Drivers are woefully out of date

[lwade]

The drivers contained within the windows-integration package are very out of date. Taking the virtio storage driver as an example:

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=SCSIAdapter
ClassGUID={4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Provider=%RHEL%
DriverVer=08/10/2010,6.0.0.10

Current version shipping with RHEL6 Supplementary:

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=SCSIAdapter
ClassGUID={4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Provider=%RHEL%
DriverVer=07/03/2012,61.63.103.3000

The package itself is currently virtio-win-1.1.11-0 in the windows-integration bundle.

The newest from RHEL is virtio-win-1.5.3-1, these are WHQL.

How do we go about updating these?

[sangmin]

Yes, it's a known issue and we will soon update the driver. The current one has been used from 3.0, which is about a year old. We don't have the plan to update it in 3.2 though.

[hspencer77]

Just curious, why is this not part of the 3.2 plan? There are a lot of folks who still use Windows in production. Having this updated would definitely help users who use Eucalyptus+Windows in production.

[sangmin]

Well it wasn't elevated high priority from engr group since we planned 3.2. Updating a driver is a trivial work, but running full-cycle QA with it takes enormous time.

[hspencer77]

Yep, updating the driver is trivial, but are we running the full QA for Windows image testing? I guess I am misunderstanding how updating the Windows driver complicates the Windows image testing.

[hspencer77]

If there needs to be more hands on QA to test out this issue, I volunteer. I am sure lwade won't mind helping out as well.

[jpdonnelly]

Is there an issue you are trying to resolve by using a newer version? Windows drivers can be updated on the original image using the device manager then registered again.

Sent from my Kindle Fire

---

From: Lester Wade notifications@github.com
Sent: Fri Nov 23 06:55:18 CST 2012
To: eucalyptus/windows-integration windows-integration@noreply.github.com
Subject: [windows-integration] Drivers are woefully out of date (#1)

The drivers contained within the windows-integration package are very out of date. Taking the virtio storage driver as an example:

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=SCSIAdapter
ClassGUID={4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Provider=%RHEL%
DriverVer=08/10/2010,6.0.0.10

Current version shipping with RHEL6 Supplementary:

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Class=SCSIAdapter
ClassGUID={4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Provider=%RHEL%
DriverVer=07/03/2012,61.63.103.3000

The package itself is currently virtio-win-1.1.11-0 in the windows-integration bundle.

The newest from RHEL is virtio-win-1.5.3-1, these are WHQL.

How do we go about updating these?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[lwade]

No there is no specific issue but just responding to feedback from users. I think we really ought to get these updated. As hspencer77 suggests, we can spare cycles to devote to help QA here.

[jpdonnelly]

Being that these are WHQL drivers that hopefully means they have signed components ( cat files) since they have been accepted through Microsoft QA compliance tests. I find a reference to this release here: https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2012-1083.html, and it references a bug fix in the serial port driver. We do have to disable the signing feature on X64 installations through the bootmgr because the drivers E uses are not signed.

[yarapavan]

+1 lwade, hspencer77

yes, we should try updating these drivers on a priority basis and we can certainly help QA here.

[jeevanullas]

+1 , we need this , customer have been complaining that the drivers are too old. Is there already a updated ISO we can start testing with 3.2.0-devel ?

[jpdonnelly]

Further investigations yields the license text for the WHQL versions indicate that only paid RH subscription holders can use these drivers (see #2) on RH systems .

VIRTIO-WIN LICENSE AGREEMENT

This License Agreement ("License") applies to the VirtIO paravirtualized
drivers for Windows(R) ("virtio-win") software ("Program") and any related
updates or patches to the Program regardless of how you ("User") obtain
such updates or patches.

1. Intellectual Property Rights. The Program is owned by Red Hat and others
   and is protected under copyright and other laws. Title to the Program or to
   any copy, modification, or merged portion shall remain with the
   aforementioned.
   The "Red Hat" trademark and the "Shadowman" logo are registered trademarks of
   Red Hat in the U.S. and other countries.
2. Program License Grant. Red Hat grants User a non-exclusive,
   non-transferable license to use the Program during the term of and on systems
   with fully-paid applicable Red Hat subscription(s) provided User may not:
   (a) modify, copy, or create any derivative works of the Program;
   (b) decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the Program (except to the
   extent permitted by applicable law);

[gholms]

Why not use Fedora's then? That's GPLv2. Just include the sources on the media and we should be all set.

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/

[carlospuk]

+1 for http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/ - these worked well, no need to use bcdedit at all to enable test mode, plus they have WIN8 specific ones too for Windows Server 2012

[sangmin]

Thanks Carl for the info! We will update the driver and release the
integration tool post Eucalyptus 3.3 release.

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:41 AM, Carl Partridge notifications@github.comwrote:

+1 for http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/ -
these worked well, no need to use bcdedit at all to enable test mode, plus
they have WIN8 specific ones too for Windows Server 2012

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/1#issuecomment-17174501
.

[sangmin]

the work started to refresh virtio drivers as well as to support 2012 server, which will go into 3.3.1 release. It will be another month or so until we have the updated tool!