Using the Administration Website

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Using the Administration Website

The Administration Website is a browser-based tool for configuring and managing Virtual Server 2005 and its associated virtual machines and virtual networks. For instructions on opening the Administration Website, see Open the Administration Website. To get help for any page of the Administration Website, click the Help button Art Image in the upper-right section of the pane.

Managing Virtual Server and virtual machines

From the Administration Website you can perform most management tasks for Virtual Server except for moving, copying, and deleting resource and configuration files and changing their file system security settings. You must perform these tasks directly in the file system. From a remote computer, you will need to use Remote Desktop Connection to perform such tasks. For performance and usability reasons, however, you should not open the Administration Website over Remote Desktop Connection.

From the Administration Website, you can also manage the state and configuration of virtual machines. In addition, you can access guest operating systems by using Remote Control view, as described later in "Master Status." Alternatively, you can use the Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) client, as described in Using the VMRC client to access virtual machines.

Specifying the location of files and folders

On some pages of the Administration Website, you need to specify the location of files or folders. Web browsers, however, do not provide the ability to "browse" through the file system or to files stored on a remote server. They only allow you to select a file on the local file system for upload. Even selecting a file requires that you have permissions not only on the folder containing the file, but on all of the parent folders as well. Under most circumstances user accounts are not granted such broad permissions. For these reasons, Virtual Server provides the ability to configure search paths for quickly locating files, in place of providing browse buttons. For more information, see Configuring Virtual Server search paths.

The navigation pane that appears on the left side of the Administration Website display provides links to pages where you can view information and perform configuration and control tasks. The remainder of this topic describes how to use the various sections of the navigation pane.

The Navigation section of the navigation pane contains the following links:

  • Master Status. Click to view the status of the currently configured virtual machines, as well as a list of recent Virtual Server events. You can go to Remote Control view for a running virtual machine by clicking the Remote View image in the status section. Remote View provides access to the guest operating system as well as options for changing the state of the virtual machine. For more information, see "Control Virtual Machine" later in this topic.
  • Virtual Server Manager. Point to this link and click the instance of Virtual Server to manage. This takes you to the Administration Website for that instance of Virtual Server. To add an instance of Virtual Server to the list, click Switch Virtual Servers. For instructions, see Add or Remove a Virtual Server Manager Search Path. The Virtual Server Manager link does not appear in Remote Control view.
  • Configure. This takes you to the status and configuration page for the virtual machine that you are currently managing. This link only appears in Remote Control view.

Virtual Machines

The Virtual Machines section of the navigation pane contains the following links:

  • Create. Click to create a new virtual machine.
  • Add. Click to add a virtual machine by using an existing configuration file.
  • Configure. Point to this link and click the virtual machine to configure. This takes you to the status and configuration options page for the virtual machine. This link only appears if at least one virtual machine for which you have view permissions has been configured.

The Virtual Machines section does not appear in Remote Control view.

Virtual Disks

The Virtual Disks section of the navigation pane contains the following links:

  • Create. Point to this link and click the command for the type of virtual disk you want to create.
  • Inspect. Click to specify the virtual disk to inspect. This takes you to a page displaying information about the virtual disk, as well as options to compact or convert a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk.

The Virtual Disks section does not appear in Remote Control view.

Virtual Networks

The Virtual Networks section of the navigation pane contains the following links:

  • Create. Click to create a virtual network.
  • Add. Click to add a virtual network by using an existing configuration file.
  • Configure. Point to this link and click the virtual network to configure. (By default, a virtual network is created for each active network adapter on the physical computer, as well as an internal virtual network for virtual machines only that is not attached to a network adapter.) Click View All to view the list of all virtual networks that are currently added to Virtual Server. Only virtual networks for which you have view permissions are displayed.

The Virtual Networks section does not appear in Remote Control view.

Virtual Server

The Virtual Server section of the navigation pane contains the following links:

  • Server Properties. Click to view information about Virtual Server or gain access to properties that you can configure.
  • Website Properties. Click to change settings for the Administration Website. The options include changing display settings and configuring Virtual Server Manager search paths, so that you can open the Administration Website for another instance of Virtual Server from the Virtual Server Manager link in the navigation pane.
  • Resource Allocation. Click to allocate CPU resources to virtual machines.
  • Event Viewer. Click to view Virtual Server events.

The Virtual Server properties section does not appear in Remote Control view.

Control Virtual Machine

The Control Virtual Machine section of the navigation pane appears only in Remote Control view. It includes links that you click to control the state of the virtual machine that you are viewing.

Note

For more information about working with the guest operating system, see Using the keyboard and mouse in a virtual machine in Virtual Server.

Depending on the current state of the virtual machine and its configuration, a subset of the following control options appears in the Control section:

  • Pause. Stops the virtual machine without discarding memory.
  • Resume. Resumes a paused virtual machine.
  • Save State. Saves the current state of the virtual machine, and stops the virtual machine from running. This creates a temporary file in the same location as the virtual machine configuration files with a .vsv extension that contains state information. When the virtual machine is restored from the saved state, it returns to the condition that it was in when its state was saved.
  • Save State and Commit Undo Disks. Saves the current state of the virtual machine, merges the undo disk with the parent, and stops the virtual machine from running. Saving state creates a temporary file in the same location as the virtual machine configuration files with a .vsv extension that contains state information. When the virtual machine is restored from the saved state, it returns to the condition that it was in when its state was saved.
  • Save State and Keep Undo Disks. Saves the current state of the virtual machine, keeps the undo disk, and stops the virtual machine from running. This creates a temporary file in the same location as the virtual machine configuration files with a .vsv extension that contains state information. When the virtual machine is restored from the saved state, it returns to the condition that it was in when its state was saved.
  • Shut Down Guest OS. Shuts down the guest operating system.
  • Shut Down Guest OS and Keep Undo Disks. Shuts down the guest operating system and keeps the undo disk.
  • Shut Down Guest OS and Commit Undo Disks. Shuts down the guest operating system and merges the undo disk with the parent disk.
  • Turn Off. Turns off the virtual machine without saving any state information. This action has the same effect on the virtual machine as does pulling the plug on a physical computer.
  • Turn Off Virtual Machine and Keep Undo Disks. Turns off the virtual machine without saving any state information, and keeps the undo disk. This action has the same effect on the virtual machine as does pulling the plug on a physical computer without deleting undo disks.
  • Turn Off Virtual Machine and Commit Undo Disks. Turns off the virtual machine without saving any state information, and merges the undo disk with the parent disk. This action has the same effect on the virtual machine as does pulling the plug on a physical computer.
  • Turn Off Virtual Machine and Discard Undo Disks. Turns off the virtual machine, discards the undo disk, and does not save any state information. This action has the same effect on the virtual machine as does pulling the plug on a physical computer. When the virtual machine is turned on again, a new empty undo disk is created. For more information, see Using Undo Disks.
  • Reset. Resets the virtual machine.

Note

Undo Disks is a feature that you can use to control whether changes are saved to a virtual hard disk (.vhd) or to a separate file. Changes to the virtual hard disk are saved in an undo disk file until you either delete the changes, which erases the undo disk file, or commit the changes, which saves the changes to the original virtual hard disk. For more information about undo disks, see Using Undo Disks. If you turn off a virtual machine in Remote Control view, then navigate away from the page, and then use the Back button to navigate back again, the virtual machine will turn on.