Host Archives - Thomas Maurer

Jan292019January 29, 2019March 13, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Hyper-V VM configuration version supported features

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Virtualization, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows Server, Windows Server 1709, Windows Server 1803, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about the new Microsoft Hyper-V UEFI in Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 virtual machines. With that version Microsoft also released a new Hyper-V VM configuration version 9.0. This is not unusual, the Hyper-V teams usually bumps up the version number from release to release, since new Hyper-V features are introduced. In the comments, the question came up, what is new in this version of the Hyper-V VM configuration, Since the version was still a preview release of Windows Server and Windows 10, Microsoft didn’t share the full list of features per configuration version. However, now the documentation is ready and you can find the documentation here.

Supported features

The following table shows the minimum virtual machine configuration version required to use some Hyper-V features.

Windows Server	Windows 10	Version	Feature
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	Windows 10 1507	6.2	Hot Add/Remove Memory
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	Windows 10 1507	6.2	Secure Boot for Linux VMs
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	Windows 10 1507	6.2	Production Checkpoints
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	Windows 10 1507	6.2	PowerShell Direct
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	Windows 10 1507	6.2	Virtual Machine Grouping
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4	Windows 10 1511	7.0	Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM)
Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5		7.1	Virtual machine multi queues (VMMQ)
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	XSAVE support
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	Key storage drive
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	Guest virtualization-based security support (VBS)
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	Nested virtualization
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	Virtual processor count
Windows Server 2016	Windows 10 Anniversary Update	8.0	Large memory VMs
Windows Server 1803	Windows 10 April 2018 Update	8.3	Increase the default maximum number for virtual devices to 64 per device (e.g. networking and assigned devices)
Windows Server 2019/1809	Windows 10 October 2018 Update	9.0	Allow additional processor features for Perfmon
Windows Server 2019/1809	Windows 10 October 2018 Update	9.0	Automatically expose simultaneous multithreading configuration for VMs running on hosts using the Core Scheduler
Windows Server 2019/1809	Windows 10 October 2018 Update	9.0	Hibernation support

Source: Microsoft Docs (Thanks to Rene Moergeli for the link)

How to list the supported VM configuration versions

You can list all supported VM configuration versions on your Hyper-V host using the Get-VMHostSupportedVersion cmdlet.

Get-VMHostSupportedVersion

1	Get-VMHostSupportedVersion

If you want to see the version of a Hyper-V virtual machine, you can use Hyper-V Manager or the following PowerShell command:

Get-VM

Get-VM

Full list of Hyper-V VM versions

Here you have a full list of VM configuration versions of Hyper-V VMs together with the operating system.

Windows Client	Windows Server	Version
	Windows Server 2008	1.0
	Windows Server 2008 SP1	2.0
	Windows Server 2008 R2	3.0
Windows 8	Windows Server 2012	4.0
Windows 8.1	Windows Server 2012 R2	5.0
Windows 10 1507	Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3	6.2
Windows 10 1511	Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4	7.0
	Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 5	7.1
Windows 10 Anniversary Update	Windows Server 2016	8.0
Windows 10 Creators Update		8.1
Windows 10 Fall Creators Update	Windows Server 1709	8.2
Windows 10 April 2018 Update	Windows Server 1803	8.3
Windows 10 October 2018 Update	Windows Server 2019 / 1809	9.0
Windows 10 April 2019 Update	Windows Server 1903	9.1
Prerelease	Prerelease	254.0
Experimental	Experimental	255.0

How to upgrade Hyper-V VM configuration version

Upgrading the Hyper-V VM version is pretty straight forward. If the VM is running on a host supporting a newer version of Hyper-V VMs, you can right click the virtual machine in the Hyper-V Manager and click on upgrade or you can run the Update-VMVersion PowerShell cmdlet.

Update-VMVersion

1	Update-VMVersion

I hope this blog was help full for understanding Hyper-V VM versions, let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

Apr182013April 18, 2013January 7, 201914 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Cannot remove Hyper-V Host from SCVMM

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

Today I run in to the problem where I could not remove a Hyper-V Hosts from System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The Hyper-V host was reinstalled before he was removed from SCVMM and the host was showing has HOSTNAME (pending) in the SCVMM Management Console. If you did a right click to remove the host, the Remove option was greyed out.

But don’t worry Windows PowerShell came to the rescue, with the following command you can remove the Hyper-V host from Virtual Machine Manager.

Get-SCVMHost &lt;HOSTNAME&gt; | Remove-SCVMHost -force

1	Get-SCVMHost <HOSTNAME> \| Remove-SCVMHost -force

Nov072012November 7, 2012November 7, 20123 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

SCVMM 2012: Add Logical Network to all Hyper-V Hosts in HostGroup via PowerShell

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, System Center, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

To use the Logical Networks in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 on a specific Hyper-V Host or Hyper-V Cluster you have to add the Logical Network to the network interface which the logical network is available. In the GUI you can do this in the properties of the Hyper-V host under Hardware.

if you have a lot of Hyper-V hosts this can take some time. This Windows PowerShell script will help you. It will add the logical network on each Hyper-V host. It chooses the network adapter based on the network adapter name which is given on the Hyper-V host.

Import-Module virtualmachinemanager
$LogicalNetworkName = "LogicalNetwork"
$vmHostGroup = Get-VMHostGroup "HostGroupName"
$HostNetworkAdapterName = "Network Adapter Name"
$vmHosts = $vmHostGroup.AllChildHosts

foreach ($vmHost in $vmHosts) {

$guid = [guid]::NewGuid()
$logicalNetwork = Get-SCLogicalNetwork -Name $LogicalNetworkName
$vmHostNetworkAdapter = Get-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHost $vmHost | where-object {$_.ConnectionName -eq $HostNetworkAdapterName }

Set-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHostNetworkAdapter $vmHostNetworkAdapter -AddOrSetLogicalNetwork $logicalNetwork -JobGroup $guid
Set-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHostNetworkAdapter $vmHostNetworkAdapter -Description "" -JobGroup $guid -VLanMode "Trunk" -AvailableForPlacement $true -UsedForManagement $false

Set-SCVMHost -VMHost $vmHost -JobGroup $guid -RunAsynchronously

}

Import-Module virtualmachinemanager

$LogicalNetworkName = "LogicalNetwork"

$vmHostGroup = Get-VMHostGroup "HostGroupName"

$HostNetworkAdapterName = "Network Adapter Name"

$vmHosts = $vmHostGroup.AllChildHosts

foreach ($vmHost in $vmHosts) {

$guid = [guid]::NewGuid()

$logicalNetwork = Get-SCLogicalNetwork -Name $LogicalNetworkName

$vmHostNetworkAdapter = Get-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHost $vmHost | where-object {$_.ConnectionName -eq $HostNetworkAdapterName }

Set-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHostNetworkAdapter $vmHostNetworkAdapter -AddOrSetLogicalNetwork $logicalNetwork -JobGroup $guid

Set-SCVMHostNetworkAdapter -VMHostNetworkAdapter $vmHostNetworkAdapter -Description "" -JobGroup $guid -VLanMode "Trunk" -AvailableForPlacement $true -UsedForManagement $false

Set-SCVMHost -VMHost $vmHost -JobGroup $guid -RunAsynchronously

}

With the release of Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager this is gone if you use the Logical Switch.

Jul162012July 16, 2012July 16, 20120 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Host Deployment

Posted in Hardware, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Private Cloud, Server Core, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, VMware, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus offers a solution for centralized deployment of VMware Hypervisor hosts on physical hardware.

How does the deployment of Microsoft Hyper-V Server work? Microsoft Hyper-V can be deployed as Windows Server role or as Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Both setups are based on the normal Windows setups and you can use the same deployment processes.

DVD
USB
Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)
System Center Configurations Manager

or my favorite deployment method: Bare-Metal Deployment with System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Blogger and Microsoft Consultant Michel Lüscher wrote a great blog post about how you can use the bare-metal deployment feature in SCVMM.

Jun162012June 16, 2012June 16, 20122 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 – Virtual Machine Manager Improvements #1

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, Private Cloud, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Work

I cloud not resist to install the CTP2 of System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager. First I have to say the CTP2 of Virtual Machine Manager runs unbelievable stable and fast. If you may have worked with other releases of VMM you know what I mean.

I had not much time to check for everything which is new but I found two interesting things which are in my opinion great improvements.

Hyper-V Host Hardware – Logical network connectivity

In my opinion the new design of network adapter pages with the logical network selection is a great usability improvement, and makes much more sense now.

System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager without Service Pack 1 (Screenshot from Hyper-V.nu):

System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager Service Pack 1 CTP2:

Hyper-V Host Hardware – Storage

System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager Service Pack 1 CTP2:

This things will maybe change until RTM of System Center 2012 SP1 but at the moment they look pretty good. I am sure there is a lot more in CTP2.

Aug272011August 27, 2011January 12, 201929 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Enable SSH on ESXi 5 via vSphere Client

Posted in Software, Virtualization, VMware, Work

In the first post I wrote how you can enable SSH on the ESXi 5.0 host. In this post I show you how you can enable or activate SSH on the ESXi 5.0 hosts via the vSphere Client.

First start the vSphere Client
Select the ESXi host in the configurations tab
Select Security Profile
Click on Properties in the upper right corner and you will get the a popup with all the services on this ESXi 5.0 hosts. Select the SSH service and press the Options button.
Now you can start the services and set the startup options
press okay and you are done..

If you are running Windows, you should also check out my blog post about how to install SSH on Windows 10 or SSH on Windows Server. I also blogged about how you can use SSH with PowerShell.

Aug252011August 25, 2011January 12, 20198 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Activate SSH on VMware ESXi 5.0

Posted in Virtualization, VMware, Work

As in VMware ESXi 4.1 you can enable or activate SSH on VMware ESXi 5.0 very simple. VMware ESXi 5.0 is also known as VMware vSphere Hypervisor.

On the start screen press F2 for “Customize System”
Login with the local password
Select and enter Troubleshooting Options
Click on Enable SSH to activate SSH on your VMware ESXi 5.0 host
After you have pressed the ENTER key you will now see that SSH is enabled

If you are running Windows, you should also check out my blog post about how to install SSH on Windows 10 or SSH on Windows Server. I also blogged about how you can use SSH with PowerShell.

Tag: Host

Hyper-V VM configuration version supported features

Supported features

How to list the supported VM configuration versions

Full list of Hyper-V VM versions

How to upgrade Hyper-V VM configuration version

Cannot remove Hyper-V Host from SCVMM

SCVMM 2012: Add Logical Network to all Hyper-V Hosts in HostGroup via PowerShell

Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Host Deployment

System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 – Virtual Machine Manager Improvements #1

Hyper-V Host Hardware – Logical network connectivity

Enable SSH on ESXi 5 via vSphere Client

Activate SSH on VMware ESXi 5.0

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