7.9. Installing VirtIO driver on an existing Windows virtual machine
7.9.1. Understanding VirtIO drivers
VirtIO drivers are paravirtualized device drivers required for Microsoft Windows virtual machines to run in OpenShift Virtualization. The supported drivers are available in the container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk of the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog.
The container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk must be attached to the virtual machine as a SATA CD drive to enable driver installation. You can install VirtIO drivers during Windows installation on the virtual machine or added to an existing Windows installation.
After the drivers are installed, the container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk can be removed from the virtual machine.
See also: Installing Virtio drivers on a new Windows virtual machine.
7.9.2. Supported VirtIO drivers for Microsoft Windows virtual machines
Driver name | Hardware ID | Description |
---|---|---|
viostor |
VEN_1AF4&DEV_1001 | The block driver. Sometimes displays as an SCSI Controller in the Other devices group. |
viorng |
VEN_1AF4&DEV_1005 | The entropy source driver. Sometimes displays as a PCI Device in the Other devices group. |
NetKVM |
VEN_1AF4&DEV_1000 | The network driver. Sometimes displays as an Ethernet Controller in the Other devices group. Available only if a VirtIO NIC is configured. |
7.9.3. Adding VirtIO drivers container disk to a virtual machine
OpenShift Virtualization distributes VirtIO drivers for Microsoft Windows as a container disk, which is available from the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog. To install these drivers to a Windows virtual machine, attach the container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk to the virtual machine as a SATA CD drive in the virtual machine configuration file.
Prerequisites
-
Download the
container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk from the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog. This is not mandatory, because the container disk will be downloaded from the Red Hat registry if it not already present in the cluster, but it can reduce installation time.
Procedure
Add the
container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk as acdrom
disk in the Windows virtual machine configuration file. The container disk will be downloaded from the registry if it is not already present in the cluster.spec: domain: devices: disks: - name: virtiocontainerdisk bootOrder: 2 1 cdrom: bus: sata volumes: - containerDisk: image: container-native-virtualization/virtio-win name: virtiocontainerdisk
- 1
- OpenShift Virtualization boots virtual machine disks in the order defined in the
VirtualMachine
configuration file. You can either define other disks for the virtual machine before thecontainer-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk or use the optionalbootOrder
parameter to ensure the virtual machine boots from the correct disk. If you specify thebootOrder
for a disk, it must be specified for all disks in the configuration.
The disk is available once the virtual machine has started:
-
If you add the container disk to a running virtual machine, use
oc apply -f <vm.yaml>
in the CLI or reboot the virtual machine for the changes to take effect. -
If the virtual machine is not running, use
virtctl start <vm>
.
-
If you add the container disk to a running virtual machine, use
After the virtual machine has started, the VirtIO drivers can be installed from the attached SATA CD drive.
7.9.4. Installing VirtIO drivers on an existing Windows virtual machine
Install the VirtIO drivers from the attached SATA CD drive to an existing Windows virtual machine.
This procedure uses a generic approach to adding drivers to Windows. The process might differ slightly between versions of Windows. Refer to the installation documentation for your version of Windows for specific installation steps.
Procedure
- Start the virtual machine and connect to a graphical console.
- Log in to a Windows user session.
Open Device Manager and expand Other devices to list any Unknown device.
-
Open the
Device Properties
to identify the unknown device. Right-click the device and select Properties. - Click the Details tab and select Hardware Ids in the Property list.
- Compare the Value for the Hardware Ids with the supported VirtIO drivers.
-
Open the
- Right-click the device and select Update Driver Software.
- Click Browse my computer for driver software and browse to the attached SATA CD drive, where the VirtIO drivers are located. The drivers are arranged hierarchically according to their driver type, operating system, and CPU architecture.
- Click Next to install the driver.
- Repeat this process for all the necessary VirtIO drivers.
- After the driver installs, click Close to close the window.
- Reboot the virtual machine to complete the driver installation.
7.9.5. Removing the VirtIO container disk from a virtual machine
After installing all required VirtIO drivers to the virtual machine, the container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk no longer needs to be attached to the virtual machine. Remove the container-native-virtualization/virtio-win
container disk from the virtual machine configuration file.
Procedure
Edit the configuration file and remove the
disk
and thevolume
.$ oc edit vm <vm-name>
spec: domain: devices: disks: - name: virtiocontainerdisk bootOrder: 2 cdrom: bus: sata volumes: - containerDisk: image: container-native-virtualization/virtio-win name: virtiocontainerdisk
- Reboot the virtual machine for the changes to take effect.