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Windows on OVH VPS SSD
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Windows on OVH VPS SSD

GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
edited January 2017 in Tutorials

The title of this thread isn't a joke, after many months I have been able to get Windows Server 2012 R2 successfully running on OVH's VPS SSD 1. https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/vps-ssd.xml
Since I am unaware of any previous events of this happening I decided to share my findings with anyone who would be interested.

This is NOT violating the Terms of Service or Rules of OVH or these forums.

These steps will also work on any other VPS in the SSD, RAM or Cloud ranges. I am using the VPS SSD 1 as it's the cheapest at $3 and has 2 gigs of ram, 10gb ssd and 100mbps down and up.

The technology OVH uses, all of their VPS ranges use the same or similar spec'd servers.
CPU: E5-2687Wv3
Disks: PCIe NVMe SSDs
Network: 100mbps down and up with DDoS Mitigation included for free
Hypervisor: OpenStack Nova

How I was able to do it: I bought 2 VPSs. I bought a VPS Cloud 1 with the Windows Server option, and a CentOS 6 VPS SSD 1. I shrinked the partition down to 8.5GB in Windows, I then booted both into the recovery mode on both VPSs and used GParted to shrink the size of the Windows Server's VPS vdb2 down to 9 gigs so it would fit on the VPS SSD 1, and used SSHFS on a third VPS and dd to clone the MBR, vdb1 (Windows system) and vdb2 (Windows OS) files over to the SSD 1 VPS and rebooted and there you go.

Here is how you can do it for yourself, I am going to make it easy, and not charge for it, mainly because I would be violating a bunch of rules and terms of service agreements if I did that. For those of you new to OVH they have NEVER had a custom ISO option (unless you pay for IPKVM on their dedicated servers), so that is why this process is a bit more involved than usual, but shouldn't be hard at all as long as you follow the instructions.

Before we begin: Disclaimer about the distribution of Microsoft products.

I have provided a 100% product-key, activation free windows server 2012 R2 DD image of this VPS below, this image has no product keys inputted and is UNACTIVATED and 100% legal to distribute. Windows Server 2012 R2 will run for 30 days before complaining, however if you are a student in high school or College/University or post-secondary education you can get a free 1 year windows server 2012 R2 license through Microsoft DreamSpark which is available in many different countries.

I do plan to offer more versions such as Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Server 2016, Server 2003 R2, etc but for now this is all that we have and should be good enough as it's pretty much the standard for Windows Server deployments at the time of writing this.

Step 1. Head over to https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/vps-ssd.xml (if you are in a different country change that in the top right hand corner by clicking on the US flag.)

Step 2. Purchase the VPS SSD 1 for $3.49/month, click on order, on the next page pick your location, and then choose CentOS as your distribution and CentOS 6 64bit as your version. Then click on continue and complete the transaction and pay for it.

Step 3. Once the VPS has been activated, installed and set up by OVH and is visible in your manager, go ahead and click on "Rescue mode" and wait for the VPS to reboot into rescue mode. You will need patience, it'll take about 5 minutes to reboot into rescue mode and send you an email with the SSH login details.

Step 4. Install an SSH client like mRemoteNG if you are using windows or if you are on mac/linux open up a terminal and ssh root@(vps ip), this is assuming you've used SSH before.

Step 5. Once you are in the recovery-pro environment do the following commands in this order.

apt-get update

and press Y on any prompts you get, it is okay if you don't get a prompt or get an error, continue to the next step..

apt-get upgrade

and press Y on any prompts that you get, it is okay if you don't get a prompt or get an error, continue to the next step..

once that has finished, now do

apt-get install sshfs tmux

lsblk

and you should see the following

vda 254:0 0 10G 0 disk

└─vda1 254:1 0 10G 0 part /

vdb 254:16 0 10G 0 disk

├─vdb1 254:17 0 10G 0 part /mnt/vdb1

vda and vda1 that are 10 gigs in size is the temporary filesystem mounted for the use of the recovery mode, we aren't going to touch these, this has nothing to do with the VPS or it's filesystem. (This will vary depending on the VPS you're doing this on.)

vdb and vdb1 are the VPS's 10GB (or larger depending on your selected VPS) SSD, these are where we will be installing our image of Windows.

Basically what you want to do at this point is restore the dd file containing the windows image onto the VPS. To do this we'll do the following, first run these commands to make sure we have full access to everything on the disk.

umount /mnt/vdb1

rm -rf /mnt/vdb1

tmux

now we can restore the image. Keep in mind this will take well over an hour, so leave this running and go to something else until it finishes. The command to start this is

wget -O- 'http://192.99.235.192/FinalOVHServer2012R2VPSimage.img.gz' | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/vdb

It will take around an hour or 2 for this to complete, so just relax and go and do something else whilst that happens, don't press or touch anything, you'll know when it's done when you see

root@rescue-pro:~#

and you are able to type stuff again, if you think it's frozen give it at least 2 hours, if it still hasn't completed by then reconnect and type "tmux attach-session" and you'll most likely find it's completed.

Once it's done go back to your OVH manager and press the "Reboot my VPS" button, the VPS will take a bit to reboot, and once it's done click on the KVM button and then "Open in a new window".

You should see before you the Windows Server 2012 login screen. Press the control alt delete button and type in TempPass123#* as the password, then you will be prompted to enter a new Administrator password for obvious security reasons, so enter yours and then press enter and if everything went well you should be booted to the desktop, and we are done!. Additional IPs, an additional disk, etc will all work, you can set those up by following OVH's own documentation under the Windows section.

Remote desktop connection is enabled by default and your VPS will obtain it's dedicated IP via DHCP as that is how OVH has their system set up.

I plan on making different images for different Windows installs, but for now this should be good enough.

Now what about other operating systems like FreeBSD, Solaris, etc? Well Solaris is out of the question as it has no VirtIO support which OVH's hypervisor requires, and I haven't tried FreeBSD using this method but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Credits:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/disk_cloning#Using_dd
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-sshfs-to-mount-remote-file-systems-over-ssh
https://kb.iu.edu/d/abbe
https://www.vultr.com/docs/correcting-time-on-windows-server

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Comments

  • Awesome guide! :D

    Thanked by 1GamerTech24
  • I had this working on the 10GB SSD VPS as well about a half a year ago, but after a while it will lockup due to the low disk size.

  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited December 2016

    @joodle said:
    I had this working on the 10GB SSD VPS as well about a half a year ago, but after a while it will lockup due to the low disk size, or always upgrade to a higher plan I guess.

    Yeah, that's the only downside with the small amount of storage, you'd have to disable automatic updates and order an external disk if you run out of space.

    What I was able to do here wouldn't be possible without me first reading your kimsufi tutorial here, https://joodle.nl/how-to-create-your-own-windows-template-for-kimsufi/ which was my original inspiration for trying this on the VPS range.

    Thanked by 1BlazeMuis
  • What would I have to change in this guide if I have an OVH VPS SSD 2 or SSD 3?

  • @ccarita said:
    What would I have to change in this guide if I have an OVH VPS SSD 2 or SSD 3?

    Nothing, it's the same, except a bigger disk, more ram and more cores.

    But if I were you, I would not use it as a production server, as it will lockup really quick.

    Thanked by 1ccarita
  • for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

  • BlazeMuisBlazeMuis Member
    edited December 2016

    @piohost said:
    for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

    It's a rip of a website I used to own. For free kimsufi templates (safe and updated ones) you can check out my website: https://joodle.nl

    I even offer free support, just send me an email provided on the latest post :)

    Also, this wget.fr website is using my old Windows templates.

    Thanked by 3Antonio fan victory7
  • @joodle said:

    @piohost said:
    for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

    It's a rip of a website I used to own. For free kimsufi templates (safe and updated ones) you can check out my website: https://joodle.nl

    I even offer free support, just send me an email provided on the latest post :)

    Also, this wget.fr website is using my old Windows templates.

    Thanks joodle but i thought you sold that website? It was down and up, then this past month it had all the links removed

  • @jacno said:

    @joodle said:

    @piohost said:
    for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

    It's a rip of a website I used to own. For free kimsufi templates (safe and updated ones) you can check out my website: https://joodle.nl

    I even offer free support, just send me an email provided on the latest post :)

    Also, this wget.fr website is using my old Windows templates.

    Thanks joodle but i thought you sold that website? It was down and up, then this past month it had all the links removed

    Yes, the domain name has been sold because I wanted to keep my Joodle.nl domain and only use that one for Windows templates.

    But wget.fr is a rip of the design used before the domainname was sold, I don't mind though, but I'm just warning people that these templates are either outdated or they can contain malware which my up to date templates do not.

  • @joodle said:

    @jacno said:

    @joodle said:

    @piohost said:
    for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

    It's a rip of a website I used to own. For free kimsufi templates (safe and updated ones) you can check out my website: https://joodle.nl

    I even offer free support, just send me an email provided on the latest post :)

    Also, this wget.fr website is using my old Windows templates.

    Thanks joodle but i thought you sold that website? It was down and up, then this past month it had all the links removed

    Yes, the domain name has been sold because I wanted to keep my Joodle.nl domain and only use that one for Windows templates.

    But wget.fr is a rip of the design used before the domainname was sold, I don't mind though, but I'm just warning people that these templates are either outdated or they can contain malware which my up to date templates do not.

    ah thanks again buddy, you're a legend

    Thanked by 1BlazeMuis
  • @ethancedrik said:

    well done! I might give this a try over the Xmas hols if I have a few hours spare ..

  • @joodle said:

    @piohost said:
    for kimsufi try this ;) http://wget.fr/ not sure if it well work on the ovh vps im going to try now i think just because why not aha

    It's a rip of a website I used to own. For free kimsufi templates (safe and updated ones) you can check out my website: https://joodle.nl

    I even offer free support, just send me an email provided on the latest post :)

    Also, this wget.fr website is using my old Windows templates.

    well im sad to know its a rip of your stuff, all i know is it was mentioned to me by a client and i have used it on a dev machine from kimsufi and there were no problems to what i found

  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited December 2016

    Yeah, I'm interested in trying Server 2003 R2 or 2008 R2 as those take up significantly less install space from my personal experience, or also trying something like Windows 7, etc.

    The VPS SSD 2 ($6.99/month) does have 20 gigs which gives you over 12gb of free space to work with and is what most Windows VPS's you'd pay for come with, but on the VPS SSD 1 you are only left with 2 gigs of space free which may dwindle when you install server roles like IIS Web Server, MSSQL, etc, Windows based programs like Skype for example, or let windows update run.

    I know there are other solutions and workarounds to this, mainly running an edition of Windows that doesn't take up so much space, so when I get time I'll try and mess around with different versions and see what I come up with. If you have the extra money to spare you can purchase additional storage or upgrade your plan as mentioned earlier which also works.

    I am going to leave this VPS running untouched to see if it locks up, but right now it's pretty stable, I can put a significant load on the CPU without any issues. I assume the lockup would only occur if you ran out of storage space.

  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited December 2016

    Windows Server 2003 R2 x64:

    wget -O- 'http://192.99.235.192/Server2003R2x64OVHVPS.img.gz' | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/vdb

    The login details are the same as the other template posted above, I can't imagine this version would be too desired to a lot of people but it's there if anyone wants to use it, ran Microsoft update to get all the security updates so that should be all good to go, you can run it yourself once you install it to be sure. Microsoft still hosts and has all the documentation and updates for this version, so a general google search should bring up anything you need. If anyone needs the 32bit version to run some old program or something let me know and I'll make an image of that as well. This one is also a fully legitimate copy of Windows I got via an ISO image from a VPS hosting provider that used Hyper-V, it is the Standard edition, not the Datacenter or Enterprise one, nor do I have the install media for those editions and cannot obtain that without a MSDN license.

    If you are installing this to a VPS 2 or 3 with larger storage space you may have to go into disk management and expand the partition to take up the rest of the unused storage, I would recommend checking this on any windows template you install, Server 2012 seems to do it automatically but it's worth double-checking after install to be sure.

    Now working on Windows Server 2016, the latest and supposedly greatest version, will post that once that is completed. I will be using the install media provided by Microsoft technet for this image. This version will probably require at least a VPS SSD 2 ($6.00) minimum as it requires a lot of storage space just upon install, and those give more than 10GB, around 15-20GB is ideal, but we'll see. I would recommend a VPS SSD 2 for all versions of Windows tbh because once Windows Update runs it'll start eating away at your disk space.

    Thanked by 1nadz
  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited January 2017

    Windows Server 2016 is finally available, at least 15GB or higher of disk space is recommended. If you're on the SSD 1 plan this can be achieved by upgrading to the VPS SSD 2 or 3 if there are enough resources on the host machine to allow this to happen. You will be able to restore this onto a 10GB VPS SSD 1 but you'll only have like 500mb of free space left which will slowly eat away.

    Once again follow the above instructions but use this command in place of the other one to get the Server 2016 image.

    wget -O- 'http://192.99.235.192/Server2016FINAL.img.gz' | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/vdb

    Next I'll probably do 2008R2 or something, have fun! Instructions on how to expand your disk space to the full VM's HDD space will be shown when you log in for the first time as a .txt file on the desktop.

    I'm also using this as reference for myself as well so whenever I want to restore one of these onto a vps I've got all the images here, that's pretty much the whole reason why I am making this public here along with anyone else who would find it useful.

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • wjtwjt Member

    Is there a way to also install windows on leaseweb vps?

  • @wjt yes, pay them

  • wjtwjt Member
    edited January 2017

    OhMyMy said: pay them

    This is exactly the reason why i hate to post something on LET. Every single one of my post end up attracting hostile replies.

    So someone relatively new can't post comments and all the old members are entitled to be a dick? That's the way i see things in LET.

    And with this, incoming useless replies that try to make me look and feel stupid.

    In 3,2,1

  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited January 2017

    wjt said: leaseweb vps?

    I can take a look at what kind of system and control panel they use and see what options there would be, if I find a feasible way to do it I'll let you know

  • @OhMyMy said:
    @wjt yes, pay them

    What a jerk reply.

    Everyone knows you can always get most things done by paying other people. But, where's the fun in DIY, doing something different and squeezing every bits of your hard earn $$. This is Low End forum for el cheapo in any means, you don't come here to just to say "pay them"

  • template links are dead

  • @wjt said:
    This is exactly the reason why i hate to post something on LET. Every single one of my post end up attracting hostile replies.

    So someone relatively new can't post comments and all the old members are entitled to be a dick? That's the way i see things in LET.

    And with this, incoming useless replies that try to make me look and feel stupid.

    In 3,2,1

    We are all nice and friendly people here so don't say "ALL"

  • @wjt said:
    Is there a way to also install windows on leaseweb vps?

    If its KVM then sure see this link https://www.whatuptime.com/installing-microsoft-windows-onto-digitalocean-droplet

  • @raikkosl said:
    template links are dead

    Thanks, working on fixing that now

    Thanked by 1raikkosl
  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited January 2017

    They'll be down again for a little bit but then put back up, doing some maintenance, I'm also working on a Server 2008 R2 template. The panel running the VPS hosting these reports 21 TB worth of templates have been downloaded so people seem to be really enjoying these

  • GamerTech24GamerTech24 Member
    edited January 2017

    ATTENTION: Notice to all users of these templates, it has come to my attention that the filesystem size stays at 10GB on ALL of these templates no matter whether you uploaded it to a 20GB, 50GB or 100GB VPS.

    The solution is to extend your disk space, this can be done on Server 2008, 2012 (R2) and 2016 by opening up computer management then disk manager and right clicking on the 10GB NTFS partition and selecting extend and extending it to take up the rest of your disk space. Then verify that you can see all your VPSs disk space in My Computer/This PC, etc. You don't even have to reboot or anything, that's all you have to do to correct that issue.

    Server 2003 doesn't have that option, so you'll have to boot back into recovery, do "apt-get update", then "apt-get install gparted" then "apt-get install task-lxde-desktop", set a new password using passwd root and typing in your password 2 times then going into the KVM on the manager and logging in at the prompt with your new credentials and typing in xstart then opening up the terminal and typing in gparted and selecting /DEV/VDB, do not select VDA or else it won't work, once you have /dev/vdb selected right click and extend the single NTFS partition to take up all the disk space, then click on apply, it'll extend it and wait for it to finish then reboot back into the OS and verify all your VPSs disk space is usable.

    I have modified the templates to include a .txt file on the desktop with the same instructions tailored to the specific OS version. Sorry about not including these instructions earlier, hopefully this saves everyone some confusion on why they can't see their full 20, 50GB, etc storage. Sorry about that.

  • sweatchersweatcher Member
    edited February 2017

    Would it be possible to have a Windows 2016 Core or Hyper V Template, for a ovh vps /root? If yes i will spend some $
    Also i've tried you Win 2016 Image but the passwort above are not Working for me.

  • @sweatcher said:
    Would it be possible to have a Windows 2016 Core or Hyper V Template, for a ovh vps /root? If yes i will spend some $
    Also i've tried you Win 2016 Image but the passwort above are not Working for me.

    Ill look into it and see if I can find out what the issue is, and yes a core or HyperV template should be possible

  • sweatchersweatcher Member
    edited February 2017

    I've tried now with a local esxi vm from your Server2016FINAL.img.gz
    I've converted the img to Server2016FINAL.vmdk for esxi
    The Password will be accteptec, may its a wrong or another Keyboard Layout trough the RDP Session. But if i try RDP to my ovh Root it is not acceptec, even if copy paste or not, and i see it is the Same, there is a Looking Icon and it see okay

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