Reference9:Concept Innovaphone Virtual Appliance: Difference between revisions

From innovaphone wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 160: Line 160:
===How do I perform a factory reset?===
===How do I perform a factory reset?===


replace the 3rd disk, served on IDE 1:0, named hd-flash.vmdk with an empty disk:
replace disk named hd-flash.vmdk with an empty disk:


1)download the IPVA and watch out for the file hd-flash.vmdk
1)download the IPVA and watch out for the file hd-flash.vmdk

Revision as of 14:45, 25 May 2011

Applies To

This information applies to:

  • V9
  • innovaphone Virtual Appliance
  • Intel/AMD CPUs
  • VMware
    • Workstation 7.1
    • Player 3.x [1]
    • vSphere 4.1

More Information

The innovaphone Virtual Appliance (IPVA) is a virtual machine to be run on a virtualization platform. Whereby, VMware[2] is is the solely supported virtualization platform to-date.

The IPVA is a software-only solution. It appears as and performs as an innovaphone "hard-box" excluding DSP-, ISDN-/AB-resources.

The following core-components are contained within the IPVA:

  • innovaphone PBX
  • innovaphone Gateway (a.k.a Relay)
  • integrated mass-storage (alike innovaphones' CF-card support)

Configuration

Download the IPVA.

  • The compressed archive ipva-vmx.zip contains 1 virtual machine configuration file (*.vmx) and 4 virtual machine disk files (*.vmdk):
    • ipva.vmx: The virtual machine configuration file
    • hd-boot.vmdk: The virtual boot harddisk (hd)
    • hd-cf.vmdk: The hd for emulation of a Compact Flash card
    • hd-flash.vmdk: The hd for emulation of flash memory
    • hd-dump.vmdk: The hd serving as a store for a crash dump

The file ipva.bin is the firmware file, which is only needed for update purposes.

VMware Player

  • Copy the IPVA to e.g. your desktop
  • Double-click on ipva.vmx

The IPVA is going to be started.

A shortcut (*.lnk file) to the vmx-file will start the IPVA without additional user interaction. Such a shortcut may also be copied into the Windows Autostart program folder, in order to have the IPVA started automatically on windows startup.

VMware Workstation

  • Copy the IPVA to e.g. your desktop
  • Double-click on ipva.vmx

The IPVA is going to be started.

The Workstation 7 directory comprises the command line utility vmrun.exe. A batch file according to the following pattern may be crafted to programmatically start the IPVA. 

"D:\Programme\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmrun" start "C:\Users\Tester\Desktop\ipva\ipva.vmx"

Note: By altering start into stop a virtual machine may be stopped.

VMware vSphere 4.x

The IPVA offered for downloading must be converted into a vSphere-processable form. The IPVA can be converted by means of the tool VMware vCenter Converter Standalone[3]. A step-by-step guide may be found here.

Note: See known issue Don't use Maintenance/Upload/DRAM on vSphere 4.

Network Configuration

Currently as DHCP client only. I.e. a DHCP server must be available.

License Configuration

For the IPVA9 license see Reference9:Licenses.

The licensing procedure is the same as for other innovaphone products, except for one peculiarity: The MAC address, generated by VMware, may have been assigned already to another customer/installation. Such a conflict must be settled manually as explained below.

If, while generating licenses within my.innovaphone.com, a message (My_Innovaphone#IP-VA_MAC_exists) is displayed: 

IP-VA MAC exists

then a new MAC address must be assigned manually to the affected installation.

In order to assign a new MAC address:

  • Power-off the virtual machine
  • Open the file ipva.vmx for editing within a text editor.
  • Edit the last 3 hex-values of the lines starting with ethernet0.generatedAddress & uuid.bios from e.g.
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:f4:c6:d9"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 64 b9 52 ce 38 57-66 29 e8 f2 77 f4 c6 d9"

into e.g 

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:f4:c6:da"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 64 b9 52 ce 38 57-66 29 e8 f2 77 f4 c6 da"

(Note: in this example just the very last hex-value d9 is going to be altered into da)

  • Within my.innovaphone.com try once again to generate licenses for the virtual machine with the new MAC address.

Provision Of External Resources

External Resources are required, in order to provide:

  • Access to ISDN interfaces
  • DSP conferencing channels

The IP1060[4] media gateway may be considered as a suitable complement for such purposes.

Download

IPVA.zip from http://download.innovaphone.com/ice/9.00/#firmware

Troubleshooting

A new option has been added to Admistration/Diagnostics/Tracing. The option trace(crash-dump) is going to read a post-mortem log from hd-dump.vmdk, if available.

Known Issues

ESX 3.x is unsupported

The IPVA does not run under ESX 3.x and below, since virtual IDE disks aren't supported.

Don't use Maintenance/Upload/DRAM on vSphere 4

Until further notice this way of uploading a new firmware is currently not supported. The VMM detects and assumes the guest (IPVA) is going to shutting-off. All the virtual harddisks may get lost in the aftermath. vmware.log shows: 

...

Mar 02 13:02:25.439: vcpu-0| Vix: [4864986 vmxCommands.c:9609]: VMAutomation_HandleCLIHLTEvent. Do nothing.
Mar 02 13:02:25.462: vcpu-0| MsgHint: msg.monitorevent.halt (sent)
Mar 02 13:02:25.462: vcpu-0| The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system. Power off or reset the virtual machine.

...and then when trying to power-on later...

Mar 03 08:37:00.260: vmx| Destroying virtual dev for ide0:1 vscsi=8303
Mar 03 08:37:00.260: vmx| VMMon_VSCSIStopVports: Invalid handle
Mar 03 08:37:00.260: vmx| VMMon_VSCSIDestroyDev: Not found
Mar 03 08:37:00.260: vmx| Destroying virtual dev for ide1:0 vscsi=8304
Mar 03 08:37:00.261: vmx| VMMon_VSCSIStopVports: Invalid handle
Mar 03 08:37:00.261: vmx| VMMon_VSCSIDestroyDev: Not found
...

FAQ

Are Firmware Updates Possible?

Yes, alike the well-known *.bin firmware files for other innovaphone products (ip6000.bin, ip2000.bin,..) , there's a similar bin-file (ipva.bin) for the IPVA. The file is contained on the boot-hd and can be found by browsing to e.g. http://192.168.0.5/drive/HD-BOOT . The versioning of ipva.bin is the same as for the other products. The firmware file may exactly be uploaded as for other products:

  • by Upload/Firmware
  • by Upload/Dram
  • by a script for the innovaphone Update Process

Do I Always Need To Download The Entire IPVA?

No, after the 1st-time deployment of an entire IPVA only the firmware file ipva.bin needs to be downloaded from download.innovaphone.com. See Are Firmware Updates Possible? for how to proceed further.

How Is The Network Connection Being Handled?

The network connection is pre-configured to: Bridged: Connected directly to the physical network

What Is The Size Of the Emulated CompactFlash?

1GB

Can The Emulated CompactFlash Be Increased In Size?

Yes, from within the Edit Virtual Machine dialog. Doing so just increases the size of the virtual harddisk. The emulated CompactFlash must be formatted afterwards and accordingly to benefit from the increased size. That step can be administrated from Administration/Compact Flash/Format. Note: This entire procedure is untested. A recommendation for an upper size limit is not given.

What Is The Size Of the emulated Flash Storage on the IPVA?

The virtual flash storage used to store configuration file of the IPVA and LDAP directory of the PBX is defined with 64 MB and can not be changed. This is two times more than on IP6010. The VMDK-File hd-flash.vmdk is allocated with 100 MB, because VMWare can not handle smaller virtual disks.

How Much RAM Is Required Per IPVA Instance?

The downloadable virtual appliance comes preconfigured with 64MB RAM. This amount is seen as a good trade-off for the majority of all installations. The RAM-size can be administrated by VMware-means.

How Many IPVA Instances Are Possible Per Host?

There's no worst-case estimate available. For a best-case calculation,

Where Has PPP-Functionality Gone?

PPP-scenarios (PPTP, PPPoE) are not envisaged with the IPVA, because it has only one network interface controller.

Update(07.Mar.2011), from on 90468:

  • PPP has been integrated
  • a second network interface is available (now ETH0 and ETH1)
    • ETH1 comes pre-configured: host-only, disconnected. I.e. it must be reconfigured manually and by VMware means to become functional.

Does The IPVA Support Non-VMware Hypervisor Products?

No, currently it doesn't.

How do I perform a factory reset?

replace disk named hd-flash.vmdk with an empty disk:

1)download the IPVA and watch out for the file hd-flash.vmdk

2)Power-off the IPVA instance

3)Replace hd-flash.vmdk with the one downloaded in step 1). If on vsphere it may have been assigned a different name. Ensure it’s the one on IDE 1:0.

4)Power-on the IPVA instance

Notes

  1. ↑ VMware Player Download(free): http://vmware.com/download/player/
  2. ↑ http://www.vmware.com
  3. ↑ VMware vCenter Converter Standalone: https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=converter
  4. ↑ IP1060 Product Information

Related Articles

Reference9:Licenses

Retrieved from "https://wiki.innovaphone.com/index.php?title=Reference9:Concept_Innovaphone_Virtual_Appliance&oldid=21192"