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: 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.

Oel on the bin

Installing Linux Integration Components v2.1 Beta

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