====== Configure A Physical Machine To Host Virtual Guests ======

**General Information**

Yum groups can save you time, as long as you have access to a repo that has the groups defined. **This may NOT be the case on an exam**.

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===== Installing and Starting KVM =====

Install packages for VM installs, hardware emulation, imaging
  * CLI packages<code bash>yum install virt-install qemu-kvm qemu-img</code>
    * virt-install: VM creation
    * qemu-kvm: Provides hardware emulation for the KVM hypervisor
    * qemu-img: Disk image utility

  * GUI packages<code bash>yum install virt-manager</code>
    * **virt-manager** is only needed if you want the GUI Virtual Machine Manager application to create/control VMs.

  * CLI and GUI packages group<code bash>yum groupinstall "Virtualization Client"</code>
    * Will install all of the above (and probably extras)

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Management packages
<code bash>
yum install libvirt libvirt-client libvirt-python
OR
yum groupinstall "Virtualization Platform"
</code>
  * libvirt packages allow interacting with virtual guests/managing virtual machines
    * libvirt: Interact with virtualization via an API
    * libvirt-client: Client binaries to access virtualization (provides virsh CLI VM management utility)
    * libvirt-python: Module for Python programs to access virtualization

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Enable/Start libvirtd - Daemon required to manage virtualization
<code bash>
systemctl enable libvirtd
systemctl start libvirtd
</code>

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Two ways to manage VMs
  * virt-manager => GUI
  * virsh => command line

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