[kwlug-disc] KVM hypervisor for Win7 with snapshots

[Paul Nijjar]

We are tired of our Windows-based "rollback" software that is supposed
to restore Win7 machines to a pristine state upon reboot. This
software is costing us hours of maintenance each week. It is time
to find a replacement.

One idea is to run a very thin Linux installation, and then install
Win7 into a virtual machine on that host. When the machine boots it
should appear to be booting into Windows, and the end user should be
interacting with the guest Win7 install. The next time the computer
reboots the "hypervisor" starts the Win7 install again from a
snapshot, which accomplishes the rollback.

As with every rollback solution, the hard part is updating the guest
VM in an automated way.  (Yes, I really want to do updates, thanks.) 
Somehow I want to install updates on the guest (I have scripts to do
most of this) and then take a new snapshot of the VM to use as the
rollback baseline. I think I might be able to do this via some clever
scheduled tasks. 

>From this link:
http://serverfault.com/questions/631317/windows-7-as-kvm-guest-installation-with-virtio-drivers-detected-virtio-scsi-d

it looks like using KVM might be a solution. Outstanding questions at
this point: 

- Has anybody set something like this up?
- Are there existing configurations out there that already do this? I
  am searching on the Internet, but obviously I am not looking for the
  right terms.
- How do I go about booting the host so that the guest VM comes up
  automatically, and users don't need to know that they are running in
  a virtualized environment?

Sorry for the vague questions, and the proprietary software focus. I
am in the very early stages of researching this. 

If you are looking for an example of the software we are trying to
mimic, look at "DeepFreeze" or "Drive Vaccine". 

There is a windows-only solution called "Steadier State", but it
requires installing Windows into a VHD on a bare drive, which is going
to be more difficult than installing Windows into a virtual machine.

- Paul 

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org