XCP-ng
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Groups
    • Register
    • Login

    Nested Virtualization of Windows Hyper-V on XCP-ng

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Compute
    111 Posts 12 Posters 72.2k Views 12 Watching
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • olivierlambertO Online
      olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
      last edited by olivierlambert

      We can always create a detailed but report on XCP repo, then we can (from there) try to ask upstream Xen and see what could be done 🙂

      Obviously, this cost time and effort, so more the community bring stuff, higher is the probably to get a result at some point!

      AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlexanderKA Offline
        AlexanderK @olivierlambert
        last edited by

        olivierlambert how can we create this report? i can provide everything from my issue

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • olivierlambertO Online
          olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
          last edited by

          By opening an issue on https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp and trying to reproduce it on "vanilla" Xen (eg any Arch Linux or Debian with a recent version of Xen) with xl toolstack.

          X 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • X Offline
            XCP-ng-JustGreat @olivierlambert
            last edited by XCP-ng-JustGreat

            olivierlambert AlexanderK As Olivier requested, I set up a basic Xen Hypervisor configuration using Debian 10.9 (Buster) following the tutorial here https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Xen_Project_Beginners_Guide in my home lab. It took a bit of work since the documentation is outdated and not entirely clear, but I was able to get a basic Windows 10 VM running on that. I then added the nested virtualization parameters from here https://wiki.xenproject.org/wiki/Nested_Virtualization_in_Xen to the VM config file. [Next section edited retrospectively.] Nested Hyper-V installs and all the guest Hyper-V drivers load on the parent Xen platform, but Hyper-V does not activate following the finishing reboot. I have commented the working xl toolstack config file: windows.cfg detailing my findings if you would like me to upload that somewhere. Seems like we need to find out if it is possible to set the cpuid and hap parameters from xe vm-param-set platform:<param>=value in order to flip the appropriate switches in the underlying hypervisor. (There doesn't seem to be a documented way to fully activate the needed support right now from the xe toolstack.) It does look like all of the viridian parameters are available. Viridian exposes various interfaces and features that Hyper-V requires. The cpuid param appears to cause the guest OS to become unaware that it is running on a hypervisor. Please let me know if you'd like me to upload the working xl config file someplace. Nested virtualization was but an interesting parlor trick before, but the architecture of modern Windows is rapidly making it an essential feature for running fully functional Windows VMs.

            AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • olivierlambertO Online
              olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
              last edited by

              First, thanks for taking time to test it 👍

              So did you check with the viridian param if it works on XCP-ng? Obviously, we'd love to document this behavior if it's just an extra param to add on the VM record!

              About the config file, you might be able to paste it directly here? Otherwise, go for https://paste.vates.fr/

              X 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • AlexanderKA Offline
                AlexanderK @XCP-ng-JustGreat
                last edited by

                XCP-ng-JustGreat can you make a guide? what have you done and it is working? Will save time and will be really appreciated

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • X Offline
                  XCP-ng-JustGreat @olivierlambert
                  last edited by XCP-ng-JustGreat

                  olivierlambert AlexanderK Unfortunately, I could not make it work on XCP-ng. I tried entering the same name/key pairs under the VM platform category, but it does not look like the xe toolstack maps them correctly to the hypervisor. I didn't find documentation for applying them from xe. The success was only realized in Xen hypervisor.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • olivierlambertO Online
                    olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                    last edited by

                    Please share the exact key/values you used to make it work on "vanilla" Xen. It could be trivial to "port" it to XCP-ng, but for that we need that you share what you found 🙂

                    X 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • X Offline
                      XCP-ng-JustGreat @olivierlambert
                      last edited by

                      olivierlambert AlexanderK I pasted my xl config file here: https://paste.vates.fr/?449c18ba665cd704#GzDDKa4fui6jqbvG7ssT5TpH7uj8uBVrg7zojpGqYmu7

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • X Offline
                        XCP-ng-JustGreat @olivierlambert
                        last edited by

                        olivierlambert AlexanderK One final thing, here is the Xen reference manual link for the xl config file parameters (I learned a lot reading it.) https://xenbits.xen.org/docs/unstable/man/xl.cfg.5.html The outstanding issue appears to be whether or not there is a corresponding setting configurable from the xe toolstack to turn on all of the required parameter/value pairs as implemented by my test configuration on the pure Xen hypervisor. If so, we should then be able to make nested virtualization of Hyper-V work on XCP-ng.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • olivierlambertO Online
                          olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                          last edited by

                          As long as we know exactly what's missing, we can fix it 🙂

                          AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • AlexanderKA Offline
                            AlexanderK @olivierlambert
                            last edited by

                            olivierlambert said in Windows 10 Vm and Desktop Docker Issue:

                            As long as we know exactly what's missing, we can fix it 🙂

                            can't wait for the fix

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • olivierlambertO Online
                              olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                              last edited by

                              It's still unclear what parameter is missing on XAPI vs libxl, waiting for more details from XCP-ng-JustGreat 🙂

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • olivierlambertO Online
                                olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                last edited by

                                AlexanderK can you share the VM record here please? (the one that's nested but doesn't work with Docker). A simple output of xe vm-param-list uuid=<VM UUID> will do it.

                                Just checked the xl config posted by XCP-ng-JustGreat, and I can already answer for some parameters, but I'd like to check if they are already used or not (eg platform:viridian can be set to true if it's not already the case)

                                AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • AlexanderKA Offline
                                  AlexanderK @olivierlambert
                                  last edited by

                                  olivierlambert

                                  ready
                                  https://paste.vates.fr/?baadbc38f80b47a7#39oL16iVjNAnab5oHFpfQKt8rDw9AXjk1v5dMev8RAzM

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • olivierlambertO Online
                                    olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                    last edited by

                                    Can you try with a Windows 10 template from the start?

                                    AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • AlexanderKA Offline
                                      AlexanderK
                                      last edited by

                                      olivierlambert ok will do it.

                                      X 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • X Offline
                                        XCP-ng-JustGreat @AlexanderK
                                        last edited by

                                        AlexanderK olivierlambert Did a bit more testing by removing one of the four nested-virtualization parameters at a time in the windows.cfg file on pure vanilla Xen hypervisor. Omitting the cpuid setting is the one where the Hyper-V machine bus provider driver fails to load in the guest and, basically, nested Hyper-V breaks. From what I can tell, entering that key/value pair under the platform parameter in the XCP-ng VM definition has no effect after starting from a "stock" Windows 10 VM template.
                                        Since the platform parameter would seem to be the logical place for that value, it looks like a developer needs to look at the code to see whether or not the mechanism for passing cpuid already exists and is not documented, or instead it needs to be implemented. Thanks again to olivierlambert and the team at Vates for your continued innovation and enhancement of this remarkably useful software! 😊

                                        AlexanderKA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • olivierlambertO Online
                                          olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                          last edited by

                                          Okay so it's the only thing we don't have is cpuid and that make the diff. I'll ask around to see how we could have this in XCP-ng/XAPI (xenops in fact).

                                          Thanks for your precious feedback XCP-ng-JustGreat !

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • AlexanderKA Offline
                                            AlexanderK @olivierlambert
                                            last edited by

                                            olivierlambert
                                            here it is from the start

                                            https://paste.vates.fr/?1d9650dbc857af53#3STr5czhCrom7y4HvyNGBH6nZ1bghHaiXKuChhcDrbCK

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post