{"id":9171,"date":"2008-08-28T15:48:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9171"},"modified":"2008-08-28T15:48:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"aidan-finn-beware-anti-virus-and-hyper-v-follow-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=9171","title":{"rendered":"Aidan Finn: Beware Anti-Virus and Hyper-V – Follow Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is quite a frustrating problem.\u00a0 The origin was that some of the XML files that define my VM’s were locked by AV on a test Hyper-V server.\u00a0 This caused Hyper-V to fail to load the VM’s.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 That’s not a biggie\u00a0 – fix the problem and then start up the VM’s is what you’d think.\u00a0 Uh-uh!\u00a0 Hyper-V had managed to unload all knowledge of those VM’s.\u00a0 OK – maybe I could just reopen the VMs?\u00a0 Hyper-V does not have an "open" function.\u00a0 Finally, I tried setting up a new VM with the existing config and disks.\u00a0 That’s a monotonous manual task.\u00a0 The problem here is that I lost my saved snapshots.<\/p>\n

I opened a call with MS.\u00a0 I also tried using the TechNet forums.\u00a0 Let’s see what I got there before I get back to the call.\u00a0 The MS staff on there gave me comments such as "why were you scanning?" and "don’t use snapshots in production".\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Most people put AV on their servers.\u00a0 The reason is to PROTECT them.\u00a0 I’m sure if the Hyper-V team talked to the ForeFront team they’d be told the same thing.\u00a0 I had put an exception in for the VHD files but didn’t know to do the same for the XML’s until it was too late.\u00a0 However, even if I had, there’s always a chance a junior member of staff could accidentally override that exception.\u00a0 What am I to do then, lose half of the VM’s on all of my hosts?\u00a0 Is that acceptable to MS?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I nearly choked when I saw a video of Steve Riley at TechEd talking about the potential of scanning VM’s using AV.\u00a0 DONT TRY IT!<\/em><\/p>\n

And as for using snapshots: A big use of virtualisation is setting up test environments.\u00a0 Whether it’s for software development or infrastructure deployments, virtualisation earned it’s acceptance this way and continues to be a strong player there.\u00a0 MS should understand this seeing as they think everyone in IT is a programmer.\u00a0 Snapshots are a convenient way to get a VM back to a known state.\u00a0 No tester will want to use backups for this because it’s too cumbersome, expensive and slow.<\/p>\n

Back to the call.\u00a0 After the usual chain of mails to get the engineer to understand the problem I finally got him on board.\u00a0 In case anyone from MS is reading, here’s the case number: SRX080721602387.\u00a0 I learned something from this call.\u00a0 Hyper-V knows what VM’s and snapshots exist via shortcuts:<\/p>\n