Hyper-V on W10Pro AMD Ryzen 7 no longer installs/boots CentOS 8 VM

Question

Hi All,

My W10Pro box recently upgraded to 2004 (19041.388). I am running CentOS 8 VM on an AMD Ryzen 7 3800X + 32GB RAM lab config.
When performing regular maintenance yesterday (dnf update), the VM did not reboot ! Black screen with Hyper-V in the center and a big RED bar on top with an open padlock is all I see. As this indicates "Secure Boot" is off, I turned it on and selected "Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority". Still not booting, the RED bar is gone but a black screen with Hyper-V in the center is all I see.

I installed a new CentOS 8 VM (Gen 2, Secure Boot enabled) from the ISO, selecting minimal install, Guest Agents and Headless Management packages only. Same result, the GUI installer completes without issue, however when asked to reboot, the same black screen with Hyper-V is all I see .... I tried on a Genuine Intel Core i5 box, same ISO, same package selection, GUI install completes and reboot brings up the VM fine ! Leading me to believe there is something wrong with how Hyper-V handles AMD Ryzen ?

However W10 VM is booting fine, Ubuntu 20.04 VM (with GUI) is booting fine, Kali VM (with GUI) is booting fine), ... just CentOS 8 is not.
I am posting on forums.centos.org to check that. I am posting here to see if anyone has Linux CLI VM Hyper-V issues on AMD Ryzen ?

PS: Seems strange also that I cannot even boot the VM when turning off Secure Boot, the RED bar appears and that's it. I have set the VM to boot from the virtual hard disk (not the UEFI file) so at least that should work or ? It does not however ...

TIA,
Johan

Answer 1

Hi John,

Thanks for helping out. I have made some progress as well and got some new insights. Let me explain:

I am now convinced I am indeed affected by the bug in the BootHole patch as I mentioned above. It was only after installing the latest updates that my VM stopped booting. I then installed a fresh one, that obviously downloaded the same latest patches and thus did not boot and still doesn't. Can't explain why my i5 laptop is unaffected and my Ryzen 7 is though. It seems the bug does not affect all systems, I obviously have one.

Here's what I did and what is working so far:

• As my install from the ISO I referred you to was depending on software packages being downloaded during install, it did not work because of the latest packages clearly containing the bug in the patch.
• I downloaded a bigger ISO (the DVD one) that has all the packages as built on June 8th and does not download new packages during install. After completing the install, this VM boots fine, both with Secure Boot enabled and disabled, so no more trouble in paradise !

I will just sit it out and wait for a fix on the bug of the patch for BootHole .... then do my updates again and this latest VM should be good to go. I'm on the fence to whether or not try to fix my broken VM or to just call it a day and reinstall my stuff on the new VM. Fixing the broken VM is advanced stuff and I'm not sure I would be able to pull it off. I'll keep my eyes open should a workable how-to appear.

Anyways, I believe my mystery is solved. I was just unlucky and careless to trust in performing updates without taking a proper backup first. Wrong set of updates, Wrong time to update, Lesson learned. Fortunately, it was only my lab VM and not a production VM, TTL.

Kind Regards,
Johan

Answer 2

Johan, I have an AMD 3970X running W10.19041.388 and am using Hyper-V but almost all W10 guests. I did try WSL, VMP and Ubuntu 20.04 in an attempt to help a 3990X user only seeing 64 logical processors when AMD offers 128. I have never run Secure Boot after many warnings from others and have no knowledge of Linux and Secure Boot. I would like to try to help you but am confused what exactly you are trying to do. Ryzen has always worked well with my systems and I am not aware of any Ryzen associated Hyper-V shortcomings. If you could help me get started, I would try to duplicate. Does MS support CentOS 8 on Hyper-V/WSL and where do I DL it? It is not available on the Manual DL site. Thanks and enjoy, John.

EDIT: Did you directly Enable SVM (Secure VM) in BIOS?

Answer 3

Hi John, and thanks for trying to help out ... (Wow a 3970X ThreadRipper, Great Gear !)

It seems many Enterprise Linux are suffering from a bug in a fix for a BootHole CVE ... this includes Red Hat and CentOS. This might be what happened to me when I (dnf) updated my VM's packages. It is rather bad as the (virtual) machine does not boot beyond BIOS ...

Can you try to install from CentOS-8.2.2004-x86_64-boot.iso (08-Jun-2020 21:26; 654311424) downloaded from http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/8/isos/x86_64/ (Regional Redirect) ? You need to setup networking during the GUI install, so it can find the package servers, then select a Minimal Install and check the "Guest Access" and "Headless Management" optional packages ?
In my case, the installation went fine up until where I had to reboot into my freshly installed VM ... from there, only black screens with large Hyper-V centered, without a RED bar as long as Secure Boot was enabled and with a RED bar as soon as Secure Boot was disabled.

NB: On my Genuine Intel i5 Laptop this works fine, with and without Secure Boot, the VM boots fine. It's just my AMD Ryzen box failing ...

On your EDIT: Enable Secure VM in BIOS on host ? Did not do this before (when things were working), did not change that now ...

TIA,
Johan

Answer 4

Thanks, Johan. I do enjoy my system. I may have over committed. I will look - really enjoy learning. I was expecting to have access to a CentOS DL that just runs under WSL/VMP. I have never installed Linux. Please let me look some and get back.
Some questions and a request: Do the many "Enterprise Linux" having problems only on AMD systems?
I opened your link to CentOS and DLed one, receiving only a small html file of links that point into my C: disk. Looks like I am off to a terrible start - ignorance is not really bliss. I guess you are installing this ISO in Hyper-V and not WSL? As you can see I am lost in space.
Please, as a test: Go into your BIOS and Disable SMT (Simultaneous Multi Threading). This should tell us if there is a thread-safe issue. I will post a screenshot of my BIOS to Disable SMT.
Thanks and enjoy, John.

Answer 5

Johan, I will work on the link you sent soon (maybe need FTP) but instead I went to centos.org and DLed boot.iso and booted it into my W10 Hyper-V VM and corrected the complaints as well as I could and installed the following:

Knowing nothing about Linux, I ask a friend to drop by and take a look. Enjoy, John.

I was able to DL the CentOS you pointed and it is the same as the one I installed (same Hash code), but I failed to Install "Guest Access" and "Headless Management". I will try again after my friend comes by.