Windows 10: Finally Host Windows Free -- Loads of VM's though

Hi there
finally today replaced 2 NAS boxes and a desktop with a a single 4 processor server with 72 GB RAM in it

Running Linux Arch as HOST -- now running loads of Windows VM's on QEMU/KVM hypervisor with the win-virtio paravirtualised drivers.

PCI passthru works a treat

Don't need Host W10 any more !!! I just have it now on 1 Work supplied laptop !!!!

VM speed with the win-virtio drivers is as good as or even better than Native on the older machines (mind you 4 X XEON processors helps !!!!!)

Also ensure the network driver (ethernet) is a parvirtualised win-virtio one --all the drivers are on the iso) as that improves networking from VM to real machines on Lan and outside (wider Internet) and use bridged networking -- i.e create a "virtual bridge" from a physical network interface to the virtual bridge -- it's all in the arch wiki or google for other distros on how to do it -- Ubuntu and Fedora are decently explained for creating windows VMs with KVM on these hosts.

The only draw backs are 2) :

1) can't yet get the hotplug USB system to work so USB devices need to be added and removed before boot of the VM -- I'm currently still working on that

2) UEFI - haven't yet got working either for Windows VM's -- but does it matter on Windows VM's !!! the largest VM I have on Windows is only around 60 GB anyway and I've massive amounts of HDD's and SSD's.

VM's these days if you set them up properly are brilliant.

BTW graphics pci passthru works a treat as well so 3-D , hardware acceleration, so can easily run photoshop, multi media clients etc etc.

Hardware capture device on W10 VM captures properly SKY from SKY Q box, and both AMAZON Prime and Netflix from Amazon fire TV stick. XP stuff with legacy hardware also OK as is a W7 VM for testing whether free upgrade to W10 still works. !!!

Makes HYPER-V performance look a bit like a sick animal currently -- although that might be my ignorance / inexperience of using it.

BTW on KVM/QEMU if you set to allow 2nd level VM (i.e nested VM's) you can enable HYPER-V in a Windows VM -- the WSL then works a treat !!!! -- haven't though tried running HYPER-V in a VM though.

VMWare does work concurrently with KVM/QEMU but I've converted all my VMWare VM's to KVM -- just keeping VMWare in case things go bonkers !!!

Very happy today from a cold and snowy day -- even the dog is saying HI as I finish this (I think it wants its dinner !!!!)

Taking it to the pub now --I'm hideously thirsty !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

Can I share a network connection from a VM to the host OS?

hmm, i will assumer no responces = no, i cannot share it... lucky me, i finally got it to work in 7 with steps pretty close... Program Files > Pantech is where you will need to point windows to inorder to the card running in 7... though it would be nice to be able to share hardware and network connections from a VM to the host PC...

 

Account failed logon 4625 on VM guest when clicking the entry of VM guest on failover cluster Manager on VM Host

Issue:

We found a multiple failed logon events on VM guest (evert ID 4625) with account (the account you logon on VM host) when we clicking the entry of VM guest on failover cluster manager console on VM host with Integration servers (Data Exchange) is enabled.



How to reproduce:

1. Check the “Data Exchange” is enabled on a VM guest (Enabled by default, right?)
2. Open Failover Cluster Manager Console on VM host.
3. Click the VM guest entry
4. Then you may found multiple failed logon events on that VM guest.

Reference:

Hyper-V Integration Services



Question:

1. Does the multiple failed logons are normal or necessary?
2. If the failed logons are normal and necessary to be happened and the “Data exchange” function is good to be enabled to gather data from VM guest, any recommendation for us to correct or avoid these failed logon?

Please advise.



Constrain:

We have no chance to use same account and password on VM hosts and VM guests (because all account are managed by password management) and the Audit Policy of Audit Credential Validation must be enabled.

 

Can you allow the host to use the VM network connection?

If you use a VM...

this is possible although not immediately obviously useful. My situation was one where the vm os was able to change settings on a wireless network adapter which allowed me to pick up the signal at a useable strength. The host could not do this. So I was in the weird situation where the vm os - backtrack - had internet but the host - osx 10.6 - did not. Annoying.

Easily corrected as follows:
1. connect the vm to the network, in my case this was wireless so wlan0
2. set up the vm so that is has a local network with the host, make sure the host can ping the vm. In my case this meant enabling eth0 in the vm
3. set up ip forward and iptables masquerade rules on the vm.
4. change the default route of the host to be the vm local ip
5. enjoy the vm network via the host


now I imagine some readers will want more detail on ip forward and masquerade with iptables but there are a lot of tutorials out there for this stuff. It depends on the vm os but if you are using linux then

ip forward with:
$ echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

iptables rules something like this
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s $PRIVATE -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

{clearly $PRIVATE is your private subnet, set the rules up to run at ifup}

*Smile