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  • 1.  computer doesn't appear in console

    Posted Aug 18, 2011 11:22 PM

    hello everyone, I'm currently having a headache. I have a sysprep windows 7 image. In the image, virtual box is installed. Once I deployed the image on 30 computer, only 1 showed up in the console registered with the virtual mac adress instead of the physical one. When using one of the script to search the database, I found out that both mac where registered with the computer. Thing is, all 30 other computers to which I deployed doesn't appear. I then removed the computer from the console and it never reappered. I tried doing a mac search from the script, computer not there anymore. I then uninstall ghost, remote install, local install, restart, nothing work. Then I deleted the virtual NIC, uninstall agent, reinstall, reboot, the computer still doesn't appear.

     

    What is going on? I know It's not a firewall issue or a network issue since 1 computer manage to join the console. The computer are brand new with a new image. It's the only windows 7 I have with a virtual NIC (I though sysprep would remove it like in xp so normally I remove it first to configure virtual box but it seems this time,I forgot). I tried searching with the script for virtual box and physical address and it says it doesn't exist.

     

    Thanks



  • 2.  RE: computer doesn't appear in console

    Posted Aug 19, 2011 02:15 AM

    VirtualBox, like VMWare and Virtual PC, emulates the SMBIOS specification. One of the things the SMBIOS specification includes is a way of determining for a machine a unique identifier - and this identifier is defined, and required to be, *genuinely* unique.

    Because for physical machines this is the best - and in fact, just about only - way to reliably determine machine identity, this is naturally the primary identifier used. Therefore, whether for a physical machine (where Dell often to get this wrong and manufacture machines which don't comply with the specifications) or a virtual machine, the uniqueness of this identifier matters.

    All the virtualization systems generates UUIDs for VMs automatically; VMWare is particularly clever in that it also generates an ID based on the pathname at which a VM resides, so that when a machine is moved or copied it will detect this when the VM is opened and if you say the VM is copied it will generate a fresh UUID for the contained system to distinguish it from the original.

    For VirtualBox, not just VMs but disks have UUIDs attached as well (and those UUIDs are registered at machine scope in the VirtualBox media manager) and so anyone familiar with VirtualBox will inevitably become au fait with the need to refresh/update them as well - unlike VMware none of the UUID-related processes are automatic but need to be scripted.

    All this is covered in the VirtualBox manual; since the management system trusts that if an SMBIOS UUID exists that it is unique (unless proven otherwise, for the benefit of Dell systems, where MAC addresses are used as a secondary key to prove that the UUIDs are untrustworthy) and since the MAC addresses are also identical, there is NO WAY for the management systems to know which machine is what unless you ensure that the virtual machines can be reliably given some form of unique identifier.



  • 3.  RE: computer doesn't appear in console

    Posted Aug 19, 2011 03:26 PM

    Hello, I think you got my situation wrong. I don't run any virtual machine. I h ave 30 computers with windows 7 installed. On them, the application virtual box is installed but no VM existe (it's a school, the program is there for the IT program to learn to use it). Virtual Box create a host only adapter and it seems to create some problem when the computer isn't already into the ghost console.

    I've made a test with my image and deployed it on an already existing computer in the ghost console and once it rebooted, it was working. When I try to deploy another image on one of the 30 that doesn't appear in the console, one that doesn't contain a virtual box host only NIC, it shows up in console and afterward, I can ghost back the other image and everything is fine.

    I have the exact same setup in XP, but I'm not using sysprep on xp, only ghostwalker, and no problem. It seems to be a problem with windows 7.

    There is no Machine UUID involve from virtual box since it's not running and no VM exist on the machine.

    Oh, something just happened. I'm currently on one computer that I ghost with the vm image that doesn't show in console. For an unknown reason, the computer was there but the Ghost System Tray juste crash with error:

    Signature du problème :
      Nom d’événement de problème:    APPCRASH
      Nom de l’application:    ngtray.exe
      Version de l’application:    11.5.1.2266
      Horodatage de l’application:    4b339212
      Nom du module par défaut:    ngtray.exe
      Version du module par défaut:    11.5.1.2266
      Horodateur du module par défaut:    4b339212
      Code de l’exception:    c0000005
      Décalage de l’exception:    0000a149
      Version du système:    6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.4
      Identificateur de paramètres régionaux:    3084
      Information supplémentaire n° 1:    0a9e
      Information supplémentaire n° 2:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
      Information supplémentaire n° 3:    0a9e
      Information supplémentaire n° 4:    0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

    Lire notre déclaration de confidentialité en ligne :
      http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x040c

    Si la déclaration de confidentialité en ligne n’est pas disponible, lisez la version hors connexion :
      C:\Windows\system32\fr-FR\erofflps.txt

     

    Sorry french. It seems what I though was working isn't really working. I tried to delete the host only NIC, reinstall ghost client, didn't work, computer stil doesn't show in console.

    Thanks



  • 4.  RE: computer doesn't appear in console

    Posted Aug 19, 2011 06:57 PM

    I assumed it was something slightly different since in the case of physical machines, I've already explained the process in detail some 50 or 60 times here on the forums. The principles are of course exactly the same regardless of whether we're talking a virtual host or guest.

    There is no Machine UUID involve

    You need to establish that. Your *physical machines* should also have a unique SMBIOS machine UUID; these days, most manufacturers get this right but part of why I've had to repeatedly explain this so many times over the years is that a few do not. This was more common in years past but even today there is a small residual set of machines which do not have SMBIOS UUIDs.

    If your physical machines do not have a unique SMBIOS UUID (either because it's absent or because they are manufactured incorrectly and not unique) then the only identifier available to Ghost is physical MAC addresses. In that case, if the list of physical MAC addresses inside the machines, then the Ghost server simply cannot be sure what the true identity of a machine is, and so the machines end up being overlapped.

    Now, the Ghost client uses every programming technique available to distinguish between physical adapters and virtual ones, and as special code for for VMWare - since VMWare obey the IEEE specifications and have a unique MAC address OUI assignment registration, the virtual NICs running in the host are filtered.

    However, some third-party software VPN adapters, some manufacturers of 3G nics, and VirtualBox do not correctly obey the MAC address assignment rules. The 3G NIC manufacturers tend to be the worst, because they have OUI assignments yet do not honour the specifications and manufacture devices which all have identical MAC addresses. VirtualBox and third-party software VPNs are more problematic because it's not clear whether they actually own they OUI assignment - according to the IEEE registry, they use an OUI assigned to "Cadmus Computer Systems" - and as such it's never been clear whether this should be added to the virtual-host MAC blacklist table inside GSS or not.

    That said VirtualBox has rarely been a problem in hosts since the MAC address is generated at install time and exists in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318} - in one of the subkeys under there will be a subentry for the virtual NICs with a "MAC" value containing the address the driver returns to the network stack on the host machine.

    [ As another note, anyone who has used VMWare or VirtualBox extensively will be familiar with the subtle problems the host virtual adapters can cause at the IPv4 level. If you have two physical hosts with non-routed virtual NICs assigned to the same IPv4 subnet, the hosts advertise their host-only IPv4 address as part of their workgroup-level NetBIOS name registrations.

    This means that the two machines will then often have no workgroup connectivity; an attempt to send from one to another will often try the private host-only IP address first and tries to contact the machine via  that. Since that machine has the exact same IPv4 host-only network, it tries that and ends up failing to contact the machine. In order to resolve this, it's necessary to ensure that machines containing virtual hosts use distinct IP address ranges for their host-only virtual network adapters so that when selecting a common IP network to communicate on, the hosts always select a real network rather than one with no connectivity. ]

    Now, it may be that in your case the hosts do actually have distinct SMBIOS UUID assignments, but you need to establish whether they do or not as the first step to diagnosing your problems.

    For an unknown reason, the computer was there but the Ghost System Tray juste crash with error:

    This error report in the event log doesn't contain any useful information; instead, all the GSS management components contain error-trap code which writes a full memory mini-dump along with a human-readable stack trace to the files NGERROR.DMP and NGERROR.TXT respectively before passing things along to the default Windows Error Reporting handler.

    To determine the cause of a fault, it's necessary to supply the content of the .TXT file at least, which indicates where exactly in the program the fault occurred, which usually indicates what the underlying cause is (and in the rare cases where a fault is new, the .DMP file can be analysed inside Visual Studio to inspect the complete program state at the time it failed and from that divine the cause).



  • 5.  RE: computer doesn't appear in console

    Posted Sep 30, 2011 09:41 AM

    I understand what you are saying. Thing is a little different here.

    The virtual box use host-only adapter. The virtual machine can't access the network. Since virtual box is installed before doing the image capture, unless there is a way I don't know, the virtual host-only adapter that is installed, once cloned, will be the same for all computer. This doesn't bother me since it's a host only adapter, no connection to real network.

    All my computer have unique UUID from the bios, I've checked them and HP does it job well. But here is the thing:

    I have the exact same setup in Windows XP. A computer with virtual box installed, clone captured, no problem in ghost, only 1 mac is taken and it's the real one. When checking the host-only adapter, they all have same mac and ghost doesn't have it (when checking in DB, there's no entry).

    Replicating this on Windows 7, ghost take the Virtual Box Host-Only Adapter.

    Again, here we are talking about virtual box installed but no VM, No Virtual Disk. The installation is for teacher and student to learn how to use it and for ease of access.

    I also saw that in Windows XP, when running sysprep, it remove the Virtual NIC and in Windows 7, it doesn't (which is good since there's no way to reinstall it in a silent way).

    I tried ghosting the same computer with a Windows XP image that have virtual box and everything is good. I saw the key you are talking about. On my computer right now, subkey 17 contain a VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter. I don't know if the filtering is at the deviceID, but it's not the same as VirtualBox Bridged Networking Driver Miniport. The DeviceID for the later is ROOT\SUN_VBOXNETFLTMP\0000, and for host-only is ROOT\NET\0000.

     

    thanks