Synopsis

virtio-win bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated virto-win packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available in the Supplementary channel of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Description

The virtio-win package provides paravirtualized network drivers for most Microsoft Windows operating systems. Paravirtualized drivers are virtualization-aware drivers used by fully virtualized guests running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fully virtualized guests using the paravirtualized drivers gain significantly better I/O performance than fully virtualized guests running without the drivers.

This update adds the following enhancements:

• This update adds the virtio-input driver, which enables using the following input devices on Windows 7 and later virtual machines:
• virtio-keyboard-pci
• virtio-mouse-pci
• virtio-tablet-pci
• virtio-input-host-pci

(BZ#1357406)

• The qemufwcfg driver has been added for the built-in firmware configuration (fw_cfg) system device on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 guests. As a result, fw_cfg devices are no longer shown as unrecognized in the Device Manager on these guests. (BZ#1421258)
• The smbus driver has been added for the built-in SMBus device on Windows 2008 guests. As a result, SMBus devices are no longer shown as unrecognized in the Device Manager on these guests. (BZ#1451652)
• The performance of the NetKVM driver (virtio-net) has been significantly improved. (BZ#1388920)
• The virtio-win driver now supports the VIRTIO_NET_F_GUEST_ANNOUNCE feature, which, if configured, ensures that ARP packets are recognized by the network when performing live migration of Windows guests. As a result, packet loss during the migration is significantly decreased. (BZ#1411764, BZ#1431561)
• This update removes the hard-coded limit of 31 supported virtual serial ports. As a result, ports 31 and above can be used on Windows guests, and the number of ports is only limited by the host. (BZ#1370351)
• When using the virtio_balloon driver for memory ballooning, it is now possible to obtain a more accurate amount of free memory available to a guest. (BZ#1369353)
• The NetKVM driver is now able to obtain the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of a host and apply it to Windows guests running on this host. As a result, the user can optimize the guest's network interface controller (NIC) when the host MTU value is different than the default 1500 bytes. (BZ#1456403)

In addition, this update fixes the following bugs:

• Several compatibility problems on the Intel Q35 machine type with the Open Virtual Machine Firmware (OVMF) have been fixed. (BZ#1393772, BZ#1408771, BZ#1392693, BZ#1392719, BZ#1393140)
• The qemupciserial driver is now properly signed and works on 64-bit Windows guests. (BZ#1218449)
• Previously, on Windows guests with a high number of operation queues, the virtio-win-prewhql driver failed to start, which disabled the guest network. With this update, Windows guests now handle being allocated with only a single message-signaled interrupts X (MSIX) vector, which ensures the virtio-win-prewhql driver starts properly, and thus prevents the described problem. (BZ#1372174)

Users of virto-win are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these bugs and add these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.5 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86_64 - Extended Update Support 7.4 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 7 x86_64

Fixes

• BZ - 1075292 - [virtio-win][qemu-ga-win] qemu guest agent should report correctly error description (windows guest)
• BZ - 1202267 - [virtio-win][wddm-qxl]The display of guest change to black-white mode after s4 on win8.1-32
• BZ - 1218449 - Ship qemupciserial.cat on the iso
• BZ - 1256626 - windows guest(win7/win10) CTRL_VLAN=on/off does not support for virtio-net-pci
• BZ - 1303510 - Change the copyright on all the Windows drivers to "2017" in virtio-win-prewhql build
• BZ - 1357406 - Add virtio-input Windows guest driver
• BZ - 1370351 - [virtio-win][vioser] serial port can not transfer data when nr>=31
• BZ - 1372174 - NIC device cannot start when boot a Win10 guest with multiple queues(256 queues)
• BZ - 1374725 - Output command {"execute": "guest-info"} includes unsupported qemu-ga-win commands
• BZ - 1387125 - QEMU guest agent VSS Provider is crashed after snapshot deletion
• BZ - 1388775 - [virtio-win][vioinput]guest bsod[DRIVER_PAGE_FAULT_IN_FREED_SPECIAL_POOL (d5)] when run virtio-input whql jobs
• BZ - 1388920 - [NetKVM] review additional possible performance improvements
• BZ - 1389125 - viostor extend viostor driver with STORAGE_REQUEST_BLOCK support
• BZ - 1389445 - VirtIO library interface incompatiblity with NetKvm (bool definition)
• BZ - 1390714 - [RFE] [virtio-win] Add fw_cfg device in windows guest in order to make svvp test pass
• BZ - 1391844 - [virtio-win][balloon][viorng][virtio-input] cannot install balloon, viorng and virtio-input driver successfully on win10-32 and win8.1-32(build 127)
• BZ - 1392693 - [virtio-win][vioser][whql] job "PCI Hardware Compliance Test For a Single Device(PCIHCT)" fail w/ "-M q35"
• BZ - 1392719 - [virtio-win][vioser]can't install serial driver successfuly on win10-64 guest with q35 machine type(build 128)
• BZ - 1392819 - [NetKVM] Race between ParaNdis_SetupRSSQueueMap and ParaNdis6_SendNetBufferLists due to the lack of synchronisation
• BZ - 1393140 - [virtio-win][vioser][whql]BSOD when running job "WDF Logo Test-Final" w/ q35 on win2008-32
• BZ - 1393772 - New unknown device "SM Bus Controller" shows in system device manager after booting with q35
• BZ - 1395790 - vioscsi.sys BSOD when adding CPU to live Windows Server 2012R2 guest
• BZ - 1402496 - Balloon: Stats don't work if balloon driver is disabled when blnsvr service starts
• BZ - 1406271 - [virtio-win][qemu-ga-win] if guest is auto-released after 10s, the following "guest-fsfreeze-freeze" and "guest-fsfreeze-thaw" should not prompt error.
• BZ - 1408771 - [virtio-win][viorng] Guest win2008-32 occurs BSoD when running job "WDF Logo Tests - Final" under q35
• BZ - 1408901 - [virtio-win][whql][vioinput] Many jobs failed on win2012R2/ws2016 when running w/o GUI
• BZ - 1409298 - [virtio-win][balloon] Guest win2008-32 occurs BSoD when running job 'Device Path Exerciser'
• BZ - 1411092 - 4K virtual drives broken on Windows
• BZ - 1411596 - Virtio driver of network device works abnormally when convert win2008 x86 guest from kvm to rhev by virt-v2v
• BZ - 1411764 - [NetKVM] Implement VIRTIO_NET_F_GUEST_ANNOUNCE feature in Windows virtio-net driver
• BZ - 1412067 - [virtio-win][whql][netkvm] job 1c_IOCTLCoverage failed.
• BZ - 1419785 - [virtio-win][whql][balloon] Guest WIN8-32 occured BSOD in job "DF - PNP Stop (Rebalance) Device Test (Certification)"
• BZ - 1419854 - vioinput: Driver is dropping rapid input events
• BZ - 1419900 - BSOD of vioser.sys on Win10 in S0->S4->S0 flow
• BZ - 1421258 - Add qemufwcfg driver to virtio-win
• BZ - 1421988 - [virtio-win][virtio-input] Read wrong device in guest's device manager when do hot-plug a mouse device and keyboard device
• BZ - 1425967 - Update qemupciserial.* files for virtio-win
• BZ - 1426482 - [virtio-win][balloon] cost too much time when continues enlarge/evict during playing video
• BZ - 1429807 - [virtio-win][whql][netkvm] guests bsod(d1) when running job "NDISTest 6.0 - [1 Machine] - 1c_FaultHandling"
• BZ - 1431561 - [NetKVM] Implement VIRTIO_NET_F_GUEST_ANNOUNCE feature in Windows virtio-net driver - IPv6
• BZ - 1432567 - [virtio-win][vioscsi] Crash dump not generated with num_queues=4
• BZ - 1433266 - [virtio-win][netkvm] cannot launch anti-virus software(ESET Endpoint Antivirus) with virtio NetKVM driver
• BZ - 1433830 - [virtio-win][whql][netkvm] guests bsod(d1) when running job "NDISTest 6.5 - [2 Machine] - OffloadLSO"
• BZ - 1434316 - [qemu-ga-win] Guest agent might hang if VSS service is stoped during freeze
• BZ - 1435778 - virtio-serial breaks when CPU hot added to Windows Server 2008R2 Datacenter
• BZ - 1438410 - Net-KVM: Add VlanId property to Inf file
• BZ - 1438735 - Windows' qemu-ga fails to set the 'can-offline' field in 'guest-get-vcpus' reply
• BZ - 1439085 - [virtio-win][netkvm] Guest win2008-32 failed in job Ethernet - NDISTest 6.0 with 1c_wmicoverage failure
• BZ - 1441595 - [virtio-win][viostor]windows 2016 can not generate dump file on AMD host
• BZ - 1442322 - [virtio-win][viostor]Cannot enlarge/shrink disk with virtio-blk-pci device.
• BZ - 1443019 - [virtio-win][qemupciserial] job "PNP Rebanlance RequestNew Resources Device Test" and other two jobs failed on win10+ guests
• BZ - 1444271 - [virtio-win][viorng]job "DF - InfVerif INF Verification" failed on HLK 1703
• BZ - 1451652 - RFE: Add smbus driver to virtio-win
• BZ - 1456403 - Net-KVM: Implement MTU report feature of the virtio-net device

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)