Please document Hyper-V compatibility

[forderud]

It would be nice if the IncludeOS documentation could be updated to also cover a few sentences about Hyper-V compatibility.

I don't really know much about virtualization, but I did manage to run the IncludeOS_example image inside Hyper-V after performing the following steps:

• Use qemu-img to convert image to vhdx format: qemu-img.exe convert IncludeOS_example.img -O vhdx -o subformat=dynamic IncludeOS_example.vhdx (see https://cloudbase.it/qemu-img-windows/)
• Create a "generation 1" Hyper-V VM with IncludeOS_example.vhdx attached as hard drive.

The image boots nicely in Hyper-V:

Issues:

• I suspect that networking does not work. Not sure how to investigate this though, since the only thing displayed on screen is #include <os> // Literally..
• "Generation 2" VMs does not seem to work. Disabling secure boot does not help. There's more information about gen 1 vs. 2 on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/plan/should-i-create-a-generation-1-or-2-virtual-machine-in-hyper-v

[ingve]

Nice! Can you get serial output from the instance that is running on Hyper-V? The IncludeOS_example outputs some information (including networking settings) to serial while running. If not, you can try enabling the vga output.

[forderud]

Unfortunately, I've not been able to get any serial-port output. WinDbg complaints about "Debugee not connected" when attempting to connect to a named pipe associated with COM1 in the VM: This might, however, be caused by improper usage from my side, since I've never done this before..

Any advise on how to enable VGA output when building the image?

[ingve]

To get VGA output, it should be enough to add vga_output to the drivers section in the CmakeLists.txt file and rebuild the service. Then you should get something like this instead of the #include <os> // Literally screen:

[forderud]

Thanks for the tip @ingve. I've now managed to add vga_output to the drivers section an rebuild the service.

Unfortunately, the VM still only displays #include <os> // Literally as before when booting. Maybe it's crashing without any visual cues(?)

[ingve]

That sounds plausible. Does Hyper-V have some (non-user initiated) logging of its own? When I run IncludeOS services in VMware, in addition to the serial output, for each instance VMware writes a very detailed log with extremely detailed information, thousands of lines like the following:

2017-12-18T14:13:25.158+01:00| vmx| I125: Vix: [775 mainDispatch.c:1073]: VMAutomation_PowerOn. Powering on.
2017-12-18T14:13:25.159+01:00| vmx| I125: VMX_PowerOn: ModuleTable_PowerOn = 1
2017-12-18T14:13:25.159+01:00| vmx| A100: ConfigDB: Setting cleanShutdown = "FALSE"
2017-12-18T14:13:25.159+01:00| vmx| A100: ConfigDB: Setting softPowerOff = "FALSE"
2017-12-18T14:13:25.159+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: VTHREAD start thread 4 "vcpu-0" tid 2593563
2017-12-18T14:13:25.162+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: MonTimer APIC:1/1 vec: 221
2017-12-18T14:13:25.162+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: APIC: version = 0x15, max LVT = 6, LDR = 0x4000000, DFR = 0xffffffff
2017-12-18T14:13:25.163+01:00| svga| I125: SVGA thread is alive
2017-12-18T14:13:25.163+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: CPU reset: hard (mode 2)
2017-12-18T14:13:25.164+01:00| vcpu-0| W115: VSOCKET 1 Failed to create socket: Network is unreachable (51)
2017-12-18T14:13:25.164+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: GuestRpc: Could not create RPCI listening socket: Network is unreachable
2017-12-18T14:13:25.164+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: GuestRpc: Using vsocket for TCLO messaging is disabled.
2017-12-18T14:13:25.165+01:00| vcpu-0| I125: PIIX4: PM Resuming from suspend type 0x0, chipset.onlineStandby 0

[forderud]

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a way to activate detailed logging. The only logs I've found are high-level events in the Windows event viewer: The folders containing the IncludeOS VM doesn't seem to contain any log files either....