My 2¢

Hyper-V (LIS) & Ubuntu 16.04 Integration & Support

Michael Morris -

I install Ubuntu Desktop & Server by default in my envoronment. One of the annoying aspects of doing is the lack of Hyper-V support out of the box. This quick Guide will show you how to install the Microsoft Hyper-V support that is just a few commands away. This will bring all to important stability you lack after a fresh install.

If you are using Hyper-V and running a Ubuntu 16.04 guest, you may not be aware that Microsoft provides Linux Integration Services (LIS), which are basically Microsoft’s version of VMware Tools. In this article we will detail how to enable LIS on our Ubuntu 16.04 virtual machine. The first step is to edit the “modules” file located in /etc/initramfs-tools using the below command:

sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

Once in nano, navigate to the last line in the file and enter the following lines:

hv_vmbus
hv_storvsc
hv_blkvsc
hv_netvsc

Save the file by hitting the ctrl + x and then issuing “y” for yes and then enter.

Install the virtual HWE lernel on your 16.04 machine.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y linux-virtual-lts-xenial

On Ubuntu 16.04 the following Hyper-V daemons are in a separately installed package:

  • VSS Snapshot daemon - This daemon is required to create live Linux virtual machine backups.
  • KVP daemon - This daemon allows setting and querying intrinsic and extrinsic key value pairs.
  • fcopy daemon - This daemon implements a file copying service between the host and guest.

To install these Hyper-V daemons on 16.04, run the following commands as root (or sudo):

sudo apt-get install -y linux-tools-virtual-lts-xenial linux-cloud-tools-virtual-lts-xenial
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

That's it. Reboot the VM and your ready to go!