Windows Server clusters on Virtual Box 4.x ?

[yurib]

Hello everyone

I would like to set up a 2-node Windows Server 2008 R2 (or 2012) cluster on Virtual Box 4.2.

So I need to build 3 VMs on Windows7 64-bit host OS - one VM for the AD/DNS server and two VMSs for the Windows cluster nodes.

This is *not* for production, this is just for *testing* purposes only and all VMs will run on the same Windows7 host 64-bit O/S - using the storage directly attached to the host OS.

Can anyone assist with the steps? Is it even possible? Will the fail-over work? How to set up the disks so they work in Windows Server 2008/2012 cluster? How to set up the IP/network between these 3 VMs (public, private, 192.168.x.y ?)

Many thanks in advance
Yuri

[BillG]

I doubt it. I have never seen any guide to clustering virtual machines. I can't see how you would emulate the shared storage. All the guides specify physical storage with physical network connections.

[yurib]

VirtualBox allows me to build a Linux Oracle cluster (RAC and RAc One Node) which I have successfully done.

VirtualBox supports shared storage via:

C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage storageattach SRV2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type hdd --medium disk1.vdi --mtype shareable

I was hoping to be able to configure storage such that I could run Windows Cluster too.

Alas, Windows Cluster verification complains about the disks I created.


C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage createhd --filename c:\yuri\Windows_VM\disk1.vdi --size 5120 --format VDI --variant Fixed
C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage createhd --filename c:\yuri\Windows_VM\disk2.vdi --size 5120 --format VDI --variant Fixed


C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage storageattach SRV1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type hdd --medium disk1.vdi --mtype shareable
C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage storageattach SRV1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 2 --device 0 --type hdd --medium disk2.vdi --mtype shareable

C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage modifyhd disk1.vdi --type shareable
C:\"Program Files"\Oracle\virtualbox\VBoxManage modifyhd disk2.vdi --type shareable

Above works for Oracle Linux RAC.

I am sure I am doing something wrong here wrt Windows Cluster.....
should mtype = multiattach ? what kind of controller? There are so many parameters, I dont know which to choose to please Windows Clusters....

Also - I just found this but its from September 2010, 2 years old.....

http://www.sysprobs.com/configure-test- ... virtualbox

Can this now be done without using FreeNAS, just using VirtualBox 4.x ??

thanks