linux_wiki:configure_a_physical_machine_to_host_virtual_guests

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 for VM installs, hardware emulation, imaging

  • CLI packages
    yum install virt-install qemu-kvm qemu-img
    • virt-install: VM creation
    • qemu-kvm: Provides hardware emulation for the KVM hypervisor
    • qemu-img: Disk image utility
  • GUI packages
    yum install virt-manager
    • virt-manager is only needed if you want the GUI Virtual Machine Manager application to create/control VMs.
  • CLI and GUI packages group
    yum groupinstall "Virtualization Client"
    • Will install all of the above (and probably extras)


Management packages

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


Enable/Start libvirtd - Daemon required to manage virtualization

systemctl enable libvirtd
systemctl start libvirtd


Two ways to manage VMs

  • virt-manager ⇒ GUI
  • virsh ⇒ command line

  • linux_wiki/configure_a_physical_machine_to_host_virtual_guests.txt
  • Last modified: 2019/05/25 23:50
  • (external edit)