Running Windows Server With Kubevirt

April 15, 2023

In this post i will show you how to run your windows server workloads and needs in KubeVirt. Also probably what usecase when you need this.

Background

I work for a company that has workloads running on Windows Servers, and the cost of using public cloud windows is quite high. To address this challenge, I proposed a solution to host the Windows servers on bare metal as service servers (already bootstrapped with Kubespray). This approach not only provides better latency since the servers are in our country (Indonesia), but it also significantly reduces costs.

Prerequisite

1. Virualization Enabled

Make sure your kubernetes nodes already enable Virtualization

2. Presistent Backend Storage

You need storageclass kubernetes with presistent backend storage like CEPH, Longhorn, vSAN or whatever.

3. Understand What Kubevirt Do

If you has't understand what kubevirt do, is basicly do what kvm and qemu automation with YAML kubernetes. Go checkout kubevirt.io

4. Installed the KubeVirt and Container Data Importer Engine

Follow the guide from official docs, or here my previouse introduction about kubevirt

5. Virt Plugin Kubectl

We need this plugin to make our life easier, install it with krew.sigs.k8s.io

Let's Deploy Your Windows

In this blog i will use cloudbase.it image, bacause the image is already cloudinit-able or some people may say "Cloud Native"

1. Download the Image

Download the image where ever you can access your your cluster with kubectl

2. Forward Your CDI Upload Proxy

kubectl port-forward svc/cdi-uploadproxy -n cdi 6969:443

3. Upload With Virt Plugin

kubectl virt image-upload \
--image-path=./windows_server_2012_kvm.qcow2 \
--pvc-name=iso-winserver-r12 \
--access-mode=ReadWriteOnce \
--pvc-size=20G \
--storage-class=kind-local \
--uploadproxy-url=https://localhost:6969 \
--insecure

4. Specifiying Your VM

apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1alpha3
kind: VirtualMachine
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: 2023-04-10T15:03:08Z
  generation: 1
  labels:
    kubevirt.io/os: windows
  name: windowsvm1
spec:
  running: true
  template:
    metadata:
      creationTimestamp: null
      labels:
        kubevirt.io/domain: windowsvm1
    spec:
      domain:
        cpu:
          cores: 4
        devices:
          disks:
          - disk:
              bus: virtio
            name: disk0
          - cdrom:
              bus: sata
              readonly: true
            name: cloudinitdisk
        machine:
          type: q35
        resources:
          requests:
            memory: 4096M
      volumes:
      - name: disk0
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: iso-winserver-r12
      - cloudInitConfigDrive:
          userData: |
            #ps1
            net user Administrator THizisMypzzzowrd
        name: cloudinitdisk