Windows VMs lose their static IP address when changing the RHV cluster level to 4.6

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) 4.4.7
  • Red Hat Virtualization Manager (RHV-M) 4.4.7
  • RHV cluster compatibility version 4.6

Issue

  • Cluster compatibility level has been raised to 4.6.
  • Windows VMs lose their static IP address configuration after a reboot.

Resolution

To avoid the reconfiguration of the Windows VMs, edit the VMs to force the machine type pc-q35-rhel8.3.0 on the VMs using the Q35 chipset before raising the compatibility level of the cluster.

To do so, edit the VMs -> System -> Advanced Parameters -> Custom Emulated Machine -> "pc-q35-rhel8.3.0"

Root Cause

The 4.6 compatibility level introduces the new machine type pc-q35-rhel8.4.0, which changes the UID of the PCI root device to fix a long standing Content from lists.nongnu.org is not included.bug in qemu. This has the side effect of triggering a device re-enumeration in the Windows guests and all the PCI devices are rediscovered as new devices, losing their configuration. This affects to all PCI devices, including NICs, display adapters or virtio disks. This was reported in This content is not included.bug 1934158.

The Linux guests typically cope well with this change and don't need any reconfiguration.

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