KVM How To

kvm how-to (complete work in progress, primarily notes) useful reference: http://gmplib.org/~tege/qemu.html

1. Set up public and private networks for VMS to bridge to (Ian's file net.sh). Public and private nics must be set to promiscuous.

Questions: Do we need to install bridge-utils?

auto br0 iface br0 inet dhcp hwaddress ether 00:06:5B:3C:44:BF bridge_ports eth0 bridge_stp off bridge_maxwait 0 bridge_fd 0

Set up interfaces manually, avoiding conflicts with, e.g., network manager

iface eth0 inet manual

iface eth1 inet manual

Bridge setup

iface br1 inet dhcp hwaddress ether 00:06:5B:3C:44:BF bridge_ports eth1

iface br2 inet static hwaddress ether 00:06:5B:3C:44:BE

2. $ apt-get install qemu-kvm
3. create vm insterfaces, owned by user, to hand to vms $ sudo tunctl -u -t tap

Todo:

• edit /etc/network/interfaces for public and private bridges
• script that spins up VMs also initializes the tap interfaces

qemu-img summary

important options:

• -f : file format (qcow2, vdi, raw, etc...)
• -b : base image (if making a copy on write image)

create a 20 Gigabyte disk image in qcow2 format:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 filename.qcow2 20G

in general:

qemu-img create -f <file-foramt> <filename> <size>

create a qcow2 image with orig.qcow2 as a base (will be the same size):

qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b orig.qcow2 filename.qcow2

qemu-system-x86_64

Important options:

• -hda : use as hard disk 0 image

Example, to netboot a kvm instance. and redirect serial to stdio:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 512 -net nic,vlan=0 -net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no -serial stdio

Example, to boot from iso and start a vnc server on display 1:

qemu-system-x86_64\
	-enable-kvm\
	-hda single.qcow2\
	-m 4096\
	-net nic,vlan=0\
	-net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no\
    -cdrom <path/to/iso>\
    -display vnc 1