Hyper-V Unraid Networking Support


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Hello All,

 

In an effort to move away from ESXI, I have been experimenting/testing with some other hypervisors.  In testing out Windows Server 2012R2 with Hyper-V, I have been unable to get networking functioning in Unraid.  I have seen a few threads on the forums here with little to no success, or no reporting solutions.

 

Has anyone been successful in getting a NIC detected by Unraid using Hyper-V?  I have had no issues passing through the USB drive, which is what I am booting Unraid from.

 

I appreciate the advice.

 

 

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I too have been looking to get the Hyper-V network driver as a standard in the unraid build.  I have asked Tom and he said he would work on it when time allowed but I believe xen and the 64 bit version has taken most of his time and I didn't want to push the issue.  I did however find a person on here that was kind enough to compile an old version of unraid with the hyper-v network driver and it works perfectly.  His name was ddeeds who I believe has a new name but I could be wrong.  Maybe if that person is still on here they would be willing to help?

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  • 1 month later...

Just so you guys know, Tom did actually ask me about this tonight.  If there is enough support for it, we may consider this in a future release.  I honestly don't know how much effort goes into this with something like hyper-v, and continued support for it may be an added difficulty if it's not solid yet.  We've not done any R&D on this yet and to be honest, this is a little lower on the totem pole right now with only 4 folks talking about it.  We are headed in a direction with unRAID operating as a host, not a guest.  While some folks can get it working as a guest, any effort towards maintaining a build in this direction is going to be difficult to justify for now.  This isn't to say that supporting it as a guest WOULDN'T be considered in the future.  It's just not the focus right now.  Just trying to be honest and direct. 

 

Then again, if you guys can get more support for this and it's a simple enough tweak, we may consider it for the next release.  Fair enough?

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There is likely a larger group of users who may consider this if it was viable. Considering that both Windows 7 and Windows 8 natively offer Hyper-V just like the server editions, it's something that could have some merit (assuming the effort was small on your part to maintain).

 

Again, it's understandably not a high priority as you guys are pushing version 6 to new and unforeseen levels, but this would be a nice extra feature to include down the road.

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Thanks for the comment.

 

definitely understand what you are saying.

 

I have looked at the new Betas with Xen, but TBH gave up quite quickly.

 

ESXi/vSphere isn't suitable for what I am doing, so looking at Hyper-V. I did a search of the forums, has it has come up multiple times before, unfortunately most of the time the replies are "why do you want to use windoze, use VMware instead. Windows sucks. blah blah blah", at-least, that's the ones that I read. Not really very helpful.

 

However, I don't believe we are wanting/needing much. I have got UnRaid to work/boot, the issue is no networking support.

 

Hopefully all that is needed is to include 1-2 drivers (there is a legacy and a normal nic, similar to ESXi's e1000 and ESXM3, or whatever it is called).

 

I did suggest to Tom, if it's possible to do a manual install, even if I need to do it each time the VM is rebooted, that is fine with me (at-least for the moment).

Or some kind of package that can be put in the Go file? (I admit, i'm a bit of a noob when it comes to Linux, almost everything I do gets googled first :P)

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Thanks for the comment.

 

definitely understand what you are saying.

 

I have looked at the new Betas with Xen, but TBH gave up quite quickly.

 

ESXi/vSphere isn't suitable for what I am doing, so looking at Hyper-V. I did a search of the forums, has it has come up multiple times before, unfortunately most of the time the replies are "why do you want to use windoze, use VMware instead. Windows sucks. blah blah blah", at-least, that's the ones that I read. Not really very helpful.

 

However, I don't believe we are wanting/needing much. I have got UnRaid to work/boot, the issue is no networking support.

 

Hopefully all that is needed is to include 1-2 drivers (there is a legacy and a normal nic, similar to ESXi's e1000 and ESXM3, or whatever it is called).

 

I did suggest to Tom, if it's possible to do a manual install, even if I need to do it each time the VM is rebooted, that is fine with me (at-least for the moment).

Or some kind of package that can be put in the Go file? (I admit, i'm a bit of a noob when it comes to Linux, almost everything I do gets googled first :P)

 

Drivers are not easy to install.  They are a part of the Kernel itself which is pre-compiled for unRAID.  We would have to add it.

 

Here's what I can promise.  When we are prepping our next release, we will look into this and see if it is an easy and Linux-supported inclusion.  If so, we might be able to do that.  If it looks like a lot more effort will be required, it'll probably be a no-go.  In addition, we'll need someone around and available to test for us on their setup.  We don't have this setup in our lab.

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Like I said I have a working version that ddeeds compiled for me that I will share with the mods/Tom if you think you can reverse engineer it if ddeeds isn't around anymore.  I also have a 2008 HyperV server that I can test with and can setup a 2012 HyperV server to test with also.

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  • 1 month later...

Drivers are not easy to install.  They are a part of the Kernel itself which is pre-compiled for unRAID.  We would have to add it.

 

Here's what I can promise.  When we are prepping our next release, we will look into this and see if it is an easy and Linux-supported inclusion.  If so, we might be able to do that.  If it looks like a lot more effort will be required, it'll probably be a no-go.  In addition, we'll need someone around and available to test for us on their setup.  We don't have this setup in our lab.

 

just wondering if there was any more news about this? :)

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ZeroK, Did you manage to get the usb to pass through? That is the problem with installing this on hyper-v is windows does not pass through usb drives, so the current way of determining if you have a pro version based on the serial of the usb will not work. I have read online that some people have found ways to pass through a usb flash drive but no one has ever listed a model of usb flash drive that works.

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ZeroK, Did you manage to get the usb to pass through? That is the problem with installing this on hyper-v is windows does not pass through usb drives, so the current way of determining if you have a pro version based on the serial of the usb will not work. I have read online that some people have found ways to pass through a usb flash drive but no one has ever listed a model of usb flash drive that works.

 

I've seen mention of forcing the USB Drive offline and then that makes it available to present to the VM, but was not able to get it work.

 

Am 99% sure the free edition of UnRaid will do everything I want, this is just a backup server.

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I was not successful in getting it to pass through using my prod 2008 hyperv server; but I've been running the free version on it for a long time and that's all I need for what I wanted to do.  I don't have 2012 loaded anywhere to test but if this may be a reality of supporting hyperv in the long run then I can load one up and play around with it.  You do have to force the drives you want to use in offline mode regardless so I can see where other people may have been able to get it to work by forcing the usb drive offline.

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  • 1 month later...

I would love to get Pro running on HyperV (2012 R2) to move away from ESXi for multiple reasons, including that ESXi is becoming more and more prohibitive.

 

So it sounds like there are two issues (correct me if I'm wrong):

 

1) Unraid does not have the HyperV guest drivers compiled into its kernel

2) Unraid uses the USB as part of its pro licensing activation checks

 

My 5 cents:

1 sounds like it could be remedied if there is enough call for it, the team have time to prioritise it, and someone donates (locally or remotely?) a test server

2 sounds like a re-think of the license activation approach... of which I'll be honest I'm not a big fan of relying on USB, I'd like to have an option to boot from VHD

 

Now... I would probably be happy to drop ESXi and HyperV if the XEN/KVM v6 Unraid build had an integrated web UI (out of the box and supported) to manage all things VMy - Including features like PCIe/USB/Raw disk pass through. Unfortunately, I really don't have the time to be messing with scripts and config files - I need an 'it just works' GUI experience.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would love to get Pro running on HyperV (2012 R2) to move away from ESXi for multiple reasons, including that ESXi is becoming more and more prohibitive.

 

So it sounds like there are two issues (correct me if I'm wrong):

 

1) Unraid does not have the HyperV guest drivers compiled into its kernel

2) Unraid uses the USB as part of its pro licensing activation checks

 

My 5 cents:

1 sounds like it could be remedied if there is enough call for it, the team have time to prioritise it, and someone donates (locally or remotely?) a test server

2 sounds like a re-think of the license activation approach... of which I'll be honest I'm not a big fan of relying on USB, I'd like to have an option to boot from VHD

 

Now... I would probably be happy to drop ESXi and HyperV if the XEN/KVM v6 Unraid build had an integrated web UI (out of the box and supported) to manage all things VMy - Including features like PCIe/USB/Raw disk pass through. Unfortunately, I really don't have the time to be messing with scripts and config files - I need an 'it just works' GUI experience.

Don't blame you for that at all.  There is web virt manager for KVM that works very well, but does not directly within its GUI itself support things like host device pass through.  That said, you can install virt manager on a Linux OS which is a full client program for managing libvirt and does have those capabilities...

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...

In case folks didn't know, this was included in unraid 6 beta 12.

 

that is awesome, thank you to you and Tom :)

 

Will install it this weekend :D

I've been contemplating virtualizing unraid with Hyper-V when I finally get around to upgrading my server hardware.  I'm curious how this went.  If you have anything to report?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Nice to know this got added - need to update my version as I'm still on 5.

 

I have just fired up my AIO Build with MS2012R2 and adding in HyperV tonight. Will see if I can get UnRAID running as a guest

 

Thanks Team!

 

Kosti or panter,

 

Any update on this?  Curious if you guys were able to get this moving or not.  Let us know please!!

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