[New Feature]: Ability to specify Generation 1 or Generation 2 #1527
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DescriptionHey there! I'm looking to automate creation of images for several different SKUs, and everything is working great - thank you very much for your help earlier! I need to be able to create VMs that are in Legacy boot mode or UEFI. boot mode. I believe the only way to achieve this is to create generation 1 (Legacy boot mode) or generation 2 (UEFI boot mode) VMs. I do not believe it is currently possible to specify the generation of the VM. Is there a workaround in the interim to permit creation of 4 VMs in Generation 1 mode and the rest of my need (8 VMs) in generation 2 mode? If not, would this be possible to achieve through some scripted methodology? |
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Answered by
raandree
Dec 11, 2023
Replies: 5 comments 7 replies
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I may have found a temporary workaround - I'm testing it as a theory right now. I'm pre-creating the generation 1 VM before creating the lab definition and installing the lab |
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0 replies
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Hi @JacobPitcher-EEG this is possible using our config mgmt: # one time
Set-PSFConfig -Module 'AutomatedLab' -Name SupportGen2VMs -Value $false
# Permanent
Set-PSFConfig -Module 'AutomatedLab' -Name SupportGen2VMs -Value $false -PassThru | Register-PSFConfig |
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2 replies
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Hey there, so if I set this value in my script before creating the legacy mode VMs, they will be gen 1 and then change the value to true for the rest of the script and it will make gen2 VMs for the rest? |
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Ah, I see. No, unfortunately that is not possible. The configuration settings (You can discover all with Get-PSFConfig -Module AutomatedLab) are valid for the entire duration of the script. We check the value while deploying the machines. I'll add a new feature for this but leave this topic as a discussion in case someone has a similar question. For the time being, your workaround could work. You could also try setting overwriting the lab and reuse resources. As long as you only add to your lab definition, you can simply redeploy. Set-PSFConfig -Module 'AutomatedLab' -Name SupportGen2VMs -Value $true
# Deploy Lab 1, presumably containing most of your infra
New-LabDefinition -Default HyperV -Name WithGen1
Add-LabMachineDefinition -Name DC -Role RootDc
Install-Lab
Set-PSFConfig -Module 'AutomatedLab' -Name SupportGen2VMs -Value $false
# Deploy Lab 2 with Gen1 machines
# Existing DC VM will be skipped, new VM will be Gen1
New-LabDefinition -Default HyperV -Name WithGen1
Add-LabMachineDefinition -Name DC -Role RootDc
Add-LabMachineDefinition -Name Gen1
Install-Lab
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Hey there! I've been fiddling with this idea some more, and it seems that making it all happen in one pass isn't working for some reason. The Gen1 VMs all seem to create, but they won't boot:
I'm thinking this might be becauase the VHDX generated is not compatible with gen1 VMs.
I confirmed this by attaching the VHDX from one of the created legacy mode machines to a UEFI mode machine that was already functioning and it booted successfully.
Here is what the code looks like now, though please note I've commented out the UEFI lines intentionally as a part of troubleshooting: |
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0 replies
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In any case, I've got the following log output to share from a couple test runs (I commented out the UEFI ones to force it to try the legacy mode ones, which is why there are multiple runs: |
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0 replies
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Thoughts on how one might accomplish this process with a legacy mode image/vm? |
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5 replies
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Not really, no. Hyper-V VMs can boot vhdx regardless of the generation, and both g1 and g2 VMs can cope with differencing disks, so I am not sure which part of our base disks is the problem. It might be the UEFI boot config, but even on that I am not certain. @raandree at some point, AutomatedLab used to support Generation 1 VMs if I'm not mistaken. Do you happen to recall how the reference disks were formatted back then? I've checked our code from the initial commit and the formating and boot config for the reference disks hasn't changed over the years |
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Thanks for looking into this! It's still an issue, though I've side-stepped it for now so it's not a huge deal at this time. Let me know if there is any testing or anything else I can do to help! |
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Heya! Thought I'd share - did some sleuthing and it seems that the gen1 VMs don't support a GPT filesystem, it has to be MBR, so even if I convert from VHDX to VHD, the underlying filesystem is still GPT which won't fly in legacy land. Is there a way to have automatelab create a MBR-based boot volume instead of a GPT one? I see there is a way to create a disk as MBR, but that doesn't seem to apply to the boot volume, only additional ones after that. Would that require a separate base image? Perhaps I could do some kind of P2V trickery and make a new base image in the VHD/MBR format? |
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Thanks for you research, @JacobPitcher-EEG. It's been a while since we have written the code and it's also been a while since I needed a gen1 VM. We cannot use a GPT base disk with Gen1 VMs. Set-PSFConfig -Module 'AutomatedLab' -Name SupportGen2VMs -Value $false
New-LabDefinition -Name Legacy1 -DefaultVirtualizationEngine HyperV -VmPath E:\AL
$baseDiskPath = 'E:\AL\2016-0.vhdx'
$osName = 'Windows Server 2016 Datacenter (Desktop Experience)'
$os = Get-LabAvailableOperatingSystem | Where-Object OperatingSystemName -eq $osName
if (-not (Test-Path -Path $baseDiskPath)) {
New-LWReferenceVHDX -IsoOsPath $os.IsoPath -ReferenceVhdxPath $baseDiskPath -OsName $os.OperatingSystemName -ImageName $os.OperatingSystemImageName -SizeInGB 60 -PartitionStyle MBR
}
Add-LabMachineDefinition -Name l1 -Memory 1GB -OperatingSystem 'Windows Server 2016 Datacenter (Desktop Experience)' -ReferenceDisk $baseDiskPath
Install-LabDoes this help? |
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Answer selected by
JacobPitcher-EEG
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Legit fixed the issue, building the first one now. You are the bomb diggity. :-) |
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Thanks for you research, @JacobPitcher-EEG. It's been a while since we have written the code and it's also been a while since I needed a gen1 VM.
We cannot use a GPT base disk with Gen1 VMs.
New-LWReferenceVHDXsupports creating MBR base disks. When referencing to that MBR base creating a Gen1 VM works.