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Supported Debian virtual machines on Hyper-V

  • Article

Applies to: Azure Stack HCI, Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Hyper-V Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Hyper-V Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, Windows 10, Windows 8.1

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 A mismatch doesn't indicate that the built-in LIS is out of date.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

  1. Creating file systems on VHDs larger than 2 TB isn't supported.

  2. 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.

  3. 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 Off

  4. The latest upstream kernel capabilities are only available by using the kernels available in the Debian backports repository.

  5. 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.

See also