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.

Install packages

• CLI packages

  yum install virt-install qemu-kvm qemu-img

  • qemu is the layer that allows for virtualization to work with KVM
  • KVM is built into the kernel and allows virtualization support

• GUI packages

  yum install virt-manager

  • virt-manager is only needed if you want the GUI Virtual Machine Manager application.

• CLI and GUI packages group

  yum groupinstall "Virtualization Client"

Libvirt packages

yum install libvirt libvirt-client libvirt-python
OR
yum groupinstall "Virtualization Platform"

• libvirt packages allow interacting with virtual guests/managing virtual machines

Enable/Start libvirt

systemctl enable libvirtd
systemctl start libvirtd

Two ways to manage VMs

• virt-manager ⇒ GUI
• virsh ⇒ command line