Installing Linux Integration Services v2.1 Hyper-V R2 On CentOS 5

Introduction

When installed on a virtual machine that is running a supported Linux operating system, Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V provides the following functionality:

• Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
• Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices now take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
• Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
• Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager, using the "Shut Down" command.
  
• Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.

1. Download Linux Integration Components v2.1

a. Download Linux Integration Components v2.1 from Microsoft Download site.

b. Extract the .exe file into a temp folder. You will need only LinuxIC v21.iso file.

c. Place the LinuxIC v21.iso file into your VM host server where you can mount the ISO as a CDROM for your Centon Virtual Machine.

2. Installation

You will need Development Tools installed to be able to compile the Integration Components. You could do that by running yum:

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

NOTE: This command will try to use your network connection to download and if you used Synthetic Network Adapter for your Hyper-V machine you will not have internet connection. So make sure to install Development Tools during your Centos initial installation.

Now make sure you added LinuxIC v21.iso file to your Hyper-V CDROM as Image.

As the root user, mount the CD in the virtual machine by issuing the following commands at a shell prompt:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Copy Linux Integration Services to the virtual machine and unmount CDROM that no longer needed:

mkdir /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm
cp –R /mnt/cdrom/* /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm
umount /mnt/cdrom

As the root user, run the following command to compile and install the synthetic drivers:

cd /opt/linux_ic_v21_rtm/
make
make install

NOTE: If you're using the x64 version of Centos, you have perform an extra step.

Attach the Centos ISO that was used for installation in the virtual machine, and mount it:

mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Install the adjtimex RPM for more accurate time keeping in the virtual machine:

rpm –ivh /mnt/cdrom/Centos/adjtimex-1.20-2.1.x86_64.rpm

To verify that all subcomponents are running,, as the root user, issue the following command at a shell prompt:

/sbin/lsmod | grep vsc

Please remmeber when using Network Adapters on Hyper-V, NIC names would be changed from eth0 to seth0.

Uninstalling Linux Integration Services

To uninstall Linux Integration Services, follow these steps.

1. From the Linux virtual machine, browse to the location where the installation files were copied (for example, /opt/linux).

2. From the command line, run the following command: make uninstall

3. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf and remove the noprobe entries from the boot entries.

4. Restore the initrd image to the original file. For example:

To configure the Synthetic Storage Controller:

cp /boot/initrd-2.6.16.60-0.54.5-smp.backup0 /boot/initrd-2.6.16.60-0.54.5-smp

5. Reboot the virtual machine.