Cloning a Virtual Machine

If you have a Virtual Machine (VM) where Fiorano software is installed and now you need another Virtual Machine or machines with the entire file system, configuration and settings (such as Fiorano installation folder and java version) that are exactly the same as the existing VM, it can be accomplished by the process called Cloning.

Cloning is the process of creating an independent copy of an existing VM which in turn becomes the parent of the clone, whereas this clone will not share anything with the parent and vice versa.

Cloning helps in making as many copies of a virtual machine as you want from an already configured machine. Virtual machines with identical configuration can be assigned to a group which requires machines with same configuration and installation files.

There are basically two types of cloning which are:

Full Clone—An independent copy of a virtual machine that shares nothing with the parent virtual machine after the cloning operation. Ongoing operation of a full clone is entirely separate from the parent virtual machine.

Linked Clone—A copy of a virtual machine that shares virtual disks with the parent virtual machine in an ongoing manner. This conserves disk space, and allows multiple virtual machines to use the same software installation.

Prerequisites

• Install VMware Workstation 5.0 (or higher version) in your system or upgrade to Version 5 (VM > Upgrade from your VMware application) in case you have an older version installed.
  • If you are upgrading a virtual machine that runs from a physical disk and not from a virtual disk, ignore the following message and click OK to continue:"Unable to upgrade <drivename>. One of the supplied parameters is invalid."
• Before starting with cloning (also before upgrading, in case you are upgrading to Workstation 5.0), power off the virtual machine that needs to be cloned.
• Take a snapshot (VM > Snapshot > Take Snapshot) to save the present state (at the moment of taking snapshot) of the virtual machine, so that you can revert to this particular state in case you make any mistake during cloning.

A snapshot is enough to use a particular state of the VM, but to make an entire copy of a virtual machine for separate use, use clone.

Procedure

The Clone Virtual Machine Wizard guides you through the process of making a clone and you do not require manually locating and copying the parent virtual machine files. The wizard automatically creates a new MAC address and other unique identifiers for the clone.

Below sections explain how to do a Full Clone and Linked Clone as well.

Full Clone

To create a clone of a Virtual Machine, perform the following actions:

1. Select the Virtual Machine from the VMWare application using one of the two ways below:
   1. From the Favorites list at the left side of the Workstation window).
   2. Open (File > Open) and browse for the VM configuration (.vmx) file.
      
      
2. Open the Clone Virtual Machine Wizard (VM > Clone). In the Welcome page of the wizard, click Next.
   
   

   

   
   Figure 1: Clone Virtual Machine Wizard
    

3. In the Clone Source panel, select From current state option and click Next.

   

   Use From snapshot if you have any snapshots taken previously and want to use that.

   

   
   Figure 2: Choosing the state from which clone has to be created
    

4. In the Clone Type panel, select Create a full clone and click Next.
   
   

   

   
   Figure 3: Choosing to create a Full Clone
    
5. In the Name of the New Virtual Machine panel, change the name of the clone and change the location if required by clicking Browse button, and then click Finish.
   
   

   

   
   Figure 4: Choosing Name and Location of the cloned VM
    

6. In the Cloning Virtual Machine panel where it displays the final status of cloning, click Done to complete the cloning process and exit from the wizard.
   
   

   

   
   Figure 5: Panel showing the status of completion of cloning
   

   The time taken to complete the cloning process depends on the size of the virtual disk that is being duplicated.

Linked Clone

A linked clone is made from a snapshot of the parent where all the files available on the parent at the moment of taking the snapshot will be available to the linked clone. But, unlike Full Cloned VM,  Linked Clone VM has to be connected to the Parent VM.

Though the changes done to either of the machines (parent and clone) won't have any impact on each other, a linked clone does not work without access to the parent Virtual Machine.

To create a Linked Clone, select Create a linked clone option present in the Clone Type panel of the Clone Virtual Machine Wizard. Rest of the steps are the same as in Full Clone; refer Procedure section below.

Linked clones are created swiftly, so you can easily create a unique virtual machine for each task you have. You can also easily share a virtual machine with other users by storing it on your local network where other users can quickly make a linked clone.

Linked Cloning facilitates collaboration, for example, after a support team reproduces a bug in a virtual machine, an engineer can quickly make a linked clone of that virtual machine to work on the bug. For such short-term but timely requirements, linked cloning can be used instead of the Full Clone.

To avoid inadvertently deleting the parent of linked clones, the parent virtual machine can be saved as a template. To designate a virtual machine as a template, enable Template Mode in the virtual machine Settings Editor (VM > Settings > Options > Advanced > Enable Template mode).

Peer Server Profile Setup

Fiorano Peer Servers are generally installed as HA (High Availability) Pairs. Replicated HA is used where the Active Server (the server which is in the Active State) replicates its data store and state to the Passive Server, thus keeping both servers in sync.

An HA pair involves two servers - a primary server and a secondary server. After cloning, as both the servers will have the same configuration, a few changes are required in the configuration so that the servers can communicate to each other and work flawlessly.

The following sections outline how to setup an HA for the new VM after cloning.

• If the servers are installed as Standalone, then only the steps mentioned in sections Profile Folder Change and Profile Pair ID change are required for profile related changes.
• In case of Standalone servers, profile will not have a primary/secondary directory unlike HA.

Changing the Profiles

Fiorano server profiles are present at the location FIORANO_HOME/esb/server/profiles.

FIORANO_HOME refers to the location where Fiorano is installed, that is, /opt/Fiorano/Fiorano10.2.0. PROFILE_FOLDER refers to the folder that holds the server configuration.

The changes that are to be made are mentioned in the below sections.

Primary Server changes

Login to the server designated as the primary server. In the cloned VM, the folder with the name {profile_name}/primary represents the Primary server and this folder needs to be modified as explained in the below section.

Profile Folder Changes

Rename the {profile_name} folder to the new profile name, that is, the new path becomes FioranoHome/esb/server/profiles/{new_profile_name }/primary. This folder is referred as PROFILE_FOLDER in rest of this section.

Profile Pair ID Changes

Both the profiles share an ID which is used to establish connection with Enterprise Server.To define this, open profile.xml file present inside the PROFILE_FOLDER.

Change value of the attribute 'name' to <NewServer ID>

Profile Configuration Changes

The Profile configuration XML file (Configs.xml) is present in the PROFILE_FOLDER/conf directory.

Change the following attributes and set to the IP address of the secondary server:

• The attribute BackupHAIPAddress of the element HA_KRPCPROVIDER
• The attribute BackupServerIP of the element DEFAULT_OBJS_CONFIG

The attribute 'ServerAddress' of the element CONNECTION_MANAGER must be changed and set to the IP address of the primary server.

The LockFile attribute of element RPL_HA_MANAGER must be updated with the Lock File name for the corresponding HA Pair. 

FES Connection Configuration

FES Connection configuration is present as the element MESSAGE_BUS_CONFIG as shown in the figure . This will be already present in the cloned VM and need not be changed.

Secondary Server changes

Make the corresponding changes in the Secondary Server as well following the steps as mentioned above.

Changes to enable Auto Start

In case of Windows setup, please uninstall the old service and reinstall the service with the profile option changed to the new profile setting.

In case of Linux servers, please follow the steps below:-

Fiorano Peer Server can be started as a service by adding it to init.d services. The executable to run server as a service, server-service.sh will be present in the Cloned VM at the location /etc/init.d. This file needs to be modified and the directory to which the profile is renamed to must be specified against the property 'PROFILE', that is, PROFILE = {new_profile_name}/primary

Edit the file and change the value of variable PROFILE by executing the following command:

/etc/init.d $ sudo vi server-service.sh

Add the file to system startup by executing the following command:

/etc/init.d $ sudo /sbin/chkconfig --add server-service.sh

Some warnings may appear, which may be ignored.

Starting and Stopping Servers

In case of windows, this can be done from the windows services manager, by starting and stopping the installed Fiorano windows service.

In case of Linux, the following commands need to be used:

Log on to the primary and secondary servers and navigate to /etc/init.d

• Start command

  CODE

  /etc/init.d $ sudo bash server-service.sh start

   

• Stop command

  CODE

   /etc/init.d $ sudo bash server-service.sh stop

License Provisioning

The necessary license files must be copied to the folder FIORANO_HOME/licenses.

This may not be required if the Cloned VM already has non node locked licenses in place.