Qemu guest agent windows proxmox

Introduction — What is qemu-guest-agent

The qemu-guest-agent is a helper daemon, which is installed in the guest. It is used
to exchange information between the host and guest, and to execute command in the guest.

In Proxmox VE, the qemu-guest-agent is used for mainly three things:

1. To properly shutdown the guest, instead of relying on ACPI commands or windows policies
2. To freeze the guest file system when making a backup/snapshot (on windows, use the volume shadow copy service VSS). If the guest agent is enabled and running, it calls guest-fsfreeze-freeze and guest-fsfreeze-thaw to improve consistency.
3. In the phase when the guest (VM) is resumed after pause (for example after shapshot) it immediately synchronizes its time with the hypervisor using qemu-guest-agent (as first step).

Installation

Host

You have to install guest-agent in each VM and then enable it, you can do that in the Proxmox VE Webinterface (GUI)

Картинка с сайта: pve.proxmox.com

or via CLI: qm set VMID --agent 1

Guest

Linux

On Linux you have to simply install the qemu-guest-agent, please refer to the documentation of your system.

We show here the commands for Debian/Ubuntu and Redhat based systems:

on Debian/Ubuntu based systems (with apt-get) run:

apt-get install qemu-guest-agent

and on Redhat based systems (with yum):

yum install qemu-guest-agent

Depending on the distribution, the guest agent might not start automatically after the installation.

Start it either directly with

systemctl start qemu-guest-agent

Then enable the service to autostart (permanently) if not auto started, with

systemctl enable qemu-guest-agent

(should work for most distributions) or reboot the guest.

Windows

First you have to download the virtio-win driver iso (see Windows VirtIO Drivers).

Then install the virtio-serial driver:

1. Attach the ISO to your windows VM (virtio-*.iso)
2. Go to the windows Device Manager
3. Look for «PCI Simple Communications Controller»
4. Right Click -> Update Driver and select on the mounted iso in DRIVE:\vioserial\<OSVERSION>\ where <OSVERSION> is your Windows Version (e.g. 2k12R2 for Windows 2012 R2)

After that, you have to install the qemu-guest-agent:

1. Go to the mounted ISO in explorer
2. The guest agent installer is in the directory guest-agent
3. Execute the installer with double click (either qemu-ga-x86_64.msi (64-bit) or qemu-ga-i386.msi (32-bit)

After that the qemu-guest-agent should be up and running. You can validate this in the list of Window Services, or in a PowerShell with:

PS C:\Users\Administrator> Get-Service QEMU-GA

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  QEMU-GA            QEMU Guest Agent

If it is not running, you can use the Services control panel to start it and make sure that it will start automatically on the next boot.

Testing that the communication with the guest agent is working

The communication with the guest agent takes place over a unix socket located in /var/run/qemu-server/<my_vmid>.qga
You can test the communication qm agent:

qm agent <vmid> ping

if the qemu-guest-agent is correctly runnning in the VM, it will return without an error message.

See Also

http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/GuestAgent

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/virtualization_deployment_and_administration_guide/chap-kvm_guest_timing_management

Proxmox documentation is exceptional but we have created a quick guide for setting up a Windows host as it’s not the same defaults to be used when setting up Linux. The guide on Proxmox’s Wiki for Windows 2019 and Windows 10 seems exactly the same. We’ve included both links in the references. When doing this operation you want to focus on Virtio disk.

This article highlights the non defaults.

TL;DR

1. Download Windows (server = 5 GB+):
   • https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-server-2019
     • When installing choose the desktop experience otherwise you’ll have no UI
2. Download special disk, network, and ballooning drivers here: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso
   • If you’ve downloaded this before, choose IDE / local disk / virtio
     • This is stored on Proxmox on /var/lib/vz/template/iso
3. In addition to mounting the Windows ISO, also mount that fresh ISO as IDE device #3 (some strange default occurs
   • Be sure to mount the ISO when creating the VM otherwise you’ll have to reboot before the OS will recognize it.
4. Ensure you select QEMU Agent on the second tab of the wizard.
5. CPU
   1. Turn  on numa
6. Disk settings:
   •  Set “Write back” as cache option for best performance
   • Tick “Discard” to optimally use disk space (TRIM)
   • Options
     • On Guest Agent, also select: Run guest-trim after a disk move or VM migration
     • Turn on protection
     • Turn on hotplug for memory (requires numa) and CPU
7. Driver locations on Virtio CD:
   1. Hard disk: vioscsi\2k19\amd64
   2. Network: NetKVM\2k19\amd64
   3. Memory Balloon: Balloon\2k19\amd64
   4. Prep for QEMU Guest Agent
      • Device Manager / Look for “PCI Simple Communications Controller”
        • Update to D:\vioserial\2k19\amd64
   5. You want to install all four drivers, starting with the disk driver which is needed before the disk will be seen.
8. Choose SCSI bus as you normally would for the disk
9. Choose this network device: VirtIO (paravirtualized)

Proxmox Wizard Steps

If you are import an existing QCOW2, then you probably only need the Proxmox wizard stuff to fill in:

1. General Tab
   • Name
2. OS Tab
   • Do not use any media
   • Guest OS: Microsoft Windows version 10/2016/2019
3. System Tab
   • Tick Qemu Agent
4. Hard Disk Tab
   • Bus/Device: SCSI. That will default next line to VirtIO SCSI
   • Storage: raid1 or whatever volume you decide on
   • Cache: Write back
   • Discard: Tick this
5. CPU
6. Memory
7. Network
   • VirtIO (paravirtualized)

Proxmox Wiki Guides

• https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_2019_guest_best_practices
• https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_10_guest_best_practices

Further Steps

Install QEMU Guest Agent for Windows

1. Make sure you’ve followed the step to update the unknown PCI Simple Communications Controller as per previous step
2. Browse to the ISO and guest-agent and install the 64bit guest agent.
3. Test so:
   • Services or Powershell
     • Get-Service QEMU-GA

Memory Ballooning

You should also install the VirtIO Balloon Driver to avoid an exclamation mark in your Device Manager.

Browse to the CD, Balloon, your OS, and then amd64 folder.

Картинка с сайта: kb.vander.host

VirtIO Serial Driver

That’s the other exclamation mark, “PCI Simple Communications Device”.

Simply specify to browse the root of the CD to install that.

Allow Ping for Windows Server 2019

By default Windows Server 2019 doesn’t allow ping. If you want to set it, do this:

https://kb.vander.host/operating-systems/unable-to-ping-newly-installed-windows-2019-server/

Enable Remote Desktop Connection

You probably want RDP enabled:

https://kb.vander.host/operating-systems/how-to-enable-remote-desktop-protocol-for-administration-purposes-on-newly-created-windows-2019-server/

Group Policy Changes

Allow More Than One RDP Connection

1. Start / Run / gpedit.msc
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Remote Desktop Services >> Remote Desktop Session Host >> Connections.
3. Double click on “Restrict Remote Desktop Services user to a single Remote Desktop Services session and set this to Disabled.
4. Next, double click on “Limit number of connections”, Enable, and set the RD Maximum Connections allowed to the maximum which is 999999 (6 x 9s).

Account Lockout

Some people like to have RDP on exposed on the internet. Your server will immediately become part of a dictionary attack. Very soon the lockout policy of RDP security will be reached. If you really have to, you can follow the route below:

Settings > Edit Group Policy
Group Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Account Policies > Account Lockout Policy > Account Lockout Threshold