quick-docs/en-US/windows-virtio-drivers.adoc

= Windows Virtio Drivers

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[[overview]]
Overview
~~~~~~~~

This page describes how to obtain and use virtio drivers for Windows
virtual machines running on KVM, and additional software agents for
Windows VMs.

[[yumdnf-repo]]
Yum|Dnf Repo
~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a yum|dnf repo shipping 'virtio-win' RPMs. The RPMs install
driver binaries and agent installers on your host machine into
/usr/share. These bits can then be shared with Windows VMs.

Install the repo file:

`sudo wget `https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/virtio-win.repo[`https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/virtio-win.repo`]` -O /etc/yum.repos.d/virtio-win.repo`

Then install the virtio-win package with link:dnf[DNF] or YUM:

`sudo dnf install virtio-win` +
`sudo yum install virtio-win`

The .repo file provides two different repositories:

* virtio-win-stable
** This provides builds of virtio-win that roughly correlates to what
was shipped with the most recent RHEL release, meaning they have
received a decent chunk of testing.
** This repo is enabled by default.

* virtio-win-latest
** This provides the latest driver builds. They may be development
quality, or bug free, or complete broken. Caveat emptor :)
** This repo is disabled by default. If you want to update from
virtio-win-stable to the latest bits, do:
`sudo yum --enablerepo=virtio-win-latest update virtio-win`

or with dnf:
`sudo dnf --enablerepo=virtio-win-latest upgrade virtio-win`

[[rpm-contents]]
RPM contents
^^^^^^^^^^^^

* /usr/share/virtio-win/*.iso: ISO CDROM containing all the drivers. See
details below
* /usr/share/virtio-win/*.vfd: VFD floppy images for using during
install of Windows XP
* /usr/share/virtio-win/drivers: Copy of the extracted VFD driver
contents
* /usr/share/guest-agent/*.msi: QEMU Guest Agent 32bit and 64bit MSI
installers

[[iso-contents]]
ISO contents
^^^^^^^^^^^^

The .iso contains the following bits:

* NetKVM/: Virtio Network driver
* viostor/: Virtio Block driver
* vioscsi/: Virtio SCSI driver
* viorng/: Virtio RNG driver
* vioser/: Virtio serial driver
* Balloon/: Virtio Memory Balloon driver
* qxl/: QXL graphics driver for Windows 7 and earlier. (build
virtio-win-0.1.103-1 and later)
* qxldod/: QXL graphics driver for Windows 8 and later. (build
virtio-win-0.1.103-2 and later)
* pvpanic/:
https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/docs/specs/pvpanic.txt[QEMU
pvpanic] device driver (build virtio-win-0.1.103-2 and later)
* guest-agent/: QEMU Guest Agent 32bit and 64bit MSI installers
* qemupciserial/:
https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/docs/qemupciserial.inf[QEMU PCI
serial] device driver
* ** .vfd: VFD floppy images for using during install of Windows XP

[[direct-download]]
Direct download
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Direct downloads are available for the .iso, .vfd, and qemu-ga
installers.

* Stable virtio-win iso:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso
* Stable virtio-win x86 floppy:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win_x86.vfd
* Stable virtio-win amd64 floppy:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win_amd64.vfd
* Latest virtio-win iso:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio/virtio-win.iso
* Latest virtio-win x86 floppy:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio/virtio-win_x86.vfd
* Latest virtio-win amd64 floppy:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio/virtio-win_amd64.vfd
* Latest qemu-ga files:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-qemu-ga/
* Full archive:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/
* Changelog: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/CHANGELOG

If you previously used isos from alt.fedoraproject.org, note that these
new isos have a different file layout (matching RHEL isos). If you need
to access the old isos you can do so
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/deprecated-isos/[here].
However these isos are deprecated and only kept around for back
compatability. No new isos will be added there.

[[faq]]
FAQ
~~~

[[what-license-are-these-drivers]]
What license are these drivers?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The drivers are licensed under the GPLv2.

[[why-arent-the-drivers-shipped-as-part-of-fedora]]
Why aren't the drivers shipped as part of Fedora?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The drivers cannot be shipped as part of Fedora because they can't be
built in Fedora's build system; the only way to build the drivers is on
a Windows machine. Shipping pre-compiled sources is generally against
Fedora policies. There's likely other objections as well.

[[where-do-the-builds-come-from]]
Where do the builds come from?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

All the windows binaries are scooped up from builds done on Red Hat's
internal build system, which are generated using publicly available
code.

See the README in this repo for some more details about how the RPM and
repo are built: https://github.com/crobinso/virtio-win-pkg-scripts

[[what-is-the-reasoning-behind-the-rpmiso-layout]]
What is the reasoning behind the RPM/ISO layout?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For starters, the primary purpose of the RPM/ISO is to mirror exactly
the layout that is shipped with the latest RHEL release. This is so
user/developers don't have to deal with differences between the two
distros.

(Note: Historically the .iso files shipped on alt.fedoraproject.org did
_not_ match the layout of the .iso shipped in RHEL. This changed in
April 2015)

* The .iso directories are named after the driver code directories from
the upstream driver git tree. There isn't much more to it than that.
* Below the driver directories, the $winversion/$arch/ directory naming
is a windows convention.
* The RPM layout is kind of arbitrary in that it ships the .vfd content
in the drivers/ dir, but not many of the other drivers from the .iso.
This seems to be an historical oversight and should probably be fixed.

[[are-these-drivers-signed]]
Are these drivers signed?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

These drivers are cryptographically signed with Red Hat's vendor
signature. However they are not signed with
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff553976%28v=vs.85%29.aspx[Microsoft's
WHQL signature].

[[how-are-these-drivers-different-from-what-is-shipped-with-rhel]]
How are these drivers different from what is shipped with RHEL?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The RPMs from the stable repository are the same driver builds as what
is shipped in RHEL. However, the public drivers are not signed with
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff553976%28v=vs.85%29.aspx[Microsoft's
WHQL signature].

[[how-does-lack-of-whql-signature-affect-use-of-these-drivers]]
How does lack of WHQL signature affect use of these drivers?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

FIXME: Lack of WHQL signature causes windows to complain, need to
explicitly document how

[[bugs]]
Bugs
~~~~

Please file any bug reports against
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Virtualization%20Tools&component=virtio-win[Product=Virtualization
Tools Component=virtio-win]

When filing a bug, please provide the following info:

* The virtio-win version
* The host distro
* The qemu version
* If using libvirt: sudo virsh dumpxml $vmname
* The qemu command line. If using libvirt this can be found at
/var/log/libvirt/qemu/$vmname.log

Questions/Comments about the RPMs or yum|dnf repos should be sent to
regular fedora virt locations:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Virtualization#Mailing_list_and_IRC
Questions/Comments about the actual drivers are probably best send to
the upstream
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel[qemu-devel] or
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Lists,_IRC[kvm] mailing lists

[[links]]
Links
~~~~~

* KVM windows guest drivers upstream code:
https://github.com/virtio-win/kvm-guest-drivers-windows
* QXL XDDM driver code: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/spice/win32/qxl
* QXL WDDM driver code: https://github.com/vrozenfe/qxl-dod
* Tree used by gnome-boxes for automatic driver installation:
https://zeenix.fedorapeople.org/drivers/
* Windows spice agent git repo:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/spice/win32/vd_agent
* Spice guest tools installer code:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~teuf/spice-nsis/
* spice-guest-tools downloads:
http://www.spice-space.org/download/binaries/spice-guest-tools/
* Fedora virtio-win build scripts:
https://github.com/crobinso/virtio-win-pkg-scripts

Category:Virtualization
'''

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