RAS Template Maintenance

In addition to viewing and modifying configuration properties of a RAS Template, you can perform a number of maintenance tasks on it. These tasks are described below.

Updating RAS Guest Agent inside a template

A RAS template should have the latest version of RAS Guest Agent installed in it. The agent is installed when you create a template. When a new version of RAS Guest Agent becomes available, it should be updated.

To check the RAS Guest Agent status inside a template, click Tasks > Check agent . If the agent is up to date, a message box will be displayed confirming this. If a newer version of RAS Guest Agent is available, you'll see a dialog asking if you want to update it. Click Yes to update the agent. If you click No , you can check the status again later and update the agent at that time.

Using the RAS Template maintenance mode

The RAS Template maintenance mode is used to update software inside a RAS Template. For instance, if you want to install a Windows server pack or a software update, you need to use the maintenance mode.

Depending on whether a RAS Template is configured for full or linked clones, the maintenance mode is used slightly differently.

Full clones:

If your RAS Template is configured to create full clones, do the following:

1. Select a RAS Template and click Tasks > Maintenance . The template becomes disabled (grayed out), so all operations on it (including creating new guest VMs) are suspended.
2. Using native tools of the corresponding hypervisor, start the template as a normal virtual machine.
3. Install Windows updates or software as necessary.
4. When done, shut down the virtual machine.
5. Back in the RAS Console, select the template and click Tasks > Maintenance again to exit the maintenance mode.

Please note that any updates applied to a template in the maintenance mode will only affect future clones. Existing guest VMs that were created from this template as full clones will not be affected, so if you want them to include these updates, you will have to recreate them.

Linked clones:

Since linked clones share the virtual hard disk with a snapshot of a RAS Template, you need to take additional steps compared to full clones.

First, you need to notify guest VM users to save their data and log off. This is necessary for existing guest VMs to include the updates that you will install in the template. Once all users are logged off, do the following:

1. Select the RAS Template and click Tasks > Maintenance . The template becomes disabled (grayed out), so all operations on it (including creating new guest VMs) are suspended.
2. Using native tools of the corresponding hypervisor, start the template as a normal virtual machine.
3. Install Windows updates or software as necessary.
4. When done, shut down the virtual machine.
5. Back in the RAS Console, select the template and click Tasks > Maintenance again to exit the maintenance mode. A dialog is displayed asking if you would like to recreate existing guest VMs. If you click No , then the dialog is closed and the existing guest VMs are left in their current state, which means that the updates that you installed will NOT appear in the existing VMs. If you click Yes , read on.
6. If you click Yes in the previous step, existing guest VMs will be examined for active connections. If an active connection is detected, another dialog opens asking if you want to proceed:
   • If you click Yes , all active sessions are forcibly logged off and existing guest VMs (linked clones), together with the corresponding snapshot, are deleted and a new snapshot and VMs are created from the updated RAS Template.
   • If you click No , the Template Guest VMs List dialog opens where you can view the current state of each available guest VM. The dialog gives you full control over a guest VM. You can send a message to the user and you can log the user off. Once all active sessions are logged off, click OK . The existing guest VMs and the corresponding snapshot are deleted and a new snapshot and VMs are created from the updated RAS Template.

When you are done configuring a RAS Template, click the Apply button on the main RAS Console window to commit the changes to Parallels Remote Application Server.