Linux Guest Support for Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1

Daniel Petri

Jan 8, 2009

Download the Virtual Machine Additions for Linux, available from Microsoft Connect (see link below) in order to improve the experience of running qualified Linux distributions on Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1. The Virtual Machine Additions for Linux provide the following capabilities:

Guest and host synchronization for time synchronization, for heartbeat generation, and for coordinated shutdown operations
Mouse driver
Display driver
SCSI hard disk emulation

Note: The SCSI hard disk Virtual Machine Additions component requires Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Related: Linux Primer for Windows Server Administrators

Qualified Linux Guest Operating Systems

The Virtual Machine Additions for Linux can be installed in the following Linux Operating Systems when running as guests of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1:
Enterprise distributions:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 7)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 (update 8)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 (update 4)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.0

Standard distributions:

Red Hat Linux 9.0
SuSE Linux 9.3
SuSE Linux 10.0
SuSE Linux 10.1
SuSE Linux 10.2

The Virtual Machine Additions for Linux provide the following capabilities:

Improved Mouse and Video interaction for the Linux Guest
Host services to enable coordinated shutdown, time synchronization and heartbeat between the Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 host and the Linux Guest

The Virtual Machine Additions for Linux are available through the Microsoft Download Center or at THIS link.
Note: This download used to be accessible only through the Connect site. Now that the Linux Additions are available from the Microsoft Download Center there is no need to continue releasing them via Connect anymore.