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documentation.suse.com / SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Documentation / Virtualization Guide / Introduction / Supported Hosts, Guests, and Features
Applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2

6 Supported Hosts, Guests, and Features

  

Supported architectures and virtualization limits for Xen and KVM are outlined in the Release Notes.

6.1 Host Environments (Hypervisors)

  

This section lists the support status of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 running as a guest on top of various virtualization hosts (Hypervisor).

The following SUSE host environments are supported (Xen + KVM):
  

  • SLES 11 SP4

  • SLES 12 SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, SP5

  • SLES 15 SP0, SP1, SP2

The following third party host environments are supported:
  

  • VMware ESXi 6.5, 6.7

  • Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 SP1+, 2012+, 2012 R2+, 2016, 2019

  • Citrix XenServer 7.0, 7.1, 8.0

  • Oracle VM 3.4

  • Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor with AOS 5.8

The level of support is as follows:
  

  • Support for SUSE host operating systems is full L3, both for the guest and host.

  • Support for third party host environments is full L3 for the guest and needs the host vendor cooperation and support for the host.

6.2 Guest Environments

  

This section lists the support status for various guest operating systems virtualized on top of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2. All guest operating systems are supported both fully-virtualized (“FV” in the following table) and paravirtualized (“PV” in the following table) with two exceptions: Windows, which is only supported fully-virtualized, and NetWare operating systems, which are only supported on Xen paravirtualized. All guest operating systems are supported both in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors, unless stated otherwise (see NetWare).

Important
Important

Microsoft Windows guests can be rebooted by libvirt/virsh only if paravirtualized drivers are installed in the guest. Refer to https://www.suse.com/products/vmdriverpack/ for more details on downloading and installing PV drivers.

The following guest operating systems are fully supported (L3):
  

  • SLES 10 SP4

  • SLES 11 SP3, SP4

  • SLES 12 SP0, SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, SP5

  • SLES 15 SP0, SP1, SP2

  • OES 11 SP2, 2015, 2015 SP1, 2018, 2018 SP1, 2018 SP2

  • NetWare 6.5 SP8 (32-bit only)

  • Windows Server 2008 SP2+, 2008 R2 SP1+, 2012+, 2012 R2+, 2016, 2019

The following guest operating systems are supported as a technology preview (L2, fixes if reasonable):
  

  • SLED 15 SP1

Red Hat and CentOS guest operating systems are fully supported (L3) if the customer has purchased SUSE Liberty Linux.
  

  • Refer to the SUSE Liberty Linux documentation at https://documentation.suse.com/liberty for the list of available combinations and supported releases. In other cases, they are supported on a limited basis (L2, fixes if reasonable).

The following guest operating systems are supported on a commercially reasonable basis (L2, fixes if reasonable):
  

  • Windows 8+, 8.1+, 10+

6.2.1 Availability of Paravirtualized Drivers

  

To improve the performance of the guest operating system, paravirtualized drivers are provided when available. Although they are not required, it is strongly recommended to use them. The paravirtualized drivers are available as follows:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 / 12 SP1 / 12 SP2

Included in kernel

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 / 11 SP1 / 11 SP2 / 11 SP3 / 11 SP4

Included in kernel

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP4

Included in kernel

Red Hat

Available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 and newer

Windows

SUSE has developed virtio-based drivers for Windows, which are available in the Virtual Machine Driver Pack (VMDP). For more information, see https://www.suse.com/products/vmdriverpack/.

6.3 KVM Hardware Requirements

  

Currently, SUSE supports KVM full virtualization on AMD64/Intel 64 and AArch64 hosts, and on IBM Z.

  • On the AMD64/Intel 64 architecture, KVM is designed around hardware virtualization features included in AMD* (AMD-V) and Intel* (VT-x) CPUs. It supports virtualization features of chipsets and PCI devices, such as an I/O Memory Mapping Unit (IOMMU) and Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV). You can test whether your CPU supports hardware virtualization with the following command: 

    > egrep '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

    If this command returns no output, your processor either does not support hardware virtualization, or this feature has been disabled in the BIOS or firmware.

    The following Web sites identify AMD64/Intel 64 processors that support hardware virtualization: http://ark.intel.com/Products/VirtualizationTechnology (for Intel CPUs), and http://products.amd.com/ (for AMD CPUs).

  • On the Arm architecture, virtualization support was initially added to Armv7-A processors starting with Arm Cortex-A15 and including Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A17. Armv8-A processors include support for virtualization.

Note
Note: KVM Kernel Modules Not Loading

The KVM kernel modules only load if the CPU hardware virtualization features are available.

The general minimum hardware requirements for the VM Host Server are the same as outlined in Section 2.1, “Hardware Requirements”. However, additional RAM for each virtualized guest is needed. It should at least be the same amount that is needed for a physical installation. It is also strongly recommended to have at least one processor core or hyper-thread for each running guest.

6.4 Feature Support

  

6.4.1 Host (Dom0)

  
Table 6.1: Feature Support—Host (Dom0)
  

Features

Xen

Network and block device hotplugging

Yes

Physical CPU hotplugging

No

Virtual CPU hotplugging

Yes

Virtual CPU pinning

Yes

Virtual CPU capping

Yes

Intel* VT-x2: FlexPriority, FlexMigrate (migration constraints apply to dissimilar CPU architectures)

Yes

Intel* VT-d2 (DMA remapping with interrupt filtering and queued invalidation)

Yes

AMD* IOMMU (I/O page table with guest-to-host physical address translation)

Yes

Note
Note: Adding or Removing Physical CPUs at Runtime Is Not Supported

The addition or removal of physical CPUs at runtime is not supported. However, virtual CPUs can be added or removed for each VM Guest.

6.4.2 Paravirtualized Guest

  
Table 6.2: Feature Support—Paravirtualized Guest
  

Features

Xen

Virtual network and virtual block device hotplugging

Yes

Virtual CPU hotplugging

Yes

Virtual CPU over-commitment

Yes

Dynamic virtual memory resize

Yes

VM save and restore

Yes

VM live migration

Yes, between like virtual host systems with similar resources

Advanced debugging with GDBC

Yes

Dom0 metrics visible to VM

Yes

Memory ballooning

Yes

PCI pass-through

Yes (NetWare guests are excluded)

For live migration, both source and target system architectures need to match; that is, the processors (AMD* or Intel*) must be the same. Unless CPU ID masking is used, such as with Intel FlexMigration, the target should feature the same processor revision or a more recent processor revision than the source. If VMs are moved among different systems, the same rules apply for each move. To avoid failing optimized code at runtime or application start-up, source and target CPUs need to expose the same processor extensions. Xen exposes the physical CPU extensions to the VMs transparently. To summarize, guests can be 32-bit or 64-bit, but the VHS must be identical.

Note
Note: Intel FlexMigration

For machines that support Intel FlexMigration, CPU-ID masking and faulting allow more flexibility in cross-CPU migration.

6.4.3 Fully Virtualized Guest

  
Table 6.3: Feature Support—Fully Virtualized Guest
  

Features

Xen

KVM

Virtual network and virtual block device hotplugging

Yes

Yes

Virtual CPU hotplugging

No

No

Virtual CPU over-commitment

Yes

Yes

Dynamic virtual memory resize

Yes

Yes

VM save and restore

Yes

Yes

VM Live Migration

Yes between like virtual host systems with similar resources (that is, from 32-bit to 32-bit, 64-bit to 64-bit)

Yes

VM snapshot

Yes

Yes

Advanced debugging with GDBC

Yes

Yes

Dom0 metrics visible to VM

Yes

Yes

PCI pass-through

Yes

Yes

Note
Note: Windows Guest

Hotplugging of virtual network and virtual block devices, and resizing, shrinking, and restoring dynamic virtual memory are supported in Xen and KVM only if PV drivers are being used (VMDP).

For KVM, a detailed description of supported limits, features, recommended settings and scenarios, and other useful information is maintained in kvm-supported.txt. This file is part of the KVM package and can be found in /usr/share/doc/packages/qemu-kvm.