Workaround for Pluggable Time Source support for RHEL 5.x 64-bit Hyper-V guests
When installed in a supported Linux virtual machine running on Hyper-V, the Linux Integration Components provide:
• Driver support for synthetic devices: The Linux integration components include support for both the synthetic network controller and synthetic storage controller that have been developed specifically for Hyper-V. These components take advantage of the new high-speed bus, VMBus, which was developed for Hyper-V.
• Fastpath Boot Support: Boot devices now take advantage of the storage VSC to provide enhanced performance.
• Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
• Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager, using the “Shut Down” command.
• Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
• Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
• Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.
Although this version of the integration services for Hyper-V supports Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 / 5.3 / 5.4 / 5.5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 x64 editions do not support using the Pluggable Time Source component.
However, you can use the existing timesync component with the adjtimex RPM package, to compensate for time drift:
If using the x64 version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, follow these additional instructions:
1. Attach the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ISO that was used for installation in the virtual machine, and mount it using the following commands at a shell prompt:
# mkdir /mnt/cdrom
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
2. Install the adjtimex RPM for more accurate time keeping in the virtual machine:
# rpm –ivh /mnt/cdrom/Server/adjtimex-1.20-2.1.x86_64.rpm
To install the Linux IC.
After the ISO is “available”.
Firstly, install the Required Components via Command Line
Red Hat updates
# yum install kernel-devel
# yum groupinstall “development tools”
# yum update
Restart the VM and then, insert the LinuxIC iso into the DVD drive and copy the contents to /opt/linuxic directory.
Run the commands below, to install the IC:
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
# mkdir /opt/linux_is
# cp –r /mnt/* /opt/linux_is
# cd /opt/linux_is
# make
# make install
To verify that the Linux ICs are working.
# /sbin/lsmod | grep vsc
# modinfo vmbus
To verify the Synthetic Ethernet adapter is working
# ifconfig seth0 Note: Article also published by myself at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/workaround-for-pluggable-time-source-support-for-rhel-5-x-64-bit-hyper-v-guests.aspx My thanks to Sumesh P - MSFT, who helped with the tip.