Install virtio driver

Install the Alibaba Cloud virtio driver on your VM before creating a custom Windows image to ensure ECS instances boot correctly.

Alibaba Cloud virtio driver

Alibaba Cloud virtio drivers are built on community virtio drivers with platform-specific optimizations. All Alibaba Cloud public images include these drivers, but custom Windows images do not. Community virtio drivers may not work correctly on Alibaba Cloud, so use the Alibaba Cloud virtio drivers.

The driver package includes the following components:

Driver	Description
netkvm	Network adapter driver.
viostor	Storage driver.
vioser	Serial port driver.
balloon	Manages virtual machine memory dynamically without impacting performance. Note This driver is not enabled on Alibaba Cloud.
pvpanic	Reports the virtual machine state to the host during a critical error or crash.
fwcfg	Transfers configuration information, such as metadata, user data, and device parameters, from the host to the Windows virtual machine. Note This driver is available only for Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and later.

Release notes:

Driver version	Update	Release date	Supported operating system	Installation package
58110	New features: Increased the packet receive rate of the network adapter driver in IPv6 scenarios. Improved network adapter driver packet transmission efficiency for TCP ultra-short packets. Supported setting the MaxRxBuffers parameter to 2048 for the network adapter driver. Optimized network adapter driver memory usage. Bug fixes: Fixed system hangs caused by disk I/O out-of-bounds. Fixed packet loss during continuous TCP ultra-short packet transmission.	2024-01	Windows 10 64-bit and later Windows Server 2016 64-bit and later	AliyunVirtio_58110_WIN2016_x64.zip
58101	New features: Added the fwcfg driver. Supported setting the MaxRxBuffers parameter to 4096 for the network adapter driver. Bug fixes: Fixed an issue where queried disk serial numbers returned 0 for specific instance types. Fixed an issue where setting MaxRxBuffers to 16 did not take effect for the network adapter driver.	2022-09	Windows 10 64-bit and later Windows Server 2016 64-bit and later	AliyunVirtio_58101_WIN2016_x64.zip
			Windows 8.1 64-bit Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit	AliyunVirtio_58101_WIN2012R2_x64.zip
			Windows 7 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit	AliyunVirtio_58101_WIN2008R2_x64.zip
58017	Based on the Community Edition released in January 2021.	2021-04	Windows 10 64-bit and later Windows Server 2016 64-bit and later	AliyunVirtio_58017_WIN2016_x64.zip
			Windows 8.1 64-bit Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit	AliyunVirtio_58017_WIN2012R2_x64.zip
			Windows 8 64-bit Windows Server 2012 64-bit	AliyunVirtio_58017_WIN2012_x64.zip
			Windows 7 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit	AliyunVirtio_58017_WIN2008_x64.zip

Procedure

This procedure uses virtio driver version 58101 on 64-bit Windows Server 2016 as an example.

On the VM, download the virtio driver installation package for your operating system and extract the files.
Install the virtio driver.
GUI installation

Important
GUI installation updates the network adapter driver, causing a network interruption of approximately 10 seconds. Assess the impact on your services before proceeding.
1. Go to the download path and double-click AliyunVirtio_58101_WIN2016_x64.exe.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.
3. When the following screen appears, restart the system.
  
  Note
  If you are installing the driver on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 and a message appears stating You must install the SHA-2 patch for Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2!, the system is missing the required SHA-2 signing patch. Install this patch to prevent the instance from failing to start after import.
CLI installation
1. In Windows PowerShell, change to the directory where you downloaded the package, for example, C:\test.
```
cd C:\test
```
2. Install the virtio driver.
```
./AliyunVirtio_58101_WIN2016_x64.exe /SILENT /FORCE /NORESTART
```
  Note
  
  /SILENT: Silent mode.
  
  /FORCE: Overwrites an existing virtio driver.
  
  /NORESTART: Suppresses automatic restart after installation.
Verify the installation.
1. In Windows PowerShell, check the virtio driver version.
```
(Get-Item C:\Windows\System32\drivers\viostor.sys).VersionInfo.ProductVersion
```
  A returned version number confirms the driver is installed.
2. Retrieve the registry configuration of the viostor service.
```
Get-ItemProperty  -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\viostor"
```
  Note
  The viostor service is associated with the virtio driver in a virtualized environment. Successful output confirms that the viostor service entry exists in the registry and the driver is installed.
  
  If the command returns information similar to the following, the driver is installed.
After verification, the virtio driver is ready. You can now import the image to Alibaba Cloud.

References

After installing the virtio drivers, obtain the Windows image file and import it to Alibaba Cloud.
Certain operations depend on the virtio driver version. For example, online cloud disk resizing requires version 58011 or later, and cloud disk serial number queries require version 58017 or later. If your driver version is insufficient, update the virtio driver.
An ECS instance created from an image without virtio drivers fails to start. You can perform an offline installation of virtio drivers for Windows instances.

Alibaba Cloud virtio driver

Procedure

GUI installation

CLI installation

References