Microsoft™ Hyper-V

Microsoft™ Hyper-V is one of the virtualization technologies that are supported by BigFix Inventory. It is the successor of Microsoft™ Virtual Server.

Purpose

To retrieve information about the measures and virtualization structure of virtual machines, define the Hyper-V hypervisors as VM managers on the BigFix Inventory server. They are able to expose required data via the WS-MAN protocol.

Diagram showing the communication between the server and hypervisors.
In the case of clusters, two approaches exist:
  1. Define all Hyper-V servers that are a part of the cluster in the VM Managers panel. If any servers are missing, they are in the Incomplete definition status.
  2. If all members of the cluster have at least one common set of credentials that has privileges to access the WS-MAN interface (for example, the domain user), define one computer system from the cluster as a VM manager. Then, select the option to share credentials. The BigFix Inventory server uses the credentials to connect to the Hyper-V that you defined in the user interface. Then, it extracts addresses of the remaining cluster members and connects to them by using the same credentials.

Diagram showing the communication between the server and Hyper-V clusters.

Communication interface

You can choose to use PowerShell or WinRM as the communication interface for Hyper-V. For both communication interfaces, make sure that you provide the user name in one of the following formats:
  • user_name@domain, for example: test@cluster.com
  • user_name\domain, for example: test\cluster.com
9.2.16 Starting from application update 9.2.16, you can also provide the administrator user name in one of the following formats:
  • domain@user_name, for example: cluster.com@test
  • domain\user_name, for example: cluster.com\test
Note: Make sure that you upgrade the VM Manager Tool to version 9.2.16, not only the BigFix Inventory server.
If the target server is not in a domain, specify its host name as the domain. For example:
  • test\hostname or test@hostname
  • 9.2.16 hostname\test or hostname@test
PowerShell
PowerShell is a framework for managing the automation and configuration of tasks and can use the RPC protocol. In order for BigFix Inventory to use PowerShell for retrieving the information from VM managers, the VM Manager Tool must be installed on a Windows™ computer. The computer must also meet the following requirements:
  • Microsoft™ RPC communication with Microsoft™ Hyper-V must be allowed by Windows firewall
  • ICMP Echo Reply must be allowed by Windows firewall
  • Microsoft™ PowerShell 2.0 or higher must be installed
  • Microsoft™.NET Framework 3.5 or higher must be installed
    Important: If you are using .NET Framework 4.0 or higher, use PowerShell version 3.0 or higher.

The use of PowerShell depends on the operating system of your BigFix server, because the main VM Manager Tool is installed along with the server:

  • Windows You configure a Hyper-V VM manager in the BigFix Inventory UI and choose PowerShell as the communication interface.
  • Linux You use advanced VM management to install additional VM Manager Tool on any Windows computer, and then specify a Hyper-V VM manager in a configuration file. Such a VM manager is not visible in the UI, but is managed through the VM Manager Tool command line. For more information, see Advanced VM management.
    Hyper-V in a configuration file
WinRM
Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is the Microsoft implementation of the WS-Management protocol. It uses Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) over HTTP and HTTPS. In order for BigFix Inventory to use WinRM for retrieving the information from VM managers:
  • You must configure Windows™ Remote Management Service (WinRM) for all members of the Microsoft™ Hyper-V cluster. For more information, see: Configuring WinRM on Hyper-V hosts.
  • The default URL that is to be used is "https://<HYPER-V_IP_address>:<port>/wsman", where <port> is the port of the listener that was created for the WinRM service. The default value for the HTTP listeners is 5985 and for HTTPS listeners is 5986 (WinRM 2.0). To verify all the defined WinRM listeners, use the winrm enumerate winrm/config/listener command.
    WinRM communication interface uses NTLM authentication in order to access data on virtual machines. As a result, in VM Manager Tool logs you can notice the following messages:
    2022-01-01 00:00:00 : (vmmconf_xxxx.properties)
com.ibm.license.mgmt.vmmanager.hyperv.net.HttpConnector::initializeNTLM::Response Code is: 401

    The response code 401 is expected to be returned as part of NTLM protocol client-server message exchange. For information about NTLM protocol, see the tech community article.

Supported versions

For a full list of supported versions, see: Supported virtualization types.