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Check Point Gaia OS support for Hyper-V Technical Level
Solution

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction
  • Supported Hyper-V versions
  • Drivers incorporated into Gaia OS
  • Network interfaces
  • Non-supported features
  • Related solutions

 

Introduction

Check Point Gaia OS can be deployed (ISO image) over Hyper-V infrastructure in Windows Server:

Software Supported Versions
Security Gateway,
ClusterXL

R77.30
 R80.10
 R80.20
R80.30
R80.40
Security Management Server,
Multi-Domain Security Management Server

R77.10
R77.20
R77.30
R80.10
 R80.20
R80.30
R80.40

Note: Refer to Check Point Hardware Compatibility List - go to tab "Virtual Machines".

Hyper-V provides software infrastructure and basic management tools to create and manage a virtualized server computing environment. Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2 enables the creation of a virtualized server computing environment. You can use a virtualized computing environment to improve the efficiency of your computing resources by utilizing more of your hardware resources. This is possible because you use Hyper-V to create and manage virtual machines and their resources. Each virtual machine is a virtualized computer system that operates in an isolated execution environment. This allows you to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on one physical computer.

 

Supported Hyper-V versions

Version Status
Windows 2019 Server Supported (***)
Windows 2016 Server Supported (**)
Windows 2012 Server R2 Supported (*)
Windows 2012 Server Not supported
Windows 2008 Server R2 Not supported
Windows 2008 Server Not supported

(*) Refer to Check Point Hardware Compatibility List - go to tab "Virtual Machines".

(**) R80.30 Management is supported only with Windows 2016 server.

(***) R80.40 is supported on Windows 2019 server.

 

Drivers incorporated into Gaia OS

Driver Type Driver Name Description
Hyper-V vmbus driver hv_vmbus Provides the infrastructure for other Hyper-V drivers to communicate with the hypervisor
Utility driver hv_utils Provides Hyper-V integration services such as shutdown, time synchronization, heartbeat and Key-Value Pair Exchange
Network driver hv_netvsc Provides network performance improvements
Storage driver hv_storvsc Increases performance when accessing storage (IDE and SCSI) devices
Mouse driver hid_hyperv Improves user experience by allowing mouse focus changes for a virtualized guest
Clocksource driver   Provides a stable clock source running within the Hyper-V platform

Notes:
  • In a rare scenario. Hyper-V Time Synchronization doesn't correct the system clock in the virtual machine.
  • For more details, refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/virtualization/virtual-machine-time-not-synced.

Network interfaces

Hyper-V supports two types of network interfaces:

Interface Type Notes
Synthetic network interface
  • Jumbo frames are supported
  • VLAN tagging is supported
  • VLAN trunking is supported from R80.40
  • Live Migration is supported
  • Static IP Injection is not supported
  • vRSS (Virtual Receive Side Scaling) is not supported
  • TCP Segmentation and Checksum Offloads is supported
Emulated networks interfaces
  • VLAN trunking is not supported
  • NOTE: It is recommended to use a synthetic network interface. 

    Notes:

    • When setting up the machine, it is recommended to assign it with a static MAC address. This should ensure that the VM retains its MAC address in case it is moved to another host. You can configure the MAC address by editing the settings of the virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager.
    • For more details, refer to Supported CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual machines on Hyper-V.

     

    Non-supported features

    For more details, refer to Supported CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual machines on Hyper-V - "RHEL/CentOS 5.x Series".

    • Generation 2 virtual machines

    • Hyper-V clocksource does not work on 64-bit kernel

      Refer to sk105862 - In a Hyper-V environment, the Virtual Machine's clock moves faster than the hardware time.

    • File system freeze/thaw

      Some operating systems support the notion of freezing and thawing the file system (refer to http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/freezing-filesystems/)

    • vRSS (Virtual Receive Side Scaling)

      Hyper-V can support the notion of multi-queue. This is done by a feature in Windows called RSS (Receive Side Scaling).

    • SCSI

      SCSI disks are currently not supported (at least not for the main installation disk).

      Attempting to use SCSI disks may cause the image installation to fail in unexpected ways.

    • SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization)

      SR-IOV, designed to provide VMs more direct access to the physical host's hardware, is currently not certified for use on Hyper-V.

    • lsvmbus command

    • Hyper-V Sockets

    • TRIM support

    • Dynamic Memory - Hot-Add

    • Runtime Memory Resize

    • PCI Passthrough/DDA

    • Boot using UEFI

    • Secure boot

    • Microsoft Converged Storage

    • Live Migration

     

    		 This solution has been verified for the specific scenario, described by the combination of Product, Version and Symptoms. It may not work in other scenarios.

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