Hyper-V

Limitations

  • Abiquo manages Hyper-V directly. It does not interact with the Hyper-V Manager

  • Abiquo is not compatible with Hyper-V versions older than 2012 R1

  • Abiquo will not delete disks in shared datastores during VM undeployments due to a limitation of WMI.
    The VM cannot be redeployed because the deploy will fail saying that the disk already exists. You can access the shared datastore to delete the disks directly after you undeploy.

  • When Abiquo is retrieving the details of the hypervisor, it will ignore volumes with a drive letter but no capacity  as recovery volumes.

Configuration

Add server to a Windows domain

Add the Hyper-V server to a Windows Domain. 

Modify the Windows registry

Download the PowerShell script in the attached file change_registry.ps1

Log in the hypervisor as domain administrator (DOMAIN\USER or USER@DOMAIN) and run the PowerShell script.

This script will change some registry keys values and set their owner to the user who runs it. This allows Abiquo administer the hypervisor remotely with the domain user.

The manual process to change domain owner and edit registry keys is described in  Hyper-V Configuration

Configure WinRM

Abiquo newest versions use WinRM for some management operations. Among others:

  • Clone VM template disks from VM repository during VM deploy

  • Allow unmapped Samba shares to be used as datastores

To enable WinRM, use the commands below:

  • Enable the WinRM service and set some basic properties

    winrm quickconfig winrm set winrm/config/service/Auth '@{Basic="true"}' winrm set winrm/config/winrs '@{MaxMemoryPerShellMB="1024"}'

     

  • Create a new certificate for the WinRM service and copy the certificate thumbprint:

    New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName HypervisorDNSName -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\My

     

  • Create an HTTPS listener for WinRM using this certificate to encrypt service requests:

    winrm create winrm/config/Listener?Address=*+Transport=HTTPS '@{Hostname="HypervisorDNSName"; CertificateThumbprint="THUMBPRINT"}'

     

  • The new copy disk procedure requires CredSSP to be enabled in WinRM. To that end, you’ll need to run the following in every HV added in Abiquo:

     

The WinRM configuration and requirements are detailed here:

Remember to configure Kerberos in the Remote Service appliance if you are using WinRM.

Also, verify that the WinRM SPN and DNS direct and reverse resolution for the Hypervisors are properly configured

Configure firewall

You need to open the following ports in HyperV for the RS appliance to be able to manage it remotely:

Port

Service

Purpose

Port

Service

Purpose

135

DCOM

Management

445

SMB

Management

2179

VM RDP

VM console remote access

5986

WinRM

Management

?

WMI

Management

WMI uses a dynamic port range to provide WMI services on top of the DCOM service. It is possible to configure this service to use a static port, but this is out of Abiquo scope.

Check Microsoft documentation for further details on this.

Configure network

Configure the network in Hyper-V Manager by checking the MAC addressing and add a new network attached to the service network interface.

Configure VLANs

To allow Abiquo to manage VLANs in this Hyper-V server, add a new network attached to the service network interface.

The network name should use appropriate characters and can be chosen by the network administrator. 

In Hyper-V Manager, go to Virtual Switch Manager -> New virtual network switch. Use the default options with 'External' type

Configure persistent iSCSI storage

Install iSCSI service

Launch a cmd command line to enable the iSCSI service and set it to start automatically:

Manually set initiator IQN

Once the iSCSI service is enabled, you must set the initiator IQN for the machine manually. Go to  Start > Administrative tools > iSCSI Initiator > Configuration and Click the Change button.

The dialog below will appear. You can accept the default value.

 

iSCSI firewall rule

See Configure Firewall (above) to set the iSCSI firewall rules via netsh.

SAN policy configuration

Open a command line and run the following commands to set the appropriate SAN Policy:

Abiquo properties

Edit the /opt/abiquo/config/abiquo.properties and update its contents as described below:

  • Enable WinRM related properties if needed

     

  • Configure the appliance library related properties

     

  • If you are using unmapped Samba shares, set the abiquo.hyperv.sambaHosts property too.

Cloud init images folder

To use cloud-init, you will need to add a hyperv-iso folder to the VM repository. After the Abiquo server is up and running, check if this folder is present, for example in the default location.

 If the hyperv-iso folder is not present, then create it, and set its owner to "tomcat"

VM generation

When using HyperV, you must take Generation 1 and Generation 2 VM features, requirements and capabilities into account when dealing with VMs and VM templates.

If the VM or VM template is not using the right settings, VMs might not be deployed, or they could be unable to boot:

  • Which is the VM base OS and its architecture?

  • Is the VM template legacy BIOS or UEFI compatible?

  • Is the VM primary disk IDE or SCSI?

  • Is the VM using disks in VHD format?

Abiquo will deploy the VM as Gen2 if the primary disk is SCSI, otherwise, it will deploy it as Gen1. If the VM is Gen2, all the disks must be in VHDX or ISO format, and the template must be UEFI boot-capable.

Check the links below for the all the details.

Credentials

For Hyper-V, enter the credentials as follows:

  • Domain user accounts must be introduced in UPN format (user@domain)

  • Local user accounts must be specified by only typing in the user (user)

Remember that NTP is mandatory.

Features

General features

Feature

Description

Feature

Description

Generation V1/V2 virtual machines

Virtual machines V1 are supported

Virtual machines V2 are supported

NUMA configurations

NUMA configurations for processors are not supported

Active directory integration

You can log in with an AD user or a local user. Use an Administrator account

High availability

Abiquo High Availability

Microsoft Failover Clustering

Abiquo High Availability and Microsoft Failover Clustering can not be used at the same time

Live migration

Abiquo detects VM live migrations with storage migration and Failover

  • To detect them, the destination datastore must be enabled in Abiquo

  • VM Moves in the same datastore are not supported

  • Abiquo uses Msvm_MigrationJob to detect VM movements, which exist for 5 minutes.
    VSM polling interval must be less than 5 minutes or detection can not be guaranteed

Templates

VHD templates

VHDX templates, but:

No conversions from VHDX to other formats or vice versa

No persistent VHDX templates

Remote access

RDP

Virtual machine NICs

  • Synthetic Ethernet Port is used

  • NO limit of 4 NICs per virtual machine

Disk resize

VHD system disk resize (VHD format does not support resize)

VHDX system disk resize (not yet supported by Abiquo)

Auxiliary hard disks are VHDX and resize is permitted

External storage volumes resized outside of Abiquo are detected

Dynamic memory

Dynamic Memory is disabled for R2 in relation to unsupported NUMA processors

Storage features

 Feature

Description 

 Feature

Description 

Datastores

  • Local disk

  • SMB share

  • Clustered shared volumes (CSV)

Clustered shared volumes

  • Abiquo can detect datastores with CSV enabled

  • Users can deploy on CSV-enabled datastores

  • Abiquo will detect movements between physical machines in a Failover Cluster

  • Abiquo can discover virtual machines that are deployed on CSV

Limitations

  • Administrators cannot configure failover clusters within Abiquo

  • Administrators cannot manage failover clusters within Abiquo, for example, they cannot remove a VM

  • Abiquo High Availability is not compatible with Hyper-V Failover  

Disk controllers

  • The primary system disk must be mounted on IDE controller to ensure compatibility

  • Secondary disks or volumes can be mounted on IDE or SCSI controllers

  • Each of the 2 available IDE controller support 2 disks, making a maximum IDE disks of 4

System disks

SCSI

IDE

Non-persistent storage

Auxiliary hard disks on the Hyper-V datastore are always created in VHDX format

Persistent storage

iSCSI integrated storage

Generic iSCSI storage

NFS persistent storage is not available on Hyper-V

Persistent virtual
machines

VHDX

VHD

Live migration

Live migration is supported if the VM storage is moved to a different datastore

Abiquo will detect movements between physical machines in a Failover cluster

 

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