[SOLVED] Windows 10 guest agent / balloon issues

[Greg Johnson]

I have Windows 10 installed in a VM. I have followed https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_10_guest_best_practices and installed all the necessary drivers including the guest agent and balloon driver. I can see the balloon service running within Windows. I can talk to the guest agent with "qm agent" for example,

root@pve:~# qm agent 102 ping
root@pve:~#

However, from the proxmox GUI, I see "No network information" for the IPs of this VM (see screenshot below). In addition, the VM is using 90+% of the 16GB memory allocated to it. From within Windows, the system seems to be using a small fraction of the available memory. The Windows VM is completely idle at the moment.

My questions are

1. Why don't I see the VM's IP addresses even though the guest agent is installed?
2. Why doesn't the balloon driver cause unused memory to be reclaimed from the VM?




root@pve:~# qm config 102
agent: 1
balloon: 4096
boot: cdn
bootdisk: scsi1
cores: 2
cpu: host
ide0: local:iso/virtio-win.iso,media=cdrom,size=309208K
ide2: local:iso/Win10_1709_English_x64.iso,media=cdrom
memory: 16384
name: windows
net0: virtio=D2:9A:7D1:CC:C9,bridge=vmbr0,tag=1
numa: 0
onboot: 1
ostype: win10
protection: 1
scsi0: swaps:vm-102-disk-1,size=8G
scsi1: local-zfs:vm-102-disk-1,cache=writeback,size=64G
scsihw: virtio-scsi-pci
smbios1: uuid=a495a2b7-0a96-4d64-882e-2b235c2ba732
sockets: 1
vga: qxl
root@pve:~#

 

[Greg Johnson]

I tried

root@pve:~# qm agent 102 network-get-interfaces
{
"error" : {
"class" : "CommandDisabled",
"desc" : "The command guest-network-get-interfaces has been disabled for this instance"
}
}
root@pve:~#

 

[wolfgang]

Why don't I see the VM's IP addresses even though the guest agent is installed?

Because you use the old qemu-guest-agent.
Please use this one: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/vir...ds/archive-qemu-ga/qemu-ga-win-7.5.0-2.el7ev/

Why doesn't the balloon driver cause unused memory to be reclaimed from the VM?

How do you check it is running?

 

[mbaldini]

1. Why don't I see the VM's IP addresses even though the guest agent is installed?

Install the latest windows qemu agent

2. Why doesn't the balloon driver cause unused memory to be reclaimed from the VM?

From Windows Powershell, what's the output of
Get-Service balloonservice

 

[Greg Johnson]

Updating the qemu-agent to the version linked above fixed that problem, thanks.

Get-Service balloonservice does not show the balloonservice to be running. The driver is installed. I thought it was working based on the fact that the driver was installed and device manager seemed happy with the device.

There are instructions for enabling the balloon driver here: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Dynamic_Memory_Management#Requirements_for_Windows_VM which do not mention Windows 10. I'm guessing I need to do this part:

5. Install the BLNSVR with "BLNSVR.exe -i"

It looks like the virtio-win.iso I used originally was virtio-win-0.1.141 which I got from here. I guess I should be using the latest version rather than the stable? Looks like the latest is virtio-win-0.1.149. Should that be generally good?

 

[Greg Johnson]

OK, I updated all the drivers to the ones on virtio-win-0.1.149. In addition I actually followed the instructions to enable the Balloon service which worked. Now I can see it running with "Get-Service balloonservice". Everything seems to be working. Thank you for the pointers.

 

[alamadrid]

Because you use the old qemu-guest-agent.
Please use this one: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/vir...ds/archive-qemu-ga/qemu-ga-win-7.5.0-2.el7ev/

How do you check it is running?

I have a question on regards to this;

Similar situation as OP:

How did you know qemu-ga running on the guest was outdated?, the reason why I'm asking is because updating the qemu-ga fixed my problem too.

 

[dmox]

I have a question on regards to this;

Similar situation as OP:

How did you know qemu-ga running on the guest was outdated?, the reason why I'm asking is because updating the qemu-ga fixed my problem too.

I am just guessing, but imho their daily work involves working with the VirtIO drivers etc. and so they are known to the latest versions.

 

[swdv]

I was able to get it to work using the ISO from https://docs.getutm.app/guest-support/windows/#download