Hyper-V on the bin

Linux-KVM: Migrating Hyper-V VHD Images to KVM

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I have always been a big fan of Hyper-V, and was actually a Virtualization MVP 2 years in a row. However recently I haven’t been able to get past the really poor support for Linux on the Hyper-V platform. We run a large number of hypervisors in our international sales offices (15+) and have a need to run both Linux and Windows on them. This has necessitated our switch to Linux-KVM as their Windows support is far better than Hyper-V’s Linux support. As such with an upcoming trip planned to our European offices I have been planning exactly how our migration will look, of course the first iteration of this plan consisted of me deploying replacement VMs on the KVM stack then migrating to the VMs individually. Though this plan was lengthy and cumbersome it would work.

Installing Linux Integration Components v2.1 Beta

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On March 31, 2010 Microsoft released the beta of version 2.1 of the Linux Integration Components. The Linux ICs allow Linux VMs running on Hyper-V to be “enlightened” and have access to synthetic device drivers which perform much faster than their emulated counter parts. It can be downloaded by registering for the Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V on http://connect.microsoft.com

What is new in Linux Integration Components v2.1 Beta?

There are three new features, time sync, shutdown, and SMP. Time sync is communication through the vmbus which updates the guest’s time to match the hosts (without this time is only synced on boot up of the VM). Shutdown simply makes that little shutdown button in Hyper-V Manager work, previously you only had the option of using the Stop command or entering the guest via ssh or some other mechanism and initiating the shutdown. SMP is some fixes in the vmbus module which make the module SMP-safe, and in addition Microsoft will now support Linux guests (RHEL 5.3 & 5.4, and SUSE 10 & 11) with up to 4 vCPUs, previously only 1 vCPU was supported. InputVSC (Citrix’s Project Satori) will continue to work with this release.

Hyper-V Guests: Compile Linux Kernel 2.6.32 on Debian

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I will be detailing the steps needed to compile a new kernel in Debian Linux 5. This particular case we are purpose building a kernel with the drivers necessary for Hyper-V Guests to take advantage of synthetic devices. Additionally I plan on expanding this series with instructions for manual compiles of other distributions as well as some pre-compiled image based installs.

DISCLAIMER: These instructions are not provided with any guarantee of support. Microsoft (company behind Hyper-V) does not acknowledge Debian as a supported guest operating system.

Hyper-V Guests: Linux Integration Components (v2) on Oracle Enterprise Linux

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I am documenting the process for installing the Hyper-V Integration Components (v2) within a Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3 VM. My environment consists of x64 VMs, I have not taken the time to test this process for x86 VMs, however it should hold true, as long as you update the package names to reflect the appropriate architecture.

In my testing I have found that the current versions (v1 and v2) do not work with linux kernels 2.6.20 or newer (with some exceptions for v2), which means in order to use the ICs you will need to have 2.6.19 or older. Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3 included the Linux 2.6.18-128 kernel.

Hyper-V Guests: Linux Integration Components Ubuntu and Debian

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I am documenting the process for installing the Hyper-V Integration Components within a Ubuntu or Debian VM. I am specifically writing this for Ubuntu 8.04.2 and Debian 5, however I have additionally confirmed that this process works on both Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04. My environment consists of x64 VMs, I have not taken the time to test this process for x86 VMs, however it should hold true, as long as you update the package names to reflect the appropriate architecture.