How to Build an Image for Windows Virtual Machines

Issue

This step-by-step tutorial will help users to build a Windows 10 Image to be used within an OpenNebula cloud to create KVM-based Windows Virtual Machines.

Solution

Download ISO Images

Windows 10 ISO

You need a Windows 10 installation ISO file.  A Windows 10 Enterprise evaluation ISO can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-10-enterprise

VirtIO Drivers for Windows

VirtIO is a virtualization standard for network and disk device drivers. You can download the stable ISO of VirtIO drivers and additional software agents for Windows virtual machines running on KVM from https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/creating-windows-virtual-machines-using-virtio-drivers/

wget -O /archive/ISOS/virtio-win.iso https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

OpenNebula Windows VM Contextualization

Finally, you need the addon that provides contextualization package for the Windows guest virtual machines running in the OpenNebula cloud. Based on the provided contextualization parameters, the packages prepare the networking in the running guest virtual machine, set passwords, run custom start scripts, and many others. The ISO can be downloaded here.

wget -O /archive/ISOS/one-context-5.10.0.iso https://github.com/OpenNebula/addon-context-windows/releases/download/v5.10.0/one-context-5.10.0.iso

Register and Create Images in the Datastore

The following commands will be executed as the oneadmin user. You can run the following command to see the available datastores:

onedatastore list
  ID NAME         SIZE AVA CLUSTERS IMAGES TYPE DS      TM      STAT
   2 files      231.1G 32% 0             0 fil  fs      ssh     on  
   1 default    231.1G 32% 0             0 img  fs      qcow2   on  
   0 system     231.1G 32% 0             0 sys  -       qcow2   on  

You need to create CDROM images on the default datastore (ID=1) for the ISO images that have been downloaded in the previous step.

oneimage create -d 1 --name "Windows 10 ISO" --path /archive/ISOS/win10.iso --type CDROM
oneimage create -d 1 --name "Virtio Windows Drivers ISO" --path /archive/ISOS/virtio-win.iso --type CDROM
oneimage create -d 1 --name "ONE Windows Context ISO" --path /archive/ISOS/virtio-win.iso --type CDROM

You need to create also an empty disk to be used for the installation of Windows 10 operating system by running

oneimage create -d 1 --name "Windows 10" --type OS --size 45G --persistent

The disk musk be persistent so the changes made during the setup persist afterwards. You can check if the images are ready by running:

oneimage list
  ID USER     GROUP    NAME                          DATASTORE     SIZE TYPE PER STAT RVMS
   4 oneadmin oneadmin Windows 10                    default        45G DB   Yes rdy     0
   3 oneadmin oneadmin ONE Windows Context ISO       default         1M CD    No rdy     0
   2 oneadmin oneadmin Virtio Windows Drivers ISO    default       355M CD    No rdy     0
   1 oneadmin oneadmin Windows 10 ISO                default       4.6G CD    No rdy     0

Create a VM for Windows Installation

Now, you need need to create a VM template in order to proceed with the installation of Windows 10 by writing a file (template.txt) with the following content:

NAME = "Windows 10 Installation"
MEMORY = "16384"
MEMORY_UNIT_COST = "MB"
CPU = "4"
VCPU = "4"

DISK = [
  IMAGE = "Windows 10 ISO",
  IMAGE_UNAME = "oneadmin" ]
DISK = [
  IMAGE = "Virtio Windows Drivers ISO",
  IMAGE_UNAME = "oneadmin" ]
DISK = [
  IMAGE = "ONE Windows Context ISO",
  IMAGE_UNAME = "oneadmin" ]
DISK = [
  DEV_PREFIX = "vd",
  IMAGE = "Windows 10",
  IMAGE_UNAME = "oneadmin" ]

NIC = [
  NETWORK = "vnet",
  NETWORK_UNAME = "oneadmin",
  SECURITY_GROUPS = "0" ]
NIC_DEFAULT = [
  MODEL = "virtio" ]

GRAPHICS = [
  LISTEN = "0.0.0.0",
  TYPE = "VNC" ]

INPUT = [
  BUS = "usb",
  TYPE = "tablet" ]

OS = [
  BOOT = "disk0" ]

and then executing:

onetemplate create template.txt

You can check the templates by running:

onetemplate list
  ID USER     GROUP    NAME                                 REGTIME
   1 oneadmin oneadmin Windows 10 Installation       04/29 07:40:19
   0 oneadmin oneadmin CentOS 7                      04/29 07:31:49

You have to create a Virtual Machine to proceed with the installation of Windows by running:

onetemplate instantiate 1

You can connect to the Sunstone portal by using oneadmin (username and password are provided by the miniONE installation report). Once you login, you can connect to the Windows virtual machine by using the integrated VNC console in Sunstone and proceed with Windows installation. You will need to

• Disable TPM for Windows 11 using the registry
• install VirtIO drivers
• install qemu guest agent
• install OpenSSH server
• install the contextualization package for Windows Guest OS
• optionally install WinRM

Have a look at this screencast to see how to do that.

Create a VM template for Windows Virtual Machines

Once the installation of Windows has been completed, we can proceed to terminate the VM:

onevm terminate 0

You need to change the image disk with Windows 10 installed to non persistent:

oneimage nonpersistent 4

You can build a VM template that can be used for creating Windows 10 Virtual Machines. Add the following content to a file "win_template.txt"

NAME="Windows 10 Enterprise"

CPU="4"
VCPU="4"
MEMORY="16384"
MEMORY_UNIT_COST="MB"

DISK=[
  DEV_PREFIX="vd",
  IMAGE="Windows 10",
  IMAGE_UNAME="oneadmin" ]
  
GRAPHICS=[
  LISTEN="0.0.0.0",
  TYPE="VNC" ]

INPUT=[
  BUS="usb",
  TYPE="tablet" ]

NIC=[
  NETWORK="vnet",
  NETWORK_UNAME="oneadmin",
  SECURITY_GROUPS="0" ]

CONTEXT=[
  NETWORK="YES",
  SSH_PUBLIC_KEY="$USER[SSH_PUBLIC_KEY]" ]

and then run:

onetemplate create win_template.txt

You can create a Windows 10 Virtual Machine by running:

onetemplate instantiate 2

Voilà! :-)