(270) Working with Virtualbox

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Hi all,

I am busy getting stuck in to all the learning material I can get my sticky paws on. I recently tried some measure up tests and the highest mark I achieved was about 80% but the first few attempts I scored down at around 40 - 60%. So... back to the books!

I lack the space at home to set up a real learning lab so I have been using virtualbox on my only pc for messing about with xp and server 2003. I have experienced a small problem trying out some unattended installations. For example, I set up my virtual server with RIS and an xp image and created a virtual machine to boot from the network. I am pretty sure that everything is set up properly: the server with dns, dhcp, ris, and active directory. I also have a user account (administrator - for simplicity) with the correct priviledges. I set the virtual machine to boot from the network and it boots fine. I get the RIS startup screens and enter the username and password. It then displays a screen showing me what the computer will be named and tells me to press enter to begin formatting the drive and then when I do... the machine reboots. I have had a similar problem trying to run an unattended installation using a floppy with answer file. The process starts but bombs out soon after starting.

Can anyone tell me whether this is a problem related to the emulation or is possible I have not set up everthing as correctly as I think I have? I am not too concerned if it won't work as installation was actually one of my strongest areas in the practice tests - it would just be cool to actually see the processes complete successfully.

Cheers
M

 

Okay after clearing all events and attempting the process again, I get one Application Information event: "The Remote Installation service successfully created the computer object: administrator2 by user: administrator."

I also get several successful security events in the categories: logon/logoff, Directory Service Access, Account Management, System Event, and Account Logon.

If I look in the Active Directory Users and Groups the Administrator1 and Administrator2 computers from the two failed attempts have been created in the Directory.

Anything else I could look at?

 

I have a hunch that it's VirtualBox that's the problem based on what you have said so far. The networking side of things sounds fine given that you can actually boot off the network card and can actually put the RIS credentials in.

The fact that a normal installation (in unattended mode) is also failing at the same point seems to indicate that VirtualBox is the problem, not your server. I would go back and create a new virtual machine and just double check all the hardware settings. Disable anything that isn't necessary, make sure it's got enough RAM (at least 128MB for XP). Make sure you tell VirtualBox that the VM is going to be for XP etc..

Another alternative would be to bridge the adapter in VirtualBox so that it can communicate on your physical local network, then use something like VirtualPC 2007, setup a VM inside that (with it's network adapter set to see your physical NIC) then try and do the RIS install to that machine. The only thing to watch out for there is if you have a broadband router that also has a DHCP server running on it. You could unplug your PC running the virtual clients from your local network to make sure there is no interference, it will just mean you are without internet access whilst unplugged. (or just disable the DHCP server temporarily).

 

Thanks for your replies all. I myself can only believe it's a problem with virtualbox and will give virtual pc a whirl later on when I get home from work.

 

Installed Virtual PC last night and successfully ran RIS. So for anyone who needs to know, use Virtual PC for testing unattended installs. For everything else use virtualbox because it's much faster.

 

Glad you got it working. Maybe it's a quirk of the version of VB and the host operating system? I installed XP with SP3 integrated onto VB (running on Linux), bridged the virtual adapter to the host adapter and joined it to the domain here at work.

Mind you, it took lots of fiddling to get the bloody thing to even bridge the adapter. Linux can be powerful, but I also find it a huge pain in the arse. The equivalent (VB on Vista 64bit) took me a couple of minutes to setup and bridge the adapter. As mentioned it took me ages on Linux.

 

Yeah, it's most probably some small bug or compatibility issue that's preventing it from working. I am running VB under linux not under windows. I must say that apart from that issue I really enjoy using VB. It's fast and easy to set up.

In any event, what's important is I have verified I can do it and know exactly how RIS works now. I can proceed on to the stuff I struggle with now ie. ntfs security, offline files, etc etc