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