Tag: Linux

CentOS Supported on Hyper-V

I used to work for a quite “big” hosting company in Dublin, that claimed 1/3 of the Irish internet footprint was in their infrastructure.  Over half of the servers we had in that infrastructure ran Linux, in particular the CentOS distribution.  It was liked because it’s a relation of RedHat and … well … it’s free … and most hosting customers are pretty tight with their wallets.  I’d really never heard of CentOS before that.  As a hosting company we weren’t unusual for choosing CentOS for our Linux platform.  In fact, it’s the norm because it is free.

We’ve had growing support for Linux on Hyper-V for a while but that was restricted initially to SUSE SLES (Novell, a partner of MSFT, and very unpopular in the market because of the NetWare abandonment) and RedHat RHEL (popular in the enterprise because you have to pay for it).

Over the last couple of years CentOS has come up more and more in conversations.  I remember one very large “RFI” (a first step in the tender process) for a very large cloud (virtualisation environment) for a particular closed industry.  In my last job we started reading that document with great anticipation – thinking about the huge numbers.  But then our hearts sank:  CentOS support was required.  That ruled us out at the time.  I know that other IT services companies were feeling the same way because I received a number of calls on the subject of Hyper-V/Linux support.  I also know what official opinions in certain places were: this was no longer a Hyper-V opportunity and VMware would win it.  CentOS may have run perfectly with the Linux integration components but the lack of an official support statement was impacting on potential sales & installations.  And this is a huge factor in the decision making process for hosting (VPS/cloud/whatever-marketing-label-is-popular-at-the-time) companies who do favour CentOS over the paid for Linux distros that were previously the only supported open source OSs on Hyper-V.

But now we do have support for CentOS, according to an announcement on the Openness @ Microsoft blog.  Now more enterprises and hosting companies can consider Hyper-V for their virtualisation and/or private/public cloud needs.  There are no specifics such as version support, or how Microsoft will support an open source OS with no company being responsible for it.  Hopefully that will emerge in the coming days.

One remaining lacking component is the System Center story.  OpsMgr has made great strides in adding support for SLES and RHEL.  Unfortunately they haven’t been in sync with Hyper-V so the common denominator of supported versions is quite small.  Hopefully OpsMgr will add equal CentOS support quite soon.  Let’s face it: the business really doesn’t care about the servers; they care about the services running on them, and quite a lot of those run on CentOS.

EDIT#1

I’ve been informed that CentOS 5.2 through 5.6 are supported now.

Unattended Linux VM Configuration Tool for Hyper-V

Yusuf Öztürk has released a handy looking tool on his blog for setting up Linux virtual machines.  It will:

1) Unattended IP, Hostname and DNS configuration for Linux VMs.
2) Automatic Linux integration components installation.
3) Multi Distro Support: Debian, Ubuntu, Centos, Fedora, Redhat and Suse!
4) Automatic CPanel installation for Redhat and Centos
5) Linux VM Template support (Use Skip for EnableLIC switch)
6) Hyper-V support! You don’t need SCVMM to use this script.
7) Multiple Hyper-V and SCVMM host support.
8) Automatic Emulated NIC to Synthetic NIC support.
9) No need to internet connection (SSH access etc.) or additional changes on VM.
10) Custom Answer File support! You can execute your own scripts.

You can download the tool from his blog.  Well done, Yusuf!

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Kernel-Included Hyper-V Integration Components Make Linux VMs Easy on Hyper-V

Ben Armstrong wrote a post a little while ago that demonstrates how easy it is to install Ubuntu Server 10.10 on Hyper-V.  Ubuntu is one of the Linux distros that has kept the kernel up to date (don’t ask me details because I’m not a Linux person).  As you may know, Microsoft submitted the code for the Hyper-V integration components (or VM additions if you will, to optimise the management and performance of virtual machines on a Hyper-V host server) for inclusion with the Linux kernel.  This was accepted and included.  This means that Linux VMs would be able to run just like Windows on Hyper-V.  Earlier this year, Microsoft updated the integration components for Linux to add SMP (multi-processor) and integration services (management) support.

Ben has demonstrated how easy it was to get Ubuntu Server 10.10 up an running with the updated integration components.  The only thing he needed to do at the command prompt was to enable the IC for the virtual network adapter.  And that was pretty easy!  Compare that with what you have to do to get SLES or RHEL updated and you’ll start wondering why you wouldn’t switch to the free platform.

Linux Integration Components 2.1 RTM

You wanted 4 virtual CPU’s in a Hyper-V Linux virtual machine?  You wanted clock sync and host shutdown sync?  Now you got it!

Ben Armstrong has just blogged that the version 2.1 integration components (or services if you are a VMM head) are released.  Mike Sterling is the man in the know so you can read what he has blogged to get all the news.  BTW, I included this version of the IC’s in Mastering Hyper-V Deployment. *end shameless plug*

This release is a huge step forward in gaining acceptance for Hyper-V from the Linux admins because SLES and RHEL are really equal citizens on Hyper-V now.  Now we just need VMM to catch up 😉

Which Linux Distribution, Version and Architecture for Hyper-V?

I thought I would revisit this subject now that version 2.1 of the integration components has reached release candidate stage.  You really will want to use v2.1 because it introduces SMP support for multiple vCPU’s (up to 4) in a Linux VM as well as clock synch and host power integration (for clean guest shutdown or state save).

My original discussion said that if you were doing enterprise Hyper-V then you are probably also running Operations Manager.  The beauty of System Center and Hyper-V being used together is that you get a single management system for the entire computing stack.

OpsMgr 2007 R2, with Cumulative Update 1 supports a certain set of Linux distributions, versions and architectures.  Hyper-V’s Linux Integration Services 2.1 supports another set.  You really want to pick a Linux from the commonly supported distros.  The below diagram should help with that.

image

Note that RHEL x64 does not support the Pluggable Time Service integration service.  It also doesn’t have support from Project Satori (MS/Citrix project) for the VSC to capture a mouse.

It appears that SLES 11 (x86 and x64) and with RHEL 5 (x86 and x64) are the two to go with for deployment in the near future.  You might steer clear of RHEL x64 (and choose RHEL x86) if the partial support exceptions are an issue.

KB2022557: Selecting RedHat in VMM Fails

Microsoft has posted a fix to enable you to select RedHat as the OS of a VM in VMM 2008 R2, 2008 and 2007.  Without the fix you get this error:

Error (10637)

The virtualization software on host <server> does not support the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system.

The problem is that the VMM database needs a tiny adjustment.  You can do this easily enough using SQL Management Studio or SQL Management Studio Express.  First, you should back up the database (don’t come crying to me if you didn’t!).  You then need to create a new query with the following:

update tbl_IL_OS

set OSFlags=0x14

where Name like ‘Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5%’

Run the query and you should be sorted.

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So … What Exactly Am I Writing?

You can tell I’m pretty busy because my usual high rate of blogging has dropped significantly in the last month.  Apologies for that.  The blogging has become writing.  I am involved in 2 book projects.  I’ve just seen on Twitter that details on one of those has just gone public.  I actually just saw the tweet seconds after I sent off a chapter I just finished.

Earlier this year I proposed an idea for a Windows Server 2008 R2 virtualization book to Wiley Publishing/Sybex.  It took quite a bit of work to tune the proposal.  It requires an understanding of the subject matter, the audience, and ideas on how it can be marketed.  You could think that a brief overview on the subject matter would be enough.  But no, the publisher needs much more detail.  You pretty much have to provide a detailed project plan for every heading (3 levels deep), page estimates and time estimates.  The proposal evolved over the weeks and eventually went through a couple of reviews.  I then got the news: an ISBN number was assigned and contracts were on the way – I was going to be a lead author on my own book for the very first time!!!!  I did get drunk that night – I think.

The deadlines are very tight.  I was considering seeking help.  My contact in Sybex advised that I outsource some of the chapters to a co-author.  I knew the person I wanted to bring in.  Wilbour Craddock is a technical specialist in the partner team with Microsoft Ireland.  Will (Irish folks will know him as the crazy Canadian who is always wearing shorts) is also a former SBS MVP.  His job has him spending a lot of time working with Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, making him a perfect co-author to work with on this project.  Thankfully, Will agreed to hop on board the crazy train of book writing.

Another MVP (I won’t say who yet because I don’t have permission to name him) is the technical editor under the employment of Sybex.  He’s an ace at this stuff and will make sure everything we do is up to scratch.

The book is called Mastering Hyper-V Deployment.  I won’t go into the details of it yet.  But you can bet that it is based on our collective experience and knowledge of the product set involved in a Hyper-V deployment.  I saw a gap in the market and figured I could probably write (or a good chunk of) the book to fill it.  The estimated release is in November 19th of this year.  That means we need to finish writing in July.  It has started to appear on some sites for pre-order.

I’m two chapters in a the moment.  I’m really pushing my hardware at home to its limits and am “this close” to buying more.  Will is ahead of schedule and has one chapter nearly done.

I am also working on another book project as a co-author for a friend’s book.  It’s another on-subject book that is turning out to be a good experience.  I’ve one chapter done on that and am 50% through the other.  I’ll talk more about that when the time is right.

As you may have read in my previous posts about my chapters in Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2, the original draft edit is just the very start of the process.  There are numerous technical, language, layout and copy edits for each and every chapter.  It’s a lot of work but it’s a great experience.  And I can’t wait for the buzz to see my name as the lead author of a book in a book shop.  I had to really try when I saw Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 in Barnes & Noble over in Belleview WA back in February.

New Linux Integration Components Beta

A while ago, I asked for some feedback on Hyper-V and VMM.  Some of the strong feedback came on the Linux guest side.  In particular, the integration components:

  • The lack of shutdown integration.
  • Only 1 virtual CPU supported.
  • The lack of time synch between host and guest recently affected me.

Never fear, MS was ahead of me.  Ben Armstrong just let the public know that new integration components are in the works and you can download these new beta (test) IC’s from Connect now.  The IC’s are for the usual supported Linux distros (SLES and RHEL).  Supported is different to “it works”, i.e. these will probably work just as well on Ubuntu and CentOS but MS cannot support them.  They will also support all Hyper-V variants.  The new features are:

  • SMP support for up to 4 virtual CPU’s (Yay!)
  • Shutdown integration between host and guest, e.g. host shutdown or from VMM
  • Clock synch between host and guest (no more run away clock and NTP fixes)

Ben also says that the new functionality will be submitted to the Linux kernel.  Here’s hoping the Linux distros keep up to date.

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Crazy Idea – Use VMware for Hyper-V P2V of Linux

I posted a while back about how to P2V convert a physical Linux machine to a Hyper-V virtual machine.  I really only looked at nasty complicated solutions that required knowing Linux.  You can P2V Windows machines using Virtual Machine Manager but not Linux machines.

Some conversations last week at the summit revealed an alternative that I really should have thought of.  It’s not NDA stuff.

You can use the free VMware vCenter Converter to P2V a Linux VM.  That creates a VMware VM with a VMDK disk file.  The downside is that it appears that the target must be VMware ESX, ESXi, Workstation or Player (See below comment).

Now, you can use a tool to convert the VMDK to a Microsoft VHD disk file, e.g. VMDK2VHD.  Now you have a disk you can attach to a Hyper-V VM and boot from.  You can then install your integration components which are supported on RHEL and SLES.  They’ll install on other distros but are not MS supported.

At least, that’s the theory.  I’ve not tried this.  It feels like it’ll work.

It’s a shame that a Linux tool has to be used for this.  It’ll look bad for a MS partner consultant who has sold a client on the idea of Microsoft virtualisation to break out a VMware tool for a P2V of Linux VM’s.  Sure, they’ll be the majority of VM’s but there’s still a good number of them out there.

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Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platforms Cumulative Update 2

Microsoft released an update for OpsMgr 2007 R2 cross platform extensions last night. 

The System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Cumulative Update 2 includes System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Agent Update (KB973583) and additional bug fixes.

This updated release includes all features that were in the previous update release (KB973583) and additional fixes in this release:

Adds support for (in previous release – KB973583):

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (both 32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Zones (Whole and Sparse Zones) for all supported version of Solaris

There are a number of fixes included, all available to read on the MS download page.