Supported Debian virtual machines on Hyper-V
This article outlines the support offered for Debian virtual machines (VMs) on Hyper-V.
Table legend
The following feature distribution map indicates the features that are present in each version of Windows Server. The known issues and workarounds for each distribution are listed after the table.
Built in - Linux integration services (LIS) are included as part of this Linux distribution. The Microsoft-provided LIS download package doesn't work for this distribution. Don't install the Microsoft package. The kernel module version numbers for the built-in LIS (as shown by lsmod, for example) are different from the version number on the Microsoft-provided LIS download package. A mismatch doesn't indicate that the built-in LIS is out of date.
✔ - Feature available
(blank) - Feature not available
| Feature | Windows Server version | 11 (Bullseye) | 10.0-10.3 (Buster) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Availability | Built in | Built in | |
| Core | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Windows Server 2016 Accurate Time | 2019, 2016 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Networking | |||
| Jumbo frames | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| VLAN tagging and trunking | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Live Migration | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Static IP Injection | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ||
| vRSS | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| TCP Segmentation and Checksum Offloads | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| SR-IOV | 2019, 2016 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Storage | |||
| VHDX resize | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 1 | ✔ Note 1 |
| Virtual Fibre Channel | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ||
| Live virtual machine backup | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 2 | ✔ Note 2 |
| TRIM support | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| SCSI WWN | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Memory | |||
| PAE Kernel Support | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Configuration of MMIO gap | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Dynamic Memory - Hot-Add | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Dynamic Memory - Ballooning | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Runtime Memory Resize | 2019, 2016 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Video | |||
| Hyper-V-specific video device | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Miscellaneous | |||
| Key-Value Pair | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 2 | ✔ Note 2 |
| Non-Maskable Interrupt | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ | ✔ |
| File copy from host to guest | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 2 | ✔ Note 2 |
| lsvmbus command | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ||
| Hyper-V Sockets | 2019, 2016 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| PCI Passthrough/DDA | 2019, 2016 | ✔ Note 4 | ✔ Note 4 |
| Generation 2 virtual machines | |||
| Boot using UEFI | 2019, 2016, 2012 R2 | ✔ Note 3 | ✔ Note 3 |
| Secure boot | 2019, 2016 | ✔ | ✔ |
Notes
Creating file systems on VHDs larger than 2 TB isn't supported.
Starting with Debian 8.3, the manually installed Debian package "hyperv-daemons" contains the key-value pair, fcopy, and VSS daemons. On Debian 7.x and 8.0-8.2, the hyperv-daemons package must come from Debian backports.
On Windows Server 2012 R2, Generation 2 virtual machines have secure boot enabled by default, and some Linux virtual machines don't boot unless the secure boot option is disabled. You can disable secure boot in the Firmware section of the settings for the virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager, or you can disable it by using PowerShell:
Set-VMFirmware -VMName "VMname" -EnableSecureBoot OffThe latest upstream kernel capabilities are only available by using the kernels available in the Debian backports repository.
While Debian 7.x is out of support and uses an older kernel, the kernel included in Debian backports for Debian 7.x has improved Hyper-V capabilities.