My Hyper-V RC0 install experience

For my new role, I needed to build out a Hyper-V server in order to demo MOSS, Exchange 2007 and OCS for education customers.  I am new to Hyper-V so I documented a few things I have learned along the way.

Sample Hyper-V demo server

The first thing I needed was to purchase a decent Hyper-V server. I assembled an 8GB RAM and Quad core server.  Here is a sample of what I built out for around $1400:

Validate virtualization support with your CPU

I needed to verify the CPU supported Hyper-V and I did a look up here to make sure the chip I was buying had 'Intel Virtualization Technology' support or with AMD chips you should look for 'AMD-V' support.

If you already own a capable server and want to check to see if it has virtualization support you can use some tools such as:

GRC freeware application called SecurAble which shows CPU output like below which tells you if you have HW virtualization support.

           My laptop with Virtualization disabled in BIOS

There is also CPUid that can provide deep CPU information as well. 

I recommend you use those CPU checker tools in addition to checking with Intel or AMD to validate virtualization support.

What needs to be enabled in the BIOS to support Hyper-V

In the BIOS of my new Hyper-V server I needed to enable the following prior to installing Hyper-V with an Intel chip:

IntelVT

IntelXD

which are both required for Hyper-V to run.

Install Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V RC0

Next, install Windows Server 2008 on your host server (I used 64-bit Enterprise) and you also need to download Hyper-V RC0:

Grab 32-bit RC0 Hyper-V here

Grab 64-bit RC0 Hyper-V here

For the next step, run Hyper-V setup. I ran the install file for Hyper-V but where did it go in the OS?:

By running the Hyper-V install it essentially made the role available to Windows Server 2008 but it is not installed on the server yet.

To add Hyper-V as a role:

Open Server Manager

Click Roles object

Click 'Add Role'

Select 'Hyper-V' role

Follow wizard

You should see this when it is fully installed:

Create 64-bit guests

Install a guest OS such as Windows Server 2008.  Let it finish.

Login to the guest.

Why do my Windows Server 2008 hyper-v guests not show any network adapters?

By default, you must leverage the 'legacy adapter' or install the hyper-v RC0 on each VM to leverage the default 'Network Adapter'.

In troubleshooting this missing adapter in the guest OS, I noticed I now had two NICs listed in my network settings on my Host server, one virtual NIC with my IP stack bound to it and my physical NIC with only the switch protocol bound to it.

I asked the Hyper-V product team why it is configured this way and they told me:

"When you create an “external” switch, the physical NIC becomes “owned” by the virtual switch and is no longer used by the host.  The host gets a new (virtual) adapter to use instead.

The physical NIC should only have the switch protocol bound to it.  The Virtual NIC added by Hyper-V should have all other the protocol bounds to it -- and it you can NOT bind the virtual switch to it (enforced by the switch protocol).

The host uses the virtual NIC (thus all protocols except TCP are bound to this virtual NIC).  The virtual NIC connects to the virtual switch (internal to Hyper-V).  The virtual switch connects to the physical NIC (thus only the switch protocol is bound to the NIC)."

Good information to know about the host server NIC configuration on a hyper-v server.  I also ran into the next good thing to know.

Hyper-V host NIC tip:

Leave the physical NIC alone when the virtual switch protocol is bound to it. DO NOT add in protocols such as the TCP/IP protocol to the physical NIC with the virtual switch enabled. If you do, you may encounter undesirable results or errors. I did this as a test and I had to boot safe mode with networking and uncheck the TCP/IP stack from the physical adapter to be able to actually log back into the Hyper-V server.  I provided some feedback to the Hyper-V product team around making sure this is spelled out clearly with warnings, etc.

When you are done creating your VMs you should see something like this:

Conclusion

I am very pleased with Windows Server 2008 and our Hyper-V RC0 solution.  I have created many VMs and they all run smoothly.  It really did not take that long to learn my way around Hyper-V administration and how things work. The nice part is I can now create 64-bit guests with snapshots, etc so it is perfect for my demo needs as I can rollback changes, etc.

If you haven't played with Hyper-V yet, I recommend you download Hyper-V RC0 and put this in your labs to get familiar with this prior to our final release. Don't put RC0 in production as things may change for the final release. For more information on Hyper-V go here.