Old fashioned setup

Ol' reliable *

The classical setup. The best performance and UI comes by running the apps (editors and tools) inside the VM and display them on the host desktop via a X11 server running in the host OS.

This requires the user to manually do configure these:

• Network
• Virtual Machine
• SSH client
• Desktop support
• File access

Network *

Hyper-V comes with a builtin NAT switch but it is severely lacking in the features area, notably it doesn't have port forwarding.

However Windows allows you to create your own NAT virtual network adapter. Run this in a powershell (press Start + X, Run powershell (Admin)):

# Delete previous adapter, if any
Get-NetNat | Remove-NetNat -Confirm:$false
Get-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (NAT)" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Remove-NetIPAddress -Confirm:$false

# Create a new Hyper-V switch which in turn creates an adapter that we need to configure
if (!(Get-VMSwitch -SwitchName "NAT" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
  New-VMSwitch -SwitchName "NAT" -SwitchType Internal
}
Get-NetIPAddress -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (NAT)" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Remove-NetIPAddress -Confirm:$false
New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 10.0.0.1 -PrefixLength 24 -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (NAT)"
New-NetNAT -Name "NATNetwork" -InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix "10.0.0.0/24"

For port forwarding we have two options:

• NAT mappings (which unfortunately exposes your port on all interfaces)
• port proxies (which you can configure to only accept local connections)

If you want your VM to be accessible to other computers use NAT mappings, otherwise use port proxies. Performance is surely different but unlikely to matter for typical development.

To create NAT mappings (insecure):

Get-NetNatStaticMapping | Remove-NetNatStaticMapping -Confirm:$false
Add-NetNatStaticMapping -NatName "NATNetwork" -Protocol TCP -InternalIPAddress 10.0.0.10 -ExternalIPAddress 0.0.0.0 -ExternalPort 80 -InternalPort 80

The alternative, port proxies allow you to specify the listen address, for example this only allows local connections:

netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 connectport=80 connectaddress=10.0.0.10

And finally you can test your port:

Get-NetTCPConnection -State Listen -LocalPort 80
Test-NetConnection -ComputerName 127.0.0.1 -Port 80

Virtual Machine *

You want to use something that runs the Hyper-V kernel modules for correct shutdown handling - Ubuntu or Fedora are tested to work correctly.

Ubuntu has an installation wizard:

Does too many wrong things.

You should download and install a Server ISO instead. Ubuntu or Fedora.

While this wizard gets your VM quickly setup is has some disadvantages:

• It creates a dynamic expanding disk by default, something that you might find messy when you'll want to copy the VM to a different machine. Static allocations should be used to get the most predictable results anyway.
• It automatically installs a Desktop Ubuntu, something that you shouldn't use, and wont need to if you follow this guide.

If you insist with the wizard at least give the VM a single word name to avoid quoting in scripts and whatnot.

Recommended install process *

The best way is not always the quickest or easiest:

This is the way.

Recommendations:

• Don't put spaces or weird stuff in the name.
• Use Generation 2.
• Disable Dynamic Memory if you don't really need it.
• Allocate at least 8GB memory. The more the better - you don't want your programs to run off swap.
• Pick the "NAT" switch created before.
• Pick the ISO you have downloaded in "Installation Options". The VM will boot from the ISO.

Additional VM settings that you should do after creation:

Shutdown guest on host shutdown - avoids disk trashing at shutdown, especially if you allocate a lot of memory to your VM.

Don't allocate all the cores. Don't allocate just a couple cores either. Aim for 70-80% of your total system resources.

You don't need or want this fancy "security" feature.

Networking problems *

You'll notice in the installer that DHCP fails to get an IP, that's because that NAT switch created earlier doesn't have DHCP support at all. This is why this setup is not exactly easy to get into. But once you iron out all the kinks believe me this is the best.

Since you won't be creating VMs all day long this is fine. One time ordeal.

Storage layout *

You don't need fancy LVM. If you ever need to resize your storage it's simpler to just boot from a GParted ISO and resize a non-LVM partition.

Avoid LVM. You don't need this abstraction.

LVM can do software RAID or encryption, features that you don't need or are best left to the host OS.

SSH client *

The simplest way is to install Putty.

You won't be using the X11 forwarding feature from Putty. Other settings that you can try, depending on your preferred shell mileage may vary:

• putty-256color for Terminal-type string (alternative: xterm)
• ESC[n~ mode for Home and End keys

You might need to try a bunch of different settings for the best special keys handling, all dependant on shell.

Bash is the default shell. If you want to experiment you can try zsh (ohmyzsh is a popular way to customize your shell while antigen is the place to go when you want more than just a theme). You should only start tweaking your shell after you got everything else working though!

If you're new to Linux you should go over this cheatsheet.

Desktop support *

This setup avoids running a full blown desktop inside the VM for performance and better integration with the Windows desktop. Thus you need to run a X11 server on the host OS (Windows).

There are two options for X11 servers:

• X410 ($20 at least in Windows store, very easy to setup)
• VcXsrv (free, requires some hassle)

VSOCKS are direct communication channels between host machine and guest. You can use it to forward the X11 server on the host to the guest without Putty (and skip all the reliability issues that entails).

To put it differently: VSOCKS are the way to go. Even WSLg is using them.

[Unit]
Description=X410 VSOCK Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Restart=always
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/socat -b65536 UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/.X11-unix/X0,fork,mode=777 SOCKET-CONNECT:40:0:x0000x70170000x02000000x00000000

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo apt-get install socat

sudo systemctl enable x11vsock.service
sudo systemctl start x11vsock.service

sudo systemctl status x11vsock.service

if [[ ! $DISPLAY && -S "/tmp/.X11-unix/X0" ]]; then
    export DISPLAY=:0.0
fi

env | grep DISPLAY

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization\GuestCommunicationServices\00001770-facb-11e6-bd58-64006a7986d3]
"ElementName"="X11 Display 0"

X410 *

X410 is pretty simple to setup but it's paid solution. One time, no subscriptions or anything weird.

That's all to it!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<XLaunch
  WindowMode="MultiWindow"
  ClientMode="NoClient"
  LocalClient="False"
  Display="-1"
  LocalProgram="xcalc"
  RemoteProgram="xterm"
  RemotePassword=""
  PrivateKey=""
  RemoteHost=""
  RemoteUser=""
  XDMCPHost=""
  XDMCPBroadcast="False"
  XDMCPIndirect="False"
  Clipboard="True"
  ClipboardPrimary="False"
  ExtraParams="-vmid {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} -vsockport 6000"
  Wgl="True"
  DisableAC="False"
  XDMCPTerminate="False"
/>

sudo apt-get install xclock
xclock

File access *

Last but not least you might want some file access from Windows inside your VM. Of all the possible solutions the least worst solution is via SSH - use SFTP Drive.