Chapter 2. Requirements and restrictions
This chapter covers the hardware and software requirements for the para-virtualized Windows drivers.
The para-virtualized Windows drivers can be deployed on x86 (32 bit) and AMD64 or Intel 64 (64 bit) systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 or later. The Itanium platform is presently unsupported for the para-virtualized drivers.
Hosts running AMD64 or Intel 64 (64 bit) Red Hat Enterprise Linux can run 64 bit or 32 bit fully virtualized Windows guests. Mixing 32 bit and 64 bit guest operating systems is supported.
Hosts running x86 (32 bit) Red Hat Enterprise Linux can only run 32 bit guest operating systems.
You require all of the items in this list for the para-virtualized Windows drivers:
- one or more of the para-virtualized Windows drivers packages. The package installation process is described in Section 3.2, “Installing the para-virtualized drivers”. You only require the packages for the guest architectures you run.
xenpv-win-32bit– The driver package for 32 bit Windows versions.xenpv-win-32bit-debug– The debugging driver package for 32 bit Windows versions.xenpv-win-64bit– The driver package for 64 bit Windows versions.xenpv-win-64bit-debug– The debugging driver for 64 bit Windows versions.
- a system running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, or later, for the host.
- at least 10MB of free space on each Windows guest.
- administrator level access to the Windows virtual machine.
- root or
sudoaccess to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux host.
Supported operating systems
This section covers the supported Windows virtualized guest operating systems.
Support for para-virtualized drivers is available to virtualized guests running the following Microsoft Windows operating system versions.
- Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 – 32 bit
- Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 – 64 bit
- Windows Server 2003 R2 Service Pack 2 – 32 bit
- Windows Server 2003 R2 Service Pack 2 – 64 bit
- Windows XP – Service Pack 2 – 32 bit
- Windows XP – Service Pack 3 – 32 bit
- Windows XP Professional x64 – Service Pack 1 – 64 bit
- Windows XP Professional x64 – Service Pack 2 – 64 bit
- Windows Vista – 32 bit
- Windows Vista – 64 bit
- Windows Vista Service Pack 1 – 32 bit
- Windows Vista Service Pack 1 – 64 bit
Important
All mentions of the term "64 bit" in this document refer to AMD64 and Intel 64 systems. Itanium systems are not supported at present by these drivers.
Other restrictions
Some additional technical restrictions apply to the para-virtualized drivers.
The system drive cannot run the para-virtualized block device drivers.
The system drive, identified by the
%SYSTEMDRIVE% environment variable in Windows, is the device which contains boot information and system files for the Windows operating system. This device, usually labeled C: drive, contains the Windows directory and cannot use the para-virtualized drivers. The drivers can use a separate partition, logical volume or other physical block device to store applications and non-Windows data. This limitation is due to the limitations of the qemu package.
An example configuration utilizing the para-virtualized drivers.
The para-virtualized device drivers must be installed after the successful creation and installation of the guest operating system.
C: drivewhich contains Windows system files and uses the default, fully virtualized device drivers.D: drivewhich contains applications and utilizes the para-virtualized drivers.
