers, see Accessing Containers via SSH (p. 46) to learn to manage the

Container by means of Secure Shell.

2. To learn the port numbers that should be open to ensure a successful RDP connection, refer to

http://kb.parallels.com/en/9516.

Managing Virtual Environment Files and Folders

For a running virtual environment, you can navigate inside the virtual environment directory

structure, list the virtual environment files and directories and perform all essential file operations on

the File Manager page. ( Container. Right after opening this screen, you are presented with a

Managing Virtual Environments

list of drives inside the Container. Click a drive (e.g. C:) to see its contents.) The main information on

the directory/drive contents is presented in the form of a table.

Column Name Description

Type The type of the object: a folder or a file.

Name The name of the directory or file.

Size The size of the file.

Modified The date and time of the last modification of the directory or file.

Permissions The first symbol in this column indicates if this is a directory (the letter d) or not (the minus sign).

The following three symbols designate the permissions that the owner of the directory/file has on

it, then go another three symbols for the permissions of the users belonging to the group

assigned to the directory/file, and the final set of three symbols denotes the permissions of all the

rest. The symbols in each of the set express consecutively the following permissions: read, write,

and execute. The presence of a letter (correspondingly, r, w, or x) indicates that the permission

is given, and the minus sign - that it is absent.

User The owner of the file/directory.

Group

The users' group that has certain permissions on the file/folder. These permissions are presented

by the 5th thru 7th symbols in the Permissions column.

Actions Hyperlinks for performing certain operations with the directory or file (see below).

Note: If the Container is being repaired (p. 104), the file manager root directory (/) corresponds to the

/repair directory of the temporary Container, in other words, it represents the root directory of the

problem Container, not that of the newly-created one.

Apart from viewing a list of files and directories with their essential properties, you are able to

perform the following operations:

• Create a new folder in the current directory (p. 72);

• Create a new text file in the current directory (p. 72);

• Edit existing text files (p. 72);

• Upload a file from your local computer to the current virtual environment directory (p. 72);

• Download a file from the current virtual environment directory to your local computer (by clicking

the diskette icon in the Actions column);

• Copy any number of files or folders to another directory inside the virtual environment (p. 72);

• Move any number of files or folders to another directory inside the virtual environment (p. 73);

• Edit the properties of any folder or file (p. 73);

• Remove any number of files or folders by selecting them and following the Remove link.

To perform a certain operation (e.g. copying) on a number of directories or files, tick the

corresponding check boxes. The uppermost check box allows you to select all the directories and

files at once.

Managing Virtual Environments

Creating Folder

On the Create Folder screen, you can add a new folder and specify its name in the Folder Name

field. Upon finishing the operation, click Create to save the changes. The new folder will be created

in the current directory (designated above the field).

You can access the Create Folder screen from the File Manager section by clicking the Create

Folder button.

Creating Text File

The Create File page allows you to create simple text files directly inside the virtual environment,

without uploading them from your local computer.

In the Specify File section, you should enter the name of the file to be created in the current

directory (this directory is indicated under the page heading) to the Name field and, optionally, type

the text of the file in the Content field. Click Create when you are finished to create the new file.

Editing Text File

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to edit any text file inside your virtual environment directly

through the Parallels Virtual Automation interface. The Edit File page can be accessed by clicking

on the right icon in the Actions column for the corresponding text file on the File Manager page.

This page presents the contents of the file in an editable field. Make your modifications and click

Submit to write a new version of the file.

Uploading File to Virtual Environment

The current version of Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to upload external files to the virtual

environment, up to ten files at a time. The Upload File page is displayed after clicking the Upload

File link on the File Manager page.

Click the Browse button, navigate to the local file you wish to upload and double-click it. The path

to the file will be displayed in the corresponding Specify File field. Another way of indicating the file

is to enter this path manually.

When you click Upload, the files that you have specified will be uploaded to the current directory

inside the virtual environment. For your reference, this directory is indicated above the Specify File

group.

Copying Files and Folders Inside Virtual Environment

The Copy File(s) page, where you can perform the copy operation, gets displayed after you have

selected one or more files and/or folders by ticking the corresponding check boxes on the File

Manager page and clicking Copy.

Managing Virtual Environments

On the Copy File(s) page, click Select and, in the pop-up window, navigate to the folder where

you want to copy the files and/or folders, check the radio button to the left of it, and press Select.

The path to the target folder will be displayed in the Destination Path field. Click Copy to begin the

copy process.

Moving Files and Folders Inside Virtual Environment

The Move File(s) page, where you can perform the move operation, gets displayed after you have

selected one or more files and/or folders by ticking the corresponding check boxes on the File

Manager page and clicked Move.

On the Move File(s) page, click Select and, in the pop-up window, navigate to the folder where

you want to move the files and/or folders, check the radio button to the left of it, and press Select.

The path to the target folder will be displayed in the Destination Path field. Click Move to begin

the move process.

Editing File or Folder Properties

The page where you can view and edit some properties of a certain file or folder is accessible by

clicking the leftmost icon in the Actions column for the corresponding file or folder on the File

Manager page.

The information is given on the following file or folder general properties, whether editable or not:

Field Description Editable?

Name The name of the file or folder. Yes.

Path The path to the file or folder inside the virtual

environment.

No. See Moving Files and Folders Inside virtual

environment for information on how to change

the path.

Size The size of the file. To save the time needed to open

the page, a link is given for a folder to calculate its

overall size.

No.

Modified The date and time of the last modification of the file

or folder.

No.

Container. You can also change such file/folder properties as permissions and ownership.

When you click Submit on the Change Properties page, your changes will be applied to the given

file or folder.

Managing and Monitoring Container Resources

To open the Container Monitor subtab, go to Infrastructure > physical server > Container >

Resources tab > Container Resources subtab.

Managing Virtual Environments

The Container Monitor screen shows the graphical statistics on CPU, memory and disk resource

consumption in percentage, i.e. how much of the physical server resources this Container

consumes.

Also, the Container Monitor screen allows viewing the disk and traffic incoming/outgoing statistics

for the specified period.

Each resource has its own colour on the chart. If you need to monitor the changes only for one

resource, whatever it is, you can disable the others. Use the Select Graph subsection.

The chart shows the changes for the defined period. In the Graph Period subsection, select

whether to show the data for a particular date, month, year or for any other period of time. To

implement the changes, click Apply. The chart will change its appearance.

Partially, the information on resource consumption is available on the Container Summary page (p.

59).

The Export Data link allows you to export the graphical data in the CSV format.

Note: The Container network and system resources can also be monitored via SNMP. For more

information, see Monitoring Parallels Objects via SNMP (p. 284).

Resources Overview

The Overview subtab summarizes the current CPU, system and disk usage by the Container in the

following table:

CPU Usage This figure shows current CPU utilization in percent.

Load Average for the CPU usage is the average number of active processes for the past 1, 5,

and 15 minutes, respectively. Value 0.0 means that the CPU is idle, 1.0 that the CPU is fully used.

Value 2.0 denotes that the CPU load exceeds the nominal value by two times.

Memory Usage This is a cumulative figure presenting the average consumption of a number of critical memory-

related parameters by your Container.

Disk Usage Disk Space is a total amount of disk space allocated to the Container. When the space used by

the Container hits the soft limit (or reaches 100% on the percent bar), the Container can be allowed

additional disk space up to the hard limit during the grace period.

Disk I/O is a cumulative figure presenting how much of the allowed disk i/o bandwidth is used by

the Container and how much is still available up to the limit.

The information on the disk and memory usage is organized as follows:

Column Name Description

Resource The name of the resource: memory, disk space, disk i/o bandwidth or disk inodes.

Used Consumed amount of memory, disk size, disk /o resource or the number of inodes.

Free Available amount of memory, disk size, disk /o resource or inodes number.

Total The total amount of memory, disk size, disk /o resource or inodes.

Managing Virtual Environments

CPU Resources

Linux-related CPU Resources

The CPU-related resource management is based on the following parameters:

Parameter Description

cpuunits This is a positive integer number that determines the minimal guaranteed share of the CPU

time your virtual environment will receive.

cpulimit

cpulimit_mhz

This is a positive number indicating the CPU time, in percent or megahertz, the

corresponding virtual environment is not allowed to exceed.

burst_cpulimit The CPU power limit, in percent, the virtual environment cannot exceed. The limitations set in

this parameter are applied to the virtual environment when it exceeds the limit specified in the

burst_cpu_avg_usage

parameter.

burst_cpu_avg_usage The CPU usage limit, in percent, set for the virtual environment. This limit is calculated as the

ratio of the current virtual environment CPU usage to the CPU limit (i.e to the value of the

CPULIMIT parameter) set for the virtual environment. If the limit is not specified, the full CPU

power of the physical server is considered as the CPU limit. Upon exceeding the

burst_cpu_avg_usage limit, the burst_cpulimit limit is applied to the virtual

environment.

cpus The number of CPUs set to handle all the processes inside the given virtual environment. By

default, any virtual environment is allowed to consume the CPU time of all processors on the

physical server.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a)

, it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Soft Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container that can be exceeded

only if the system is not fully loaded. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Hard Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the current Container that cannot be

exceeded under any circumstances. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Windows-related CPU Resources

The CPU-related resource management is based on the following parameters:

Parameter Description

cpuunits

This is a positive integer number that determines the minimal guaranteed share of the

Managing Virtual Environments

CPU time your virtual environment will receive.

cpulimit This is a positive number indicating the CPU time, in percent, the corresponding virtual

environment is not allowed to exceed.

cpuguarantee This is a positive integer number indicating the CPU time, in percent, the corresponding

virtual environment is guaranteed to receive. If both the cpuguarantee and

cpuunits parameters are set, the cpuguarantee parameter is first taken into

account when distributing processor time among the virtual environments existing on

the physical server; the remaining CPU time, if any, is given to the virtual environment in

accordance with the value of the

cpuunits

parameter.

cpus The number of CPUs set to handle all the processes inside the given virtual

environment. By default, any virtual environment is allowed to consume the CPU time of

all processors on the physical server.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a), it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container. The units in which the

limit is measured are specified in the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Disk Resources

Linux-related Disk Resources

The disk-related resource management is based on the following parameters:

Parameter Description

diskspace Total size of disk space consumed by the virtual environment.

When the space used by the virtual environment hits the soft limit, thevirtual environment

can allocate additional disk space up to the hard limit during the grace period indicated by

the

quotatime

parameter value.

diskinodes Total number of disk inodes (files, directories, and symbolic links) allocated by the virtual

environment. When the number of inodes used by the virtual environment hits the soft limit,

the virtual environment can create additional inodes up to the hard limit during the grace

period indicated by the

quotatime

parameter value.

quotaugidlimit Number of user/group IDs allowed for the virtual environment internal disk quota. If set to 0,

UID/GID quota will not be enabled.

quotatime The grace period for the disk quota overusage defined in seconds. The virtual environment

is allowed to temporarily exceed its quota soft limits for no more than the QUOTATIME

period.

Managing Virtual Environments

ioprio The virtual environment priority for disk I/O operations. The allowed range of values is 0-7.

The greater the priority, the more time the virtual environment has for writing to and reading

from the disk. The default virtual environment priority is 4.

iolimit The bandwidth the virtual environment is allowed to use for its disk input and output

operations.

iopslimit The maximum number of disk input and output operations per second a Container is

allowed to perform.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a), it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Soft Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container that can be exceeded

only if the system is not fully loaded. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Hard Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the current Container that cannot be

exceeded under any circumstances. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Windows-related Disk Resources

The disk-related resource management is based on the following parameters:

Parameter Description

diskspace Total size of disk space consumed by the virtual environment.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a), it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container. The units in which the

limit is measured are specified in the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Managing Virtual Environments

Memory Resources

Linux-related Memory Resources

This screen displays information on the memory-based or system-based virtual environment

resources, or both, depending on your memory configuration:

• If the memory management mode is enabled for the virtual environment, it can be allocated

memory in much the same way as a certain amount of physical memory is installed on a

physical computer. This is the recommended mode for managing virtual environments for most

administrators.

• If the system management mode is enabled, the virtual environment's performance depends on

the values of quite a number of fine-grained parameters. The primary parameters are the

starting point for defining the relative power of a virtual environment. The secondary parameters

are dependent on the primary ones and are calculated from them according to a set of

constraints. The auxiliary parameters help improve fault isolation among applications in a virtual

environment and the way applications handle errors and consume resources.

• If both resource management modes are used, the more restrictive value is taken into account

each time the system makes the decision whether to allocate this or that resource to the virtual

environment.

Memory parameters

Parameter Description

slmmemorylimit

An approximation of the size of the physical memory allocated to the virtual environment.

In other words, the virtual environment performance is similar to the performance of a

physical computer with as much physical memory installed as is indicated in this

parameter.

Primary system parameters

Parameter Description

numproc

The maximal number of processes the virtual environment may create.

numtcpsock The number of TCP sockets (PF_INET family, SOCK_STREAM type). This parameter

limits the number of TCP connections and, thus, the number of clients the server

application can handle in parallel.

numothersock The number of sockets other than TCP ones. Local (UNIX-domain) sockets are used

for communications inside the system. UDP sockets are used, for example, for

Domain Name Service (DNS) queries. UDP and other sockets may also be used in

some very specialized applications (SNMP agents and others).

vmguarpages

The memory allocation guarantee, in pages. r applications are guaranteed to be able

to allocate additional memory so long as the amount of memory accounted as

privvmpages (see the auxiliary parameters) does not exceed the configured barrier of

the vmguarpages parameter. Above the barrier, additional memory allocation is not

guaranteed and may fail in case of overall memory shortage.

avnumproc

The average number of processes and threads.

Managing Virtual Environments

Secondary system parameters

Parameter Description

kmemsize The size of unswappable kernel memory allocated for the internal kernel structures for the

processes of a particular virtual environment.

Note: For the Parallels Containers 64-bit version for IA-64 processors, it

takes 4 (four) times more the size of the kernel memory than that for the

Parallels Virtuozzo Containers 32-bit version to handle one and the same

process.

tcpsndbuf The total size of send buffers for TCP sockets, i.e. the amount of kernel memory allocated

for the data sent from an application to a TCP socket, but not acknowledged by the

remote side yet.

tcprcvbuf The total size of receive buffers for TCP sockets, i.e. the amount of kernel memory

allocated for the data received from the remote side, but not read by the local application

yet.

othersockbuf The total size of UNIX-domain socket buffers, UDP, and other datagram protocol send

buffers.

dgramrcvbuf

The total size of receive buffers of UDP and other datagram protocols.

oomguarpages The out-of-memory guarantee, in pages. Any virtual environment process will not be killed

even in case of heavy memory shortage if the current memory consumption (including

both physical memory and swap) does not reach the oomguarpages barrier.

privvmpages The size of private (or potentially private) memory allocated by an application. The memory

that is always shared among different applications is not included in this resource

parameter.

Auxiliary system parameters

Parameter Description

lockedpages The memory not allowed to be swapped out (locked with the mlock() system call), in

pages.

shmpages The total size of shared memory (including IPC, shared anonymous mappings and tmpfs

objects) allocated by the processes of a particular virtual environment, in pages.

numfile

The number of files opened by all virtual environment processes.

numflock

The number of file locks created by all virtual environment processes.

numpty The number of pseudo-terminals, such as an ssh session, screen or xterm applications,

etc.

numsiginfo The number of siginfo structures (essentially, this parameter limits the size of the signal

delivery queue).

dcachesize

The total size of dentry and inode structures locked in the memory.

numiptent

The number of IP packet filtering entries.

Notes: The parameters containing "pages" in their names are measured in 4096-byte pages in the

Parallels Containers 32-bit version and in 16384-byte pages in the Virtuozzo Containers 64-bit version for

IA-64 processors. In the Parallels Containers 64-bit versions, all the system parameter values are 64-bit

and, therefore, can exceed the values in the Parallels Containers 32-bit version (where the parameters

Managing Virtual Environments

values are 32-bit). For example, the limit of the oomguarpages parameter in the Virtuozzo Containers

64-bit version for IA-64 processors can be maximally set to 9223372036854775807 instead of

2147483647 in the Parallels Containers 32-bit version. To learn more about the difference between the

parallels Containers 64-bit and 32-bit versions turn to the Virtuozzo Containers for 64-bit Processors

section of the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers User's Guide.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a), it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Soft Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container that can be exceeded

only if the system is not fully loaded. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Hard Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the current Container that cannot be

exceeded under any circumstances. The units in which the limit is measured are specified in

the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Windows-related Memory Resources

The memory-related resource management parameters are divided into 4 groups: memory

parameters, primary system parameters, secondary system parameters, and auxiliary system

parameters.

Windows-based virtual environments use only the primary system parameters.

Primary system parameters

Parameter Description

numproc

The maximal number of processes the virtual environment may create.

numsessions

The number of simultaneous terminal sessions that can be opened to the virtual

environment.

vprvmem The size of private (or potentially private) memory allocated by thevirtual environment. The

memory that is always shared among different applications is not included in this resource

parameter.

Notes: The parameters containing "pages" in their names are measured in 4096-byte pages in the

Parallels Containers 32-bit version and in 16384-byte pages in the Virtuozzo Containers 64-bit version for

IA-64 processors. In the Parallels Containers 64-bit versions, all the system parameter values are 64-bit

and, therefore, can exceed the values in the Parallels Containers 32-bit version (where the parameters

values are 32-bit). For example, the limit of the oomguarpages parameter in the Virtuozzo Containers

64-bit version for IA-64 processors can be maximally set to 9223372036854775807 instead of

Managing Virtual Environments

2147483647 in the Parallels Containers 32-bit version. To learn more about the difference between the

parallels Containers 64-bit and 32-bit versions turn to the Virtuozzo Containers for 64-bit Processors

section of the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers User's Guide.

The information on the available parameters is presented in the table with the following columns:

Column Name Description

Parameter The name of the resource parameter.

Current Usage Indicates the consumption of the corresponding resource by the Container at the moment of

calling the current Parallels Virtual Automation page. The units in which the consumption is

measured are specified in the Units column. If the current usage is not available (n/a), it means

that either the Container is not running, or the nature of the resource does not suggest its

changing over time.

Limit The limit on the consumption of the given resource by the Container. The units in which the

limit is measured are specified in the Units column.

Units The units in which the resource values are measured.

Description The description of the resource parameter.

Changing Container Resource Parameters

This screen allows you to adjust the resources of the selected virtual environment. For more

information, see the descriptions of Linux-related CPU (p. 75), disk (p. 76), and memory (p. 78)

resources; or Windows-related CPU (p. 75), disk (p. 77), and memory (p. 80) resources.

You can also edit Container resource values via ssh by using the vzctl utility. You will need to

use the --save option to have the edited UBC parameters reported by Parallels Virtual

Automation or Parallels Power Panel. For more information, see the Parallels Virtuozzo Containers

Reference Guide.

Changing Disk Quota for Multiple Containers

You can specify a new disk quota for a bunch of your Containers at once on the Configure: Set

Container Disk Limits page.

The Containers Disk Usage Current Statistics table lets you take in the current disk quota and

usage for all the selected Containers at a single glance.

In the Change Containers Disk Quota group there are three major options to set a defined disk

quota for the Containers:

• Use the Set Disk Quota to option to specify an exact size of the disk space each Container is

allowed to consume.

• Use the Increase Disk Quota by option to have the quota increased by a specified amount for

each Container. So, if two or more Containers had different disk quotas before, the latter will

remain different because the increase is the same.

Managing Virtual Environments

• Use the Decrease Disk Quota by option to have the quota decreased by a specified amount

for each Container. So, if two or more Containers had different disk quotas before, the latter will

remain different because the decrease is the same.

To further tune the disk usage, set the inodes limit you think is reasonable for the total number of

files you have or are going to have on each Container disk. In the Change Containers Disk Inodes

Limit group you can:

• Set an inodes density value and use the Calculate the disk inodes limit using the inodes per

KB ratio option;

• Set an inodes limit value to depend on the current Container inodes density;

• Manually enter an inodes limit value;

Just enter the desired number into the corresponding field, choose the proper units of

measurements and click Submit.

Note: When performing the operation, bear in mind that the disk quota for a Container cannot be less

than the size of the disk space already occupied by this Container (you can learn it from the Resources

table on the Summary tab).

The two remaining options in both groups speak for themselves - select Set unlimited Disk

Quota/Inodes to remove any disk space/inodes restrictions for the selected Containers, or select

Do not change Disk Quota/Inodes Limit to leave the current disk space restrictions intact.

Applying New Container Templates

Any Container is configured by means of its own Container template (a configuration file used as an

archetype to reproduce all its settings for a Container based on it). The Apply template to

Container page enables you to change the Container template the Container is based on and,

thus, to change all the resources the Container may consume and/or allocate at once.

In the Original Container template table at the top of the page, you can view the name and

description of the current Container template the Container is based on ( the information is not

available currently for the Containers running the Windows operating system).

The Select Library Container template table allows you to choose another configuration template

to base the Container on by selecting the radio button against the corresponding Container

template. All available Container templates listed are supplied with the following information: the

name and brief description of the Container template.

To facilitate working with Container templates, you may have the Select Library Container

template table display only those Container templates that have the corresponding name or a

certain word in their description. On top of the table, press the Show Search link to display the

fields where you can specify the parameters the given Container template should meet; then click

on the Search link. To view all available Container templates, click on the Reset Results link to the

right of the Search link. You can have Parallels Virtual Automation display only those parameters

Managing Virtual Environments

you need at the moment. To show or hide certain columns, click the Select Columns link and

select the parameters you want to be displayed or clear those you do not.

The Advanced Options group allows you to have the Container restarted if the parameters

setup for the selected template requires restarting.

Note: Before applying a new Container template to a Container, make sure you are aware of the

resource values defined in this Container template and to be set for the Container. Detailed information

on Container templates is provided in the Managing Container templates section.

Applying New Container Template to Multiple Containers

You can specify a new Container template for a bunch of your Containers at once on the

Configure: Apply Container template page.

You should select the relevant Container template on the Container templates list, then click Next

to choose from the template Quality of Service parameters to be applied to the Containers, if

needed.

Viewing Container Logs

Viewing Container Task Logs

The Tasks subtab lists recent operations on the selected Container. For more details on

information shown, see Viewing Infrastructure Task Logs (p. 33).

Viewing Container Alert Logs

The Alerts subtab lists resource consumption alerts for the selected Container. For more details on

information shown, see Viewing Infrastructure Alert Logs (p. 34).

Viewing Container Event Logs

The Events subtab lists status changes of the selected Container. For more details on information

shown, see Viewing Infrastructure Event Logs (p. 35).

Adjusting Container Template Resource Parameters for Multiple

Containers

The Configure: Review Resources page allows you to specify what resource parameters from the

selected template should be applied to the Containers. You can decide whether a parameter needs

to be applied by selecting the corresponding check box.

For the description of Linux-related resources, refer to these subsections:

• Linux-Related CPU Resources (p. 75),

Managing Virtual Environments

• Linux-Related Disk Resources (p. 76),

• Linux-Related Memory Resources (p. 78).

For the description of Windows-related resources, refer to these subsections:

• Windows-Related CPU Resources (p. 75),

• Windows-Related Disk Resources (p. 77),

• Windows-Related Memory Resources (p. 80).

Managing Container Services and Processes

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to manage services and processes inside Containers in a

number of ways. You can:

• Open a list of principal services inside your Container through the System Services link with

the opportunity to start, stop, restart any of them and control their autostart option.

• Open a list of processes running inside the Container by clicking the System Processes link

with the opportunity to send various signals to any of the processes.

• Log in to the Plesk control panel via the Plesk Control Panel link in case the corresponding

template is installed in the Container. If the Plesk template is not installed, the Plesk Control

Panel link is not displayed. Instead you can make use of the Install link provided in lieu of the

Plesk Control Panel link to install the Plesk control panel in the Container.

• Log in to the Confixx control panel by choosing the Confixx control panel link in case the

corresponding template is installed in the Container. If the template is not installed, the Confixx

control panel link is not displayed. The feature is available for a Linux-based Container.

• Create or change your firewall settings by clicking on the Firewall link.

• Providing you have installed a Site Builder application template to this Container, you can use it

by clicking the Site Builder link.

• If the name-based hosting is enabled on the physical server, you can edit the Name-Based

Hosting settings for this Container.

Managing Container Services

The process of managing services inside Container running the Windows operating system and the

Linux operating system varies slightly:

• To learn how to manage services in virtual environment running the Linux operating system,

please see the Managing Services in Linux subsection.

• To learn how to manage services in virtual environment running the Windows operating system,

please see the Managing Services in Windows subsection.

Managing Virtual Environments

Managing Services in Linux

The System Services SysV subtab is used to view all the services you are running on the

Container except for the xinetd-dependent services. To see the xinetd-dependent services list,

click the System Services Xinetd subtab. By default, 20 services are shown on the screen, but

you may have more services displayed by pressing the appropriate link on top of the table. You

may also have the System Services table display only those services that have a particular name

or status. On top of the table, press the Show Search link to display the fields where you can

specify the name or the status of the service you wish to view; then click on the Search link. You

can have Parallels Virtual Automation display only those parameters you need at the moment. To

show or hide certain columns, click the Select Columns link and select the parameters you want

to be displayed or clear those you do not.

The System Services SysV screen presents a table reflecting the services inside the Container

and providing the following information:

Column Name Description

Name The system ID of the service executable file.

Status Indicates whether the service is running or not. A green arrow means that the service is running;

a red cross - that it is stopped.

Autostart If there is a green tick in this column, this service is started automatically on the Container

startup; if a red cross - it is not.

Note: This table displays only those services that are listed in the configuration file

etc/opt/pva/cc/standart-services.xml. placed in the Container directory /vz/root/1.

With the help of the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar you can perform the following actions on

any service in the table:

• Start the service by selecting its check box and clicking Start Service.

• Restart the service by selecting its check box and clicking Restart Service.

• Stop the service by selecting its check box and clicking Stop Service.

• Enable/disable the autostart feature by selecting the service(s) and clicking Enable/Disable

Autostart.

All the above and a service description are available on the screen which opens by clicking the

name of the service in the Name column.

Note: If you have just started the Container and opened the Services page, not all the services may

have had enough time to start. Wait a little and refresh the page to update the state of the services.

Managing xinetd-Dependent Services

The System Services Xinetd subtab is used to view all the services you are running on this

Container that are dependent on the xinetd service. To see the other services, click the System

Services SysV subtab. By default, 20 services are shown for each tab, but you may have more

services displayed by pressing the appropriate link on top of the table. You may also have the

Managing Virtual Environments

System Services table display only those services that have a particular name or status. On top of

the table, press the Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify the name or the

status of the service you wish to view; then click on the Search link. You can have Parallels Virtual

Automation display only those parameters you need at the moment. To show or hide certain

columns, click the Select Columns link and select the parameters you want to be displayed or

clear those you do not.

The System Services Xinetd page presents a table reflecting the xinetd-dependent services

inside the Container and providing the following information:

Column Name Description

Name The system ID of the service executable file.

Status

Indicates whether the service is enabled or not. A green arrow means that the service is enabled;

a red cross - that it is disabled.

Autostart If there is a tick in this column, the xinetd service is started automatically on the Container

startup, so is the given service; if a cross - it is not.

Note: This table displays only those services that are listed in the configuration file

etc/vzcp/standart-services.xml. placed in the Container directory /vz/root/1.

You can perform the following actions on any service in the table:

• Enable the service by selecting its check box and clicking on the Enable button on the Parallels

Virtual Automation toolbar. Only disabled services are subject to this action.

• Disable the service by selecting its check box and clicking on the Disable button on the

Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar. Only enabled services are subject to this action.

Viewing Service Details

The Service Details screen provides the principal information on the given service and lets you

manage it.

The following information is provided:

• The description of the service;

• Whether the service is running or stopped;

• Whether the service is started automatically on the Container startup or not.

You may perform the following actions on any such service:

• Stop the service by clicking the Stop Service button. Only running services are subject to this

action.

• Restart the service by clicking the Restart Service button. Only running services are subject to

this action.

• Start the service by clicking the Start Service button. Only stopped services are subject to this

action.

Managing Virtual Environments

• Enable/disable the autostart feature by clicking the Enable Autostart/Disable Autostart

button, correspondingly.

Viewing xinetd-Dependent Service Details

The Service Details screen provides the principal information on the given service and lets you

manage it.

As the service is dependent on the xinetd service, i.e. xinetd is charged with launching the service

when necessary, you can only either enable or disable such a service — depending on its current

state — by clicking the Enable/Disable Service button, correspondingly. Moreover, the xinetd

service must be running to perform any such action; otherwise, the operation will result in an error.

You cannot manage the autostart feature of xinetd-dependent services, as its value is inherited

from the xinetd service.

Managing Services in Windows

The System Services page is displayed when clicking the System Services link on the

Services tab of the Container dashboard. It presents the table reflecting those services inside your

Container that you can manage. The table provides the following information:

Column Name Description

Name The name of the service running inside your Container.

Status Indicates whether the service is running or not.

Startup Type Indicates whether:

The service is started automatically on the Container startup;

The startup type of the service is set to SERVICE_DISABLED;

The service can be launched only manually.

Logon as Indicates the user account (the LocalService account, the NetworkService account,

etc.) that was used to start the service.

You can perform the following operations on any service in the table:

• Stop the service by selecting its check box and clicking on the Stop button.

• Restart the service by selecting its check box and clicking Restart.

• Start the service by selecting its check box and clicking on the Start button.

• Open the Services Details page to enable/disable the autostart feature by clicking on the

name of the service in the Name column.

To facilitate working with Container services, you may have the System Services table display only

those services that have a particular name, startup type (automatic, manual, disabled), are in a

certain state (running or stopped), or were started by a certain user. On top of the table, press the

Show Search link to display the fields where you can specify the parameters your services should

meet; then click on the Search link. To view all the services currently running inside your Container,

click on the Reset Results link to the right of the Search link. You can have Parallels Virtual

Automation display only those parameters you need at the moment. To show or hide certain

Managing Virtual Environments

columns, click the Select Columns link and select the parameters you want to be displayed or

clear those you do not.

Note: If you have just started the Container and opened the Services page, not all the services may

have had enough time to start. Wait a little and refresh the page to update the state of the services.

Viewing Service Details

The Service Management page opened on clicking the name of the service you have selected

on the System Services page allows you to change the startup type of your Container services:

• Make a service automatically start on the Container startup by selecting Automatic in the drop-

down list of the Startup Type field and clicking on the Submit button.

• Set a service as "manual" meaning that you should start the service manually before it can be

loaded by the operating system and made available for use. To this effect, select Manual and

click on the Submit button.

• Disable a service by selecting Disabled in the drop-down list and clicking on the Submit

button.

Note: Changing the default service settings might prevent key services from running correctly. It is

especially important to use caution when changing the startup type of services that are configured to

start automatically.

In the Dependencies section you can find out what system components depend on the selected

service. You can also view the system components your service depends on, if there are any. You

should always take into account the service dependencies before changing its settings. This

information is very important since if a service is stopped or is not functioning properly, the

dependent services may also be affected.

Managing Container Processes

The System Processes page is displayed when clicking the Service > System Processes link. It

presents a table reflecting all the running processes inside the Container. The table provides the

following information:

Column Name Description

PID The process ID.

%CPU The percent of the CPU time the process is currently using.

%MEM The percent of the RAM size the process is currently using.

Command The command that is used to launch the process.

Nice The relative priority of the process assigned to it by the user. The negative values mean that the

user has manually increased the priority, the positive values - that they have decreased it.

Pri The absolute priority of the process assigned to it by the process scheduler. On a Linux physical

server, the range is from 0 (the highest priority) to 39 (the lowest priority). The usual process

priority is 30. On a Windows physical server, the range can be from 0 (the highest priority) to 31

(the lowest priority). The usual process priority is 8.

Managing Virtual Environments

RSS (Resident Segment Size) The size of physical memory the process really uses (in Kilobytes).

Stat The state of the process. The possible states are: R - runnable, on the run queue; S - sleeping; T -

traced or stopped; D - uninterruptable sleep; Z - defunct, "zombie". If two letters are shown, the

second letter means the following: W - has no resident pages; < - high-priority process; N - low-

priority task; L - has pages locked in memory; s - the process is a session leader; "+" means the

process is in the foreground process group of its control terminal.

Time The total amount of the CPU time the process has used so far.

User The user the process belongs to.

To have the information in the table refreshed automatically with the current values, click the

Enable Autorefresh button. It is worthy to note that only the table on the current page is refreshed,

which takes much less resources in comparison with refreshing the whole Parallels Virtual

Automation page.

Note: The table is available only for a running Container. If the table cannot be accessed, Power Panel

suggests possible actions.

On a Windows physical server, you may select any number of processes by ticking the check

boxes against the corresponding processes (tick the uppermost check box to select all the

processes at once) and end them by clicking the End Process button.

On a Linux physical server, you may select any number of processes by ticking the check boxes

against the corresponding processes (tick the uppermost check box to select all the processes at

once) and send them a standard signal. Choose the needed signal on the drop-down menu and

click the Send Signal button. The following signals can be sent:

• SIGHUP - is a hang-up signal. It is often used to ask a daemon process to re-read its

configuration.

• SIGTERM - sends the termination signal to the process. This is the best way to give the

process a chance for an orderly shutdown and proper data saving. As the process might be

able to catch this signal and stay alive, you may have to make use of the sigkill or sigint

signals.

• SIGCONT - continues the process causing it to resume.

• SIGSTOP - stops (suspends) the process. The process will still be on the task list.

• SIGINT - causes the process to immediately interrupt. The signal is very close to sigkill,

the difference being that, unlike sigkill, it can be caught by the process and ignored if the

process gets out of hand. In this case you should send sigkill to shut down the process.

• SIGKILL - unconditionally kills the process. Mind that sending sigkill to any process

removes any chance for it to do a tidy cleanup and shutdown, which might have unfortunate

consequences.

Managing Virtual Environments

Managing Container Applications

Applications can either be added to the Container by means of the corresponding Parallels

Virtuozzo templates or installed in the Container as individual software packages.

The Applications subtab of the Container Software tab allows you to do the following:

• view the applications added to the Container as application templates (both EZ and standard)

as well as their up-to-date status.

• if some of the applications are not up to date (i.e. the updated versions of the corresponding

templates or template packages are available on the physical server), update them by clicking

the Update Container Software button on the toolbar.

• add more applications available on the physical server or delete unnecessary ones by clicking

Manage Applications and performing these actions on the screen that opens.

Managing Container Application Templates

The Manage Applications button on the Applications subtab of the Container Software tab

opens the screen that allows you to manage applications available to the Container. On this page,

you can:

• View the applications already installed in the Container. These applications are listed in the

Installed/Scheduled Applications table in the right part of the page.

• Install new applications to the Container. To add any of the applications from the Available

Applications table to the Container, tick the corresponding check boxes and click on the >>

button. After that, the applications appear in the Installed/Scheduled Applications table in the

right part of the page. Clicking the Submit button starts the installation process.

• Delete those applications from the Container that are not needed any more. To remove any

application, tick the corresponding check box in the Installed/Scheduled Applications table

and click on the << button. After that, the application appears in the Available Applications

table in the left part of the page. Click the Submit button to start the deletion process.

• Check unresolved dependencies among the selected applications with the help of the

Resolve button. To eliminate unresolved dependencies, you can remove one of the problem

applications from the Installed/Scheduled Applications table as explained above.

Note: Only standard template based Container application dependencies require resolving. If you are

managing a Container based on an EZ template, the Resolve button is not present on the screen.

Adding Application Templates to Multiple Containers

It is possible to add one or more application templates simultaneously to a multitude of Containers

on the Configure: Add Software to Containers page (accessible by selecting the Containers on

the list, clicking Configure and selecting the Add Software to Containers option). The available

templates are listed in the Select Applications to Install group. There are two conditions for being

able to add the templates listed under that group to the Containers in question:

Managing Virtual Environments

1 They should be installed on all the physical servers where the respective Containers are

situated.

2 They should be compatible with all the Containers for which this operation is performed.

Select the check boxes beside those applications that you want to add to the Containers. You also

have the option to start those Containers that are stopped to be able to add the templates to them.

Otherwise, the templates will not be added to the Containers that are not running.

Click Next to review your operation details and start the software installation.

Removing Application Templates From Multiple Containers

It is possible to remove one or more application templates simultaneously from a multitude of

Containers on the Configure: Remove Software From Containers page (accessible by selecting

the Containers on the list, clicking Configure and selecting the Remove Software From

Containers option). The templates that are added to all the Containers in question and thus can be

removed from all of them are listed in the Select Applications to Remove group.

Select the check boxes beside those applications that you want to remove from the Containers.

You also have the option to start those Containers that are stopped to be able to remove the

templates from them. Otherwise, the templates will not be removed from the Containers that are

not running.

Click Submit to start the software uninstallation.

Managing Container Software Packages

Parallels Virtual Automation enables you to install, update, and uninstall rpm and deb packages

in Containers based on EZ OS templates.

Note: The Container you want to manage software packages in has to be running.

You can obtain the information on the packages currently installed in the Container in the Installed

Packages table, presented as follows:

Column Name Description

Name The name of the package.

Epoch Indicates the version of a deb package or the version of an rpm package in case the version

of the rpm package is not available.

Version The version of an rpm package.

Arch The processor architecture; if the column shows the "noarch" value, the packet is likely to be

either non-executable or contain documentation.

Summary A short description of the package.

Status Shows if there is a fresher version of the package: Up-to-date or Update Found.

The Installed Packages table displays from 10 up to 80 packages; the default number is 20 and

can be changed by clicking 10, 40, or 80 on top of the table. To see the next portion of packages,

Managing Virtual Environments

click either the number of the page next to the one you are having at the moment, or next (or last,

to view the last page).

If the status of a package in the Installed Packages table suggests that an update is available, you

can select this package and click the Update link on the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar. To

update all those packages that you can see on the page, select the uppermost check box and click

Update. If you need to run update for all the packages installed in the Container, do not select

anything - simply click the Update All icon on the Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar.

To uninstall a package, select it (or select the uppermost check box to uninstall all the packages

listed on the page), and click Uninstall.

The Parallels Containers software can query the repository where the packages for your distribution

are stored for new packages available for downloading and install them in your Container. To

connect to the repository, fetch a list of the packages, see the packages description, and

download and install in your Container the packages you need, click Install Packages on the

Parallels Virtual Automation toolbar.

Installing Software Packages in Container

The Parallels Containers software can connect to your Linux distribution download packages

repository to form a list of packages ready to be downloaded to your physical server and installed

in your Container. All these operations are available on the Install New Packages screen.

Note: A repository can be a place where multiple files are located for distribution over a network, or a

repository can be a location that is directly accessible to the user without having to travel across a

network. Therefore connecting to your repository might involve either going to the web site repository

(e.g. Fedora Core or Red Hat), or to the repository, created on your physical server. For information on

creating a local repository, refer to the Setting Up Repository for EZ Templates section in the Parallels

Virtuozzo Containers Templates Management Guide.

On the Install New Packages screen you can obtain the following information on the packages:

Column Name Description

Name The name of the package.

Epoch Indicates the version of a deb package or the version of an rpm package in case the version

of the rpm package is not available.

Version The version of an rpm package.

Arch

The processor architecture; if the column shows the "noarch" value, the packet is likely to be

either non-executable or contain documentation.

The Available Packages table can display 10, 20, 40 or 80 packages, the default number is 20

and can be changed by clicking 10, 40, or 80 on top of the table. To see the next portion of

packages, click either the number of the page next to the one you are having at the moment, or

next (or last, to view the last page).

To install a package, select its check box (or the uppermost check box, to install all the packages

shown in the table) and click Install.

Managing Virtual Environments

Managing Container Control Panels

There are a number of control panels that can be installed on the physical server in the form of

templates and added to any Container hosted on that physical server. Among such control panels

are Plesk, Sitebuilder, and Confixx.

The Control Panels subtab of the Software tab of the Container dashboard provides a single

place for managing all these control panels in this particular Container. It goes without saying that

the control panel template must be installed on the Node for the panel to be manageable on this

screen.

The two major management operations that can be performed here are:

• adding the control panel template to the Container (the Install link), which ensures that this

Container can be managed by the given control panel.

• logging in to the control panel to begin managing the Container with its help (the Login link).

This is possible only if the control panel template has already been added to the Container.

Note: In the case of the Plesk control panel, the Login link is called Manage and leads to the screen

where you can not only log in to Plesk but also change the Plesk admin password.

Updating Container Software

The Update Software page allows you to update the OS and application packages in the given

Container by adding available templates updates (in the case of standard Container templates) or

updating Container packages directly (in the case of Virtuozzo EZ templates). The Update

Software page is available on clicking the Update Container Software link on the Parallels Virtual

Automation toolbar, which becomes visible if you are currently located on the Application

Templates subtab of the Container Software tab.

The page will display the relevant information in one of three ways:

1 If no updated templates for the given Container have been installed on the physical server or no

updated packages are found in the repository, the page just informs you of this fact.

2 If the Container uses standard Virtuozzo templates and one or more updated versions of the

corresponding template(s) are installed on the physical server, you are able to select an

updated version for adding to the Container.

3 If the Container uses Virtuozzo EZ templates and updated packages for the given Container

can be found in the repository, you are able to select the packages that you wish to update

inside the Container.

Two options for customizing the update process are available on clicking the Configure Updating

group:

• The Force software update option tells the system to perform the update even if unresolved

dependencies are met during the process;

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• The Jump over several upgrades instead of adding them sequentially option can be used if

two or more sequential updates are found for this or that template.

Click Update to update the templates/packages you have selected for the given Container.

Updating Software in Multiple Containers

The OS and application packages can be updated simultaneously in a multitude of Containers by

adding available templates updates (in the case of standard Container templates) or updating

Container packages directly (in the case of Virtuozzo EZ templates). All the currently available OS

and application packages updates will be installed to the selected Containers. This is done on the

Configure: Upgrade Containers Software page. For instructions on updating Container

templates, refer to Updating OS and Application.

Two actions for customizing the update process are available on clicking the Configure Updating

group:

• The Force software update action tells the system to perform the update even if unresolved

dependencies are met during the process;

• There is no way to update a stopped Container. If some of the Containers you selected for

updating are not running, select the Start the stopped Containers check box. The Containers

that are not running will then be started only to be updated and stopped again.

Click Update to update the selected Containers. To return to the previous page, or cancel

upgrading click Back and Cancel, accordingly.

Cloning Containers

You can create a complete copy of a particular Container (in respect of all the Container data and

resource parameters), or a Container clone. This is a good means to save your time since you do

not bother about setting the Container configuration parameters and the like. Moreover, you can

create a number of Container clones at a sitting by opening the Containers page, selecting the

ones to be cloned and clicking the Clone link.

The option is available on the Clone Container page which enables you to define the name,

hostname, password, offline service, and set the advanced settings for the Container being

created.

The General Settings section enables you to:

• Provide a name for the Container clone.

The Network Settings section lets you:

• Set a hostname of the Container. Mind that the range of symbols for the Container hostname is

limited. For a Windows Node, the hostname may start singularly with a-z, A-Z or an

underscore ( _ ), contain further any of the following symbols: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _, - and have a-

z, A-Z, 0-9 or _ at the end. The maximum number of symbols is 15. For a Linux-based

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Container, the hostname should consist of a-z, 0-9, _, and may have a point in the middle.

The number of symbols should not exceed 256.

In the New Password section, you can set a new password for the Container clone. In this case

you provide the password in the Administrative password field and confirm it in the field below.

You can leave the field blank though to use the password from the cloned Container. The

password is needed to access the Container in the future, for example, through Parallels Power

Panel.

The Advanced Settings section lets you:

• Specify the Container ID, a 32-bit (ranging from 0 to 4294967295) integer number over 100

(For more information on Container ID allocation, see the Parallels Containers for Windows

User's Guide);

• Start the Container after cloning.

The Offline Management group allows you to set the offline service options by selecting the

appropriate option. Offline Service of the corresponding Container ensures the Container

manageability by means of one or more offline services from any browser at its own IP address.

After offline service is enabled for the Container, one port of its IP address becomes permanently

active whatever the Container state. The currently supported services are Parallels Power Panel

and Plesk Control panel (for managing Containers with the Plesk control panel installed in them).

You can:

• Disable the offline service of the Container.

• Enable the offline service of the Container via the offline service settings operating on the

physical server. Whenever you need to manage the Container offline, its offline service settings

will be brought into synchronization with those in effect on the physical server. Should any

service be removed from the default services list, the Container will be unable to be managed

via the service off the list. This option subscribes the Container to the default offline services.

• Manually compose the Container offline services list. You can select the service(s) you would

like the Container to be subscribed to in the corresponding checkbox(es).

By default, the Offline Service radio button is set to the option used by the Container being

cloned. You can change it to use another offline service mode for the new Container.

Note: The rest of the Container general settings (p. 63) are copied from the cloned Container by default.

Click Clone to initiate the creation of the Container clone or Customize to set up the remaining

network settings of the new Container.

Configuring Clone Network Parameters

The Clone Container - Configure Network screen allows you to define what Virtual Network

adapters the new Container will use and to configure the settings of these adapters. For more

information, see Configuring Container Network Parameters (p. 229).

After deciding on the necessary parameters, click Clone to start the cloning procedure.

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Cloning Multiple Containers

One of the easiest methods of creating new Containers of a certain type or particular configuration

is cloning the old ones. Cloned Containers are exact replicas of the prototypes and can be created

on the Clone Containers screen where you can:

• Specify a name and a hostname for each new Container clone. The number of sections to set

these parameters is equal to the number of Containers you want to clone. Mind that the range

of symbols for the Container hostname is limited. For a Windows Node, the hostname may

start singularly with a-z, A-Z or an underscore ( _ ), contain further any of the following

symbols: a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _, - and have a-z, A-Z, 0-9 or _ at the end. The maximum number

of symbols is 15. For a Linux-based Container, the hostname should consist of a-z, 0-9, _,

and may have a point in the middle. The number of symbols should not exceed 256.

• If you need to start the clones immediately after they are created, select the Start the

Containers after cloning check box in the Post Procedures section.

After entering the necessary data, click Clone to begin the cloning procedure, otherwise click

Cancel.

Migrating and Converting Containers

The cases when you need to move your Containers from one physical server to another can be

quite numerous. A migration can be performed to distribute the workload between physical servers,

etc. On the Migrate Containers screen, you need to select the physical server you are going to

move the Container to and select some additional options.

A Container can be migrated to:

• Same-platform physical server with the same operating system as the Container has.

• Parallels Server Bare Metal physical server. If you migrate a Linux-based Container, you can

choose whether to convert the Container to a virtual machine or not. If you migrate a Windows-

based Container, the Container will be automatically converted into the virtual machine with the

Windows operating system. This is done, because virtual machines, in contrast to Containers,

can have an operating system different from the hosting physical server OS.

Note: The physical server must be registered in the infrastructure. If you need to migrate the Containers

to a physical server that has not been registered yet, this has to be done first.

Irrespective of the migration case, in the Migration Options section, consider the following:

• Perform live migration to avoid service interruption. By default, the Container, if running

before the migration, is stopped. But you can leave it running even during the migration by

selecting this option.

• Remove the private areas from the source Hardware Node after the migration. You can

remove the Containers private areas (the directories to store the Containers files and other data)

from the source physical server when the migration is finished, which lets you free some disk

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space. On the other hand, you might want to leave the private areas on the source physical

server intact until you ascertain the migrated Container operates normally;

• Do not start the Container after the migration. If the Container was in a running state before

the migration, it will automatically start after the migration is complete. But you can leave it

stopped to perform some additional operations on it by choosing this option.

• Force the migration. Ignore possible conflicts in IP addresses applications. The Container

migration happens even if its IP address might cause conflicts on the destination physical server

or if the templates the Container uses are not installed there. Keep in mind that though it is

possible to force the migration of such a Container, it might not be able to start on the

destination physical server until the problems with IP addresses and/or templates are resolved.

Click the Migrate button if you are ready to initiate the Containers migration, otherwise click

Cancel.

Migrating Container to Virtuozzo Physical Servers

To migrate a Container to a Virtuozzo physical server, do the following:

In the Migration From section, choose the physical server that will host the Container.

1 Choose the Virtuozzo physical server that will host the Container from the To Hardware Node

drop-down list. Depending on the Container's operating system, the list will display only

Windows or only Linux Virtuozzo physical servers.

Note: If you choose a Parallels Server Bare Metal physical server, you will also be able to convert the

Container to a virtual machine. See the information below.

2 Specify the settings in the Migration Options section, if needed.

3 Click Migrate to continue.

Migrating Containers to Bare Metal Physical Servers

The Migrate Containers page allows you to migrate a Windows- or a Linux-based Container to a

Parallels Server Bare Metal or Parallels Cloud Server physical server and to convert it to a virtual

machine.

To migrate a Container to such a physical server, do the following:

1 Choose the Parallels Server Bare Metal physical server that will host the Container from the To

Hardware Node drop-down list.

The Convert Containers to Parallels Virtual Machines option appears.

If you convert a Windows-based Container to a PSBM physical server, the conversion to a

virtual machine is obligatory, and the check box is automatically ticked off.

If you convert a Linux-based Container to a PSBM physical server, the conversion is not

obligatory, and you can choose whether to convert the Container into a virtual machine or not.

2 Specify other Migration Options if needed and click Migrate to continue.

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The created virtual machine is an exact copy of the Container, i.e. it will have the same operating

system and networking settings, memory size and CPU count, the whole scope of software

programs and data stored in the Container, the same security and port redirection settings, etc.

Moreover, the virtual machine will have the information on traffic, disk, CPU and memory usage

recorded during the Containers activity.

Migrating Physical Servers to Containers

Parallels Virtual Automation provides you with an effective tool - Parallels Transporter - for a fast

and reliable migration from a physical server to a Container. Migration of a stand-alone physical

server to a virtual environment may be useful for a server using its available resources only partially,

as the usage of the resources on the physical server hosting virtual environments is distributed

efficiently among the virtual environments. Therefore the physical server is never idle at the same

time allotting the virtual environments enough resources to operate. You can benefit from the

physical server to virtual environment migration by:

• Cutting down administrative and operations costs. Decreasing the number of physical servers

under management reduces administrative overhead, as well as rack space, power, and

hardware replacement costs.

• Reducing downtime costs. virtual environment allows you to back up your production

environment, which can be rapidly deployed in the event of a system failure.

• Optimizing resource utilization. Each server under management is fully used; its resources are

not wasted.

Improving standardization. Deployment of standard hardware allows for improved security and

reliability across your organization’s network as well as the streamlined management that virtual

infrastructure brings.The migration procedure is rendered easy and smooth with the help of

Parallels Transporter which can be invoked by following the Containers link on the Parallels Virtual

Automation main menu or on the Parallels Virtual Automation dashboard and then clicking on the

Migrate Server to Container icon.

Note: Although the Parallels Containers software allows you to migrate virtually any physical server

running the Windows Server 2003/Windows Server 2008 or Linux operating system to a Container on

your physical server, there are a number of limitations which should be taken into account before

deciding on the migration process. To get detailed information on these limitations, please consult the

Parallels Containers for Windows User's Guide.

Setting Up Connection to Physical Servers

The starting point of the migrating procedure with Parallels Transporter is establishing a connection

to the physical server you wish to migrate.

To do this you need to specify the server IP address or hostname in the IP Address or Hostname

field. The IP address and hostname should be the ones the server is recognized by on a network.

After you have filled in the server coordinates, you have to provide the administrator's credentials (in

the Administrator Name and Administrator Password fields) you use to log in to the migrating

server. The default user name for the Linux-based server is root, the default user name for the

Windows-based server is Administrator unless you have created a different user account. In

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this case you are expected to enter the user name you have adopted for a new user account. Mind

that the new user must have the scope of rights the Linux root user or the Windows administrator is

endowed with. Finally, specify the physical server that will host the target Container. If there is only

one physical server that can host the Container, it will be filled in by default, and the field is grayed

out.

Note: To secure a successful connection, the source physical server should have either of the following

ports open: 4434 or 4435 for a physical server irrespective of its operating system, 445 port for

Windows-based physical servers only, and port 22 for Linux-based physical server only.

After you have entered all the required information, click Connect to set up a connection to the

server.

Reviewing Physical Server Configuration

In the second step Parallels Transporter allows you to check the configuration of the server you are

going to migrate into a Container. This is necessary for you to verify that you are connected to

exactly the same server you wish to migrate.

The information on the server is divided into three groups.

The Hardware Information table includes:

Name Description

Architecture The architecture of the server CPU(s).

CPU The number, name and power of the processor(s) installed on the physical server.

Operating Memory

(Physical Memory on a

Windows-based server)

The physical memory: the total physical memory available, the amount of the server physical

memory used and the amount of free memory still remaining.

Swap Memory The swap partition data: the total swap partition size, the swap memory used and the

amount of the free swap memory.

The Network Information tells you the server hostname and the network interface details, such as

the server IP address(es) and the network adapter type(s).

The Linux Disk Partitions section yields the following information:

Name Description

Name The name of the partition on the server disk.

Mounted The mount point of the partition described.

Type The file system type.

Block Size The block size of the partition file system.

Total Blocks The number of the blocks in the file system.

Used Blocks The number of the blocks used.

Free Blocks The number of the blocks still available for data storage.

Total Inodes The overall number of the inodes in the partition.

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Used Inodes The number of the inodes used.

Free Inodes The number of inodes free to use.

The Windows Disk Partitions section reads:

Name Description

Drive The name of the partition on the server disk.

Type The file system type.

Total Space The volume of the drive.

Used Space The space of the drive in use.

Free Space The space of the drive free to be used.

After you have reviewed the physical server system information, click Next to proceed to the

customization of the server migration procedure or configuring the target Container.

Customizing Migration Procedure

In the third step you have an opportunity to edit the details of the migration process. On this

page you can tune your physical server migration by:

• indicating your Linux distribution in the Distribution Selection section before migrating a

physical server (the option is required). Parallels Transporter tries to identify the migrated server

distribution automatically, but the potential danger here may be its failure to do so. This is likely

to make it impossible to carry out certain post-migration operations on the Container into which

the physical server has been migrated. Therefore, to cut out the risk, you must prompt the

wizard your server distribution by selecting the corresponding name in the Select the

Distribution drop-down menu.

• choosing a user/group quota partition to migrate. As a server administrator, you might have

already divided your hard disk into partitions to be used by different users/groups and set a

corresponding quota for the usage thereof. Since all the file systems are copied to a single

partition in the Container, your user/group quota parameters configuration may be lost.

Therefore you are allowed to choose a partition you wish to save the quota values for and

specify it in the Quota migration section. To do this, you have to select the partition name on

the drop-down menu. Note that if you have more than one partition you have allocated for non-

root users, the quota parameters setup will be lost for the partitions other than the one you

have indicated in this section. In this case you will need extra post-migration user/group, or

second-level quota parameters setting up. You can learn more on the second-level quota

configuration option in the Managing Disk Quotas section of the Parallels Virtuozzo

Containers User's Guide.

Note: Although the partition migration with quotas proceeds smoothly in most cases, we recommend

that you check all the partition quotas after the physical server migration and adjust them, if needed.

• excluding paths from copying them to the Container in the Exclude Paths section. This option

allows you to avoid migrating the data you do not need. You can single out such paths yourself

or in some cases you will be prompted to do so by the relevant warning, advising you to

exclude a certain path. The droppable path should be provided in the blank field in this section.

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You can add more paths to skip by clicking the icon to the right of the field. Clicking the

icon near the field will remove the field with the path entered.

• stopping the services before the migration by means of the Stop Services section. This is

highly recommended to prevent the running services from modifying any files which might

hamper the migration. To stop the services, click their checkboxes.

After you have done all the necessary customization, click Next to move on to the fourth page

where you can configure the Container to migrate your physical server to.

Configuring Destination Containers

The Parallels Transporter: Configure Container page allows you to configure a Container into

which you can migrate your physical server.

When configuring the Container for the migration of a Windows-based server, the only

information to provide is the Container ID in the Container Configuration group. You can either

opt for selecting the Container ID automatically (the Select Container ID automatically radio

button), or assign the Container the ID to fit in your Containers nomenclature. The Container ID is a

32-bit (ranging from 0 to 4294967295) integer number over 100. (Detailed information on the

Container IDs allocation can be viewed in the Choosing Container ID subsection of the Parallels

Virtuozzo Containers User's Guide.) To enable the feature, select its checkbox.

By default, most Container parameters, such as Container hostname, IP address(es), DNS

server(s) and hostname lookup parameters are inherited from the physical server and are displayed

on this page in the appropriate fields. By editing these parameters you can apply your own values.

Mind though that you do so at your own risk, and if you are not quite expert in the matter, the

recommendation is to leave the default settings. On this page you can verify or edit Container

general settings that are divided into three groups for your convenience: configuration parameters,

network parameters, and advanced parameters.

The Configuration group enables you to perform the following operations:

• Select a Container sample (p. 163) you want the Container to be based on;

• Choose an OS template and its version you wish the Container to be based on. By default,

Parallels Virtual Automation automatically searches for the most compatible OS template.

However you can change the OS template if needed.

• Select the Customize resource settings checkbox, which allows you to adjust resource

parameters on the next page of the wizard. This operation is optional.

The Network group lets you do the following to define the network parameters:

• Verify the Container hostname. Mind that it is inherited from the physical server. Changing the

hostname may result in future conflicts and malfunction.

• Assign an IP address to it. You can set several IP addresses for the Container by clicking the

icon to the right of the IP Address field. At the same time, clicking the icon near the IP

Address field will remove the corresponding IP address assigned to the Container.

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• Enter one or more DNS servers that this Container is supposed to use in the DNS server IP

address field or leave it blank. By clicking the or icons you can add/remove, accordingly,

the DNS servers IP addresses for the Container being configured. Note that the static values in

these fields might be overridden if the Container gets the DNS servers from the DHCP server

when operating in the bridged network mode.

• Define a list for hostname lookup in the Search domain field or leave it blank. The search list is

normally determined by the domain name(s); by default, it contains the local domain name(s)

only. You can also add external domain names for a particular Container. A search query is

performed by attempting to use each item in the list in turn until a match is found. Note that this

process may be slow and may generate a lot of network traffic if the servers for the listed

domains are not local, and that the query might time out if no server is available for one of the

domains. Note also that the static values in these fields might be overridden if the Container

gets the search domains from the DHCP server when operating in the bridged network mode.

The Advanced group helps to specify the Container ID, a 32-bit (ranging from 0 to 4294967295)

integer number over 100. For more information on Container ID allocation, see the Parallels

Virtuozzo Containers User's Guide. To enable the feature, select its check box.

Click Next to submit the settings and go on to the next Migration wizard stage.

Configuring Container Network Parameters

This step lets you define all the major network parameters of the Container you are migrating the

physical server to. For more information, see Configuring Container Network Parameters (p.

229).

Customizing Container Resource Settings

The Parallels Transporter: Container Resources Customization page, where you can check

or edit the future Container resource parameters, can only be displayed on the conditions that you:

• first, are migrating a Linux-based physical server;

• and, second, have selected the Customize resources settings check box on the previous

step.

Note: The default resource parameters are calculated with a 150% allowance made for the physical

server maximum load. However if you are sure you need to increase the available resources, you can do

so by entering new values in the appropriate fields.

Reviewing Configuration and Setting Post-migration Start/Stop Option

In the final step you can review the physical and virtual environments configuration details. To revise

or change any of these, please, go Back.

You are also offered to automatically stop the physical server and start the Container after

migration. Stopping the physical server and starting the Container after migration is necessary to

avoid a possible conflict between the physical and virtual environments due to the identical network

and other settings. However you can skip the option and do the work manually right after the

migration before managing the virtual environment if you want to check the migration results, e.g.

compare the files in the source migrated machine and target virtual environment.

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When you are ready, click Migrate to start the physical server to virtual environment migration.

Note: If you press Cancel on certain steps, and the migration wizard exits, there may remain a

temporary directory on the physical server that you should remove manually. The name of the directory is

/var/vzagent.tmp.

Reinstalling Containers

Container reinstallation means recovering the original state of a Container in case you have

unintentionally modified, replaced, or deleted any file that is part of an application or OS template,

and the action has brought about the Container malfunction. The Container reinstallation process

restores these files as they were at the time when the Container was created or when other

applications were added to the Container afterwards, if so.

Reinstallation is likely to bring about some irrevocable changes to your Container, therefore, to be

on the safe side, it is recommended to back up your Container before reinstallation.

Click Next on the Reinstall Container introductory page to review the available options and to

decide whether you really need to reinstall your Container and in what way.

Note: In order to be reinstalled, each Container has to be stopped first. The description of all possible

Container statuses is provided in the Container Statuses section. If a Container is not stopped, the

corresponding screen will inform you of the fact. In this case follow the Stop Container link in the

Possible Solutions section. Afterwards it is recommended to refresh the page by clicking the Refresh

this page link in the Other possible actions section.

Selecting Reinstallation Type

The page where you should choose the mode of reinstallation is displayed after you click Next> on

the Reinstall Container page. You shall select one of the two reinstallation options and specify

whether to preserve or drop your Container password database.

When selecting a reinstallation option, bear in mind that there is one thing both options have in

common: the original files of the OS and applications templates are restored in the Container. Pay

attention to the fact that any customization changes you have made to these files will be lost during

the Container reinstallation. In case you have not seriously modified any system configuration files,

reinstalling the original files is likely to solve many problems.

However, you have probably already filled the Container with your personal files. If you are sure

these files cannot cause problems or you need them in your Container, select the first option -

Keep the existing Container contents. In this case, your Container is created anew with all

existing files moved to the /old directory or c:\reinstall directory inside the Container.

You shall be sure there is enough disk space to perform this operation, otherwise, it will fail. Be

prepared to move the necessary files from the /old directory or c:\reinstall directory to

the new existing installation manually. If such files are numerous, this may prove a tedious task.

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If you think you have nothing to lose at all, select the second option: Drop the existing Container

contents. Your Container will be erased and recreated from the original template(s). Naturally, all

your personal files will be lost. That is why you should select this option only if you have no valuable

data in your Container or if you have a backup of your personal files elsewhere.

Pay attention to the Password Options group. The Keep the password database option retains

the information on the Container users and groups. Selecting the Drop the password database

radio button will purge this information altogether and create only the root account with the

password specified in the Set the administrative account password and Retype the password

fields under the radio button. This option may prove useful if your Container has got a corrupted

password database.

When you are done, click Next> to proceed to the Reinstall Container: Final confirmation page.

Confirming Reinstallation

Finally you shall confirm the reinstallation or give it up. The reinstallation option you have chosen at

the previous step is displayed for you to have a last chance to revise what you are about to do.

Click the Reinstall button to begin the reinstallation process.

Do not forget to start the Container when the operation is complete. To see the current status of

the operation, click the Details link.

Repairing Containers

Repairing a Container is another way to solve problems with the Container functioning. In

Parallels Containers terminology, the Container is mounted in the repair mode. This means that a

new Container is temporarily created from scratch with the same network and other parameters as

the broken Container, and the root directory of the broken Container is mounted as /repair into

the newly-created Container. Thereafter, the administrator is supposed to connect to the new

Container via ssh or Parallels Virtual Automation file manager (p. 70) using the network and login

parameters of the broken Container, go to the /repair directory, and perform one of the

following actions:

1 Find the personal data that needs to be saved and copy it to a safe location elsewhere. Do not

copy your personal data directly into your new Container, as it will be destroyed once you exit

the repair mode. After quitting the repair mode, the broken Container can be reinstalled and the

personal data can further be loaded into it from the place where you have saved them.

2 Identify the source of the problem and manually correct it. This method can be recommended

to advanced Container administrators, as it presupposes some technical expertise. And it is still

recommended to save first your personal data in a safe location, just in case something goes

wrong.

Note: When working inside the Container being repaired by means of the Parallels Virtual Automation file

manager, the file manager root directory (/) corresponds to the /repair directory of the temporary

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Container, in other words, it represents the root directory of the problem Container, not that of the newly-

created one.

Clicking the Start Repair button on the Repair Container screen mounts the Container in the

repair mode. It is not necessary to stop the Container beforehand; if the Container is running at the

moment of pressing the Start Repair button, it will be first automatically stopped. The description

of all possible Container statuses is provided in Container Statuses.

When the page is refreshed after pressing the Start Repair button, click the Details link at the end

of the The Container has been scheduled to start in the repair mode message to see if the

repair mode has been successfully entered. Once the Container enters the repair mode, connect to

the new Container via ssh or Parallels Virtual Automation file manager and do what you deem

reasonable inside the Container. After closing your ssh session, click the Repair link on the

Container dashboard once again and press the Finish Repair button to exit the repair mode. After

the repair mode is exited, the broken Container starts running, and you may check the repairing

effect.

Mounting External Volumes Inside Containers

External volumes are those drives inside a Container that can be added to the default C: drive.

The Volumes page opened on following the Volumes link in the Configure section on the Tasks

tab of the Container dashboard enables you to perform the following operations:

• Add additional disk drives to your Container (by following the New Volume link);

• Increase/decrease the current size of the disk drive and modify its measurement units (by

clicking on a drive in the Volumes table);

• Mount a physical server image file to a Container virtual drive (by following the Mount Disk

Image link);

• Unmount an existing disk drive from your Container (by selecting the corresponding check box

in the Volumes table and clicking Unmount);

• Unmount an existing disk drive from your Container and remove the corresponding image file

from the physical server (by selecting the corresponding check box in the Volumes table and

clicking Delete);

• Mount a physical server physical device to a Container virtual drive (by following the Mount

Device link).

The Volumes table lists all the available drives inside the Container, including the default C: drive:

Column Name Description

Mount Point The name of the drive as it is seen inside the Container.

Device This can be either a file or a physical device on the physical server that is mounted to the mount

point.

Size The size of the drive (not applicable for certain devices, for example, if a physical server CD-

ROM device is mounted inside the Container).

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Creating Virtual Drives Inside Containers

Any Container is created with only one disk storage inside it - the C: disk drive. However,

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to add new virtual disk drives to any Container residing on

your physical server. You can then use the newly created virtual disk drive in the same way as you

would use it on a stand-alone computer: format it, create new files and folders within the drive, etc.

To create a new virtual drive inside a Container, make use of the Create Volume page which

opens on clicking the New Volume link on the Volumes page. You will be asked to fill in two fields:

• In the Mount Point field, choose the name of the drive from the drop-down list.

• In the Volume Size field, enter the desired size of the new drive and choose the relevant units

of measurement.

Click Create to create the new virtual drive inside the given Container.

Resizing Virtual Drives

Resizing any virtual drive inside a Container, including the default C: drive, can be performed on

the Resize Volume page, which is opened after you click on the corresponding drive on the

Volumes page.

Designate the desired size in the New Size field, choose the relevant units of measurement and

click Resize. Mind that the operation of decreasing the size might not be successful if the total size

of used space on the drive exceeds the new size that you wish to assign to the drive.

Mounting Existing Virtual Disks

Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to mount virtual disk files located on the physical server

to new drive letters inside any Container. Currently, only the efd virtual disk format is supported.

Image files can be located anywhere on the physical server (on your hard disk, CD-ROM drive,

floppy drive, etc.) and should have the .efd extension.

The path to the virtual disk image is provided on the Mount Disk Image page, which you access

by following the corresponding link on the Volumes page. On the Mount Disk Image page, you

may either fill in the Image Path field manually (the path to the image should be absolute in relation

to the physical server) or click Select next to the field and navigate to the needed virtual disk file in

the window that opens.

In the Mount Point field, choose the name of the drive from the drop-down list.

Click Mount after you have provided the path to the virtual disk file and the mount point, and the

file will be mounted to the desired drive inside your Container.

Note: The permissions of the image file mounted to a Container correspond to those of this image file on

the physical server, i.e. you are able to perform the same operations on the file inside the Container as

you are allowed on the physical server.

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Managing Virtual Environments

Mounting Physical Server Devices

In some circumstances, you may need to give your Container direct access to a drive on your

physical server. Parallels Virtual Automation allows you to mount a drive on the physical server to a

drive inside your Container, thus, granting you access to this drive from inside the Container. After

mounting the drive, you can work with the mounted drive inside the Container in the same way as

you would do it on the physical server.

Virtually any drive available on the physical server can be mounted to a Container, e.g.:

• a physical hard drive;

• a DVD-ROM drive;

• a CD-ROM drive;

• a floppy disk, etc.

A physical server device can be mounted to a Container on the Mount Device page accessible by

following the corresponding link on the Volumes page. On the Mount Device page, you should

first indicate the name of the physical server drive in the HN Device field. This should be a letter of

the alphabet followed by a colon. For example, D: is a common appellation of CD-ROM drives.

In the Mount Point field, choose the name of the drive from the drop-down list.

Click Mount after you have provided the name of the device on the physical server and the mount

point inside the Container, and the device will be mounted to the desired drive inside your

Container.

Note: The permissions of the device mounted to a Container correspond to those of this device on the

physical server, i.e. you are able to perform the same operations on the drive inside the Container as you

are allowed on the physical server.

Adjusting Container Configuration and Advanced Settings

The Configure page allows you to adjust the main settings for your Containers. If the Container

was created singularly, you might have provided it with a name and a description. If the Container

was one of Containers created as a group, providing names and descriptions were not available. If

you created a Container by migrating a physical server into a Container, the name and description

fields were also left empty.

In the General Configuration group, you can specify the name or description of a Container.

Use the Advanced group to:

• Have the Container start disabled by selecting the Disable this Container check box (may

be caused by business requirements).

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• Make the Container automatically boot at the physical server startup. For this purpose, select

the Start on the Hardware Node boot check box.

• In the Capabilities group you can:

• switch on/off the network browsing for the Container. The Windows 2003 browser service

allows the Container on a Windows 2003 network to view the whole network environment

available. The browser service maintains a list (called the browse list) of all available domains

and computers. The browse list can be viewed using Windows 2003 Explorer and is

provided by a browser in the Container. The default for the feature is the off status. You can

learn more on the option from the Network Places overview article of the Windows 2003

Help system invoked by selecting Help and Support on the Windows Start menu.

• enable/disable the packet QoS scheduler for the Container. This is one of the Quality of

Service components in MS Windows 2003 Server that enable differentiation and preferential

treatment for subsets of data transmitted over the network. The packet scheduler is the

traffic control module that regulates how much traffic various applications are allowed,

essentially enforcing the QoS parameters that are set for each particular application. For

instance, you can use the feature to restrict a web site throughput to a certain maximum

bandwidth value or differentiate between the data transmitted by critical applications (e.g.

Plesk) and excessive data (e.g. multimedia applications), and allow preferential treatment for

the important web sites or critical applications. The option is disabled by default. For

additional information on the packet scheduler, address the MSDN Library > Win32 and

COM Development > Network Protocols > Quality of Service (QOS)

(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-

us/qos/qos/qos_start_page.asp).

Note: The concept of Quality of Service in MS Windows 2003 Server differs from that of Virtuozzo

Quality of Service used to provide a fair share of the main system resources (disk space, CPU time, etc.)

among Containers.

• let you know at a glance the ID of the Container to which you have connected by means of

RDP. This ID is displayed in the upper right corner of the remote desktop.

• enable/disable the Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) software to run inside the Container.

The MSCS software integrated into the Windows Server 2003 operating system is designed

to allow servers to work together as one server, thus, providing greater reliability for your

applications and services. Running one and the same application on two or more servers in

the cluster helps ensure high application availability if one of the servers fails. The clustering

software controls the failover process so that the application continues running on the

second server without any loss of data and without interruption in service. The Virtuozzo

Containers software allows you to include Containers in a server cluster so that they can act

as full participants (nodes) in the cluster. To learn more about the MSCS software, address

MSDN Library > Servers and Enterprise Development > Windows Server > Windows

Server 2003 > Technical Articles > Introducing Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) in

the Windows Server 2003 Family (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-

us/library/ms952401.aspx).

The options in the Capabilities group are enabled/disabled by selecting/clearing the corresponding

check boxes.

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