This guide explains how you can install and use KVM for creating and running virtual machines on an Ubuntu 8.10 server. I will show how to create image-based virtual machines and also virtual machines that use a logical volume (LVM). KVM is short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine and makes use of hardware virtualization, i.e., you need a CPU that supports hardware virtualization, e.g. Intel VT or AMD-V.
I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!
1 Preliminary Note
I'm using a machine with the hostname server1.example.com and the IP address 192.168.0.100 here as my KVM host.
Because we will run all the steps from this tutorial with root privileges, we can either prepend all commands in this tutorial with the string sudo, or we become root right now by typing
sudo su
2 Installing KVM And vmbuilder
First check if your CPU supports hardware virtualization - if this is the case, the command
egrep '(vmx|svm)' --color=always /proc/cpuinfo
should display something, e.g. like this:
root@server1:~# egrep '(vmx|svm)' --color=always /proc/cpuinfo
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext
fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good nopl pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy 3dnowprefetch
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext
fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good nopl pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy 3dnowprefetch
root@server1:~#
If nothing is displayed, then your processor doesn't support hardware virtualization, and you must stop here.
To install KVM and vmbuilder (a script to create Ubuntu-based virtual machines), we run
apt-get install ubuntu-virt-server python-vm-builder
Afterwards we must add the user as which we're currently logged in (root) to the group libvirtd:
adduser `id -un` libvirtd
You need to log out and log back in for the new group membership to take effect.
To check if KVM has successfully been installed, run
virsh -c qemu:///system list
It should display something like this:
root@server1:~# virsh -c qemu:///system list
Connecting to uri: qemu:///system
Id Name State
----------------------------------
root@server1:~#
If it displays an error instead, then something went wrong.
Next we need to set up a network bridge on our server so that our virtual machines can be accessed from other hosts as if they were physical systems in the network.
To do this, we install the package bridge-utils...
apt-get install bridge-utils
... and configure a bridge. Open /etc/network/interfaces:
vi /etc/network/interfaces
Before the modification, my file looks as follows
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system |
I change it so that it looks like this:
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system |
(Make sure you use the correct settings for your network!)
Restart the network...
/etc/init.d/networking restart
... and run
ifconfig
It should now show the network bridge (br0):
root@server1:~# ifconfig
br0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:90:f3:f0:02
inet addr:192.168.0.100 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::21e:90ff:fef3:f002/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:23 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1580 (1.5 KB) TX bytes:2356 (2.3 KB)
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1e:90:f3:f0:02
inet6 addr: fe80::21e:90ff:fef3:f002/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:13539 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:7684 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:19476849 (19.4 MB) TX bytes:647692 (647.6 KB)
Interrupt:251 Base address:0xe000
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
vnet0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 3e:7c:6f:ab:0e:8c
inet addr:192.168.122.1 Bcast:192.168.122.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::3c7c:6fff:feab:e8c/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:468 (468.0 B)
root@server1:~#
We can now create our first VM - an image-based VM (if you expect lots of traffic and many read- and write operations for that VM, use an LVM-based VM instead as shown in chapter 6 - image-based VMs are heavy on hard disk IO).
We will create a new directory for each VM that we want to create, e.g. ~/vm1, ~/vm2, ~/vm3, and so on, because each VM will have a subdirectory called ubuntu-kvm, and obviously there can be just one such directory in ~/vm1, for example. If you try to create a second VM in ~/vm1, for example, you will get an error message saying ubuntu-kvm already exists (unless you run vmbuilder with the --dest=DESTDIR argument):
root@server1:~/vm1# vmbuilder kvm ubuntu -c vm2.cfg
2008-12-10 16:32:44,185 INFO Cleaning up
ubuntu-kvm already exists
root@server1:~/vm1#
We will use the vmbuilder tool to create VMs. (You can learn more about vmbuilder here.) vmbuilder uses a template to create virtual machines - this template is located in the /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/ directory. Because we must modify the template, we create a copy and modify that one:
mkdir -p ~/vm1/mytemplates/libvirt
cp /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/* ~/vm1/mytemplates/libvirt/
Now we open ~/vm1/mytemplates/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl...
vi ~/vm1/mytemplates/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl
... and change the network section from
[...] |
to
[...] |
because we want the VM to use our network bridge.
Now we come to the partitioning of our VM. We create a file called vmbuilder.partition...
vi ~/vm1/vmbuilder.partition
... and define the desired partitions as follows:
root 8000 |
This defines a root partition (/) with a size of 8000MB, a swap partition of 4000MB, and a /var partition of 20000MB. The --- line makes that the following partition (/var in this example) is on a separate disk image (i.e., this would create two disk images, one for root and swap and one for /var). Of course, you are free to define whatever partitions you like (as long as you also define root and swap), and of course, they can be in just one disk image - this is just an example.
I want to install openssh-server in the VM. To make sure that each VM gets a unique OpenSSH key, we cannot install openssh-server when we create the VM. Therefore we create a script called boot.sh that will be executed when the VM is booted for the first time. It will install openssh-server (with a unique key) and also force the user (I will use the default username administrator for my VMs together with the default password howtoforge) to change the password when he logs in for the first time:
vi ~/vm1/boot.sh
# This script will run the first time the virtual machine boots |
Make sure you replace the username administrator with your default login name.
(You can find more about this here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder#First%20boot)
(You can also define a "first login" script as described here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder#First%20login)
Whenever vmbuilder builds a new VM, it has to download all packages from an Ubuntu mirror which can take quite some time. To speed this up, we install apt-proxy...
apt-get install apt-proxy
... to cache the downloaded packages so that subsequent VM installations will be a lot faster.
Now open /etc/apt-proxy/apt-proxy-v2.conf...
vi /etc/apt-proxy/apt-proxy-v2.conf
... and replace the default Ubuntu mirror with a mirror close to you (e.g. http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu if you are in Germany):
[...] |
Then we restart apt-proxy:
/etc/init.d/apt-proxy restart
apt-proxy listens on port 9999, so we can pass our local apt-proxy "mirror" as an argument to the vmbuilder script.
Now take a look at
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --help
to learn about the available options.
To create our first VM, vm1, we go to the VM directory...
cd ~/vm1/
... and run vmbuilder, e.g. as follows:
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=intrepid --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64 --mirror=http://192.168.0.100:9999/ubuntu -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --tmpfs=- --ip=192.168.0.101 --part=vmbuilder.partition --templates=mytemplates --user=administrator --name=Administrator --pass=howtoforge --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --firstboot=boot.sh --mem=256 --hostname=vm1
Most of the options are self-explanatory. --part specifies the file with the partitioning details, relative to our working directory (that's why we had to go to our VM directory before running vmbuilder), --templates specifies the directory that holds the template file (again relative to our working directory), and --firstboot specifies the firstboot script. --libvirt=qemu:///system tells KVM to add this VM to the list of available virtual machines. --addpkg allows you to specify Ubuntu packages that you want to have installed during the VM creation (see above why you shouldn't add openssh-server to that list and use the firstboot script instead).
In the --mirror line I have specified my local apt-proxy mirror (http://192.168.0.100:9999/ubuntu) - I have used my publically accessible IP address instead of localhost or 127.0.0.1 because this mirror will be used in the VM's /etc/apt/sources.list file as well, and of course, the VM won't be able to connect to 127.0.0.1 on the host. Of course, you can as well specify an official Ubuntu repository in --mirror, e.g. http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu. If you leave out --mirror, then the default Ubuntu repository (http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu) will be used.
The build process can take a few minutes.
Afterwards, you can find an XML configuration file for the VM in /etc/libvirt/qemu/ (=> /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm1.xml):
ls -l /etc/libvirt/qemu/
root@server1:~/vm1# ls -l /etc/libvirt/qemu/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-12-10 15:26 networks
-rw------- 1 root root 963 2008-12-10 16:25 vm1.xml
root@server1:~/vm1#
The disk images are located in the ubuntu-kvm/ subdirectory of our VM directory:
ls -l ~/vm1/ubuntu-kvm/
root@server1:~/vm1# ls -l ~/vm1/ubuntu-kvm/
total 402804
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 240963584 2008-12-10 16:37 disk0.qcow2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 171094016 2008-12-10 16:37 disk1.qcow2
root@server1:~/vm1#
4 Creating A Second VM
If you want to create a second VM (vm2), here's a short summary of the commands:
mkdir -p ~/vm2/mytemplates/libvirt
cp /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/* ~/vm2/mytemplates/libvirt/
vi ~/vm2/mytemplates/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl
vi ~/vm2/vmbuilder.partition
vi ~/vm2/boot.sh
cd ~/vm2/
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=intrepid --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64 --mirror=http://192.168.0.100:9999/ubuntu -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --tmpfs=- --ip=192.168.0.102 --part=vmbuilder.partition --templates=mytemplates --user=administrator --name=Administrator --pass=howtoforge --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --firstboot=boot.sh --mem=256 --hostname=vm2
(Please note that you don't have to create a new directory for the VM (~/vm2) if you pass the --dest=DESTDIR argument to the vmbuilder command - it allows you to create a VM in a directory where you've already created another VM. In that case you don't have to create new vmbuilder.partition and boot.sh files and don't have to modify the template, but can simply use the existing files:
cd ~/vm1/
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=intrepid --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64 --mirror=http://192.168.0.100:9999/ubuntu -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --tmpfs=- --ip=192.168.0.102 --part=vmbuilder.partition --templates=mytemplates --user=administrator --name=Administrator --pass=howtoforge --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --firstboot=boot.sh --mem=256 --hostname=vm2 --destdir=vm2-kvm
)
5 Managing A VM
VMs can be managed through virsh, the "virtual shell". To connect to the virtual shell, run
virsh --connect qemu:///system
This is how the virtual shell looks:
root@server1:~/vm1/ubuntu-kvm# virsh --connect qemu:///system
Connecting to uri: qemu:///system
Welcome to virsh, the virtualization interactive terminal.
Type: 'help' for help with commands
'quit' to quit
virsh #
You can now type in commands on the virtual shell to manage your VMs. Run
help
to get a list of available commands:
virsh # help
Commands:
help print help
attach-device attach device from an XML file
attach-disk attach disk device
attach-interface attach network interface
autostart autostart a domain
capabilities capabilities
connect (re)connect to hypervisor
console connect to the guest console
create create a domain from an XML file
start start a (previously defined) inactive domain
destroy destroy a domain
detach-device detach device from an XML file
detach-disk detach disk device
detach-interface detach network interface
define define (but don't start) a domain from an XML file
domid convert a domain name or UUID to domain id
domuuid convert a domain name or id to domain UUID
dominfo domain information
domname convert a domain id or UUID to domain name
domstate domain state
domblkstat get device block stats for a domain
domifstat get network interface stats for a domain
dumpxml domain information in XML
freecell NUMA free memory
hostname print the hypervisor hostname
list list domains
migrate migrate domain to another host
net-autostart autostart a network
net-create create a network from an XML file
net-define define (but don't start) a network from an XML file
net-destroy destroy a network
net-dumpxml network information in XML
net-list list networks
net-name convert a network UUID to network name
net-start start a (previously defined) inactive network
net-undefine undefine an inactive network
net-uuid convert a network name to network UUID
nodeinfo node information
pool-autostart autostart a pool
pool-build build a pool
pool-create create a pool from an XML file
pool-create-as create a pool from a set of args
pool-define define (but don't start) a pool from an XML file
pool-define-as define a pool from a set of args
pool-destroy destroy a pool
pool-delete delete a pool
pool-dumpxml pool information in XML
pool-info storage pool information
pool-list list pools
pool-name convert a pool UUID to pool name
pool-refresh refresh a pool
pool-start start a (previously defined) inactive pool
pool-undefine undefine an inactive pool
pool-uuid convert a pool name to pool UUID
quit quit this interactive terminal
reboot reboot a domain
restore restore a domain from a saved state in a file
resume resume a domain
save save a domain state to a file
schedinfo show/set scheduler parameters
dump dump the core of a domain to a file for analysis
shutdown gracefully shutdown a domain
setmem change memory allocation
setmaxmem change maximum memory limit
setvcpus change number of virtual CPUs
suspend suspend a domain
ttyconsole tty console
undefine undefine an inactive domain
uri print the hypervisor canonical URI
vol-create create a vol from an XML file
vol-create-as create a volume from a set of args
vol-delete delete a vol
vol-dumpxml vol information in XML
vol-info storage vol information
vol-list list vols
vol-path convert a vol UUID to vol path
vol-name convert a vol UUID to vol name
vol-key convert a vol UUID to vol key
vcpuinfo domain vcpu information
vcpupin control domain vcpu affinity
version show version
vncdisplay vnc display
virsh #
list
shows all running VMs;
list --all
shows all VMs, running and inactive:
virsh # list --all
Id Name State
----------------------------------
- vm1 shut off
virsh #
Before you start a new VM for the first time, you must define it from its xml file (located in the /etc/libvirt/qemu/ directory):
define /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm1.xml
Please note that whenever you modify the VM's xml file in /etc/libvirt/qemu/, you must run the define command again!
Now you can start the VM:
start vm1
After a few moments, you should be able to connect to the VM with an SSH client such as PuTTY; log in with the default username and password. After the first login you will be prompted to change the password.
list
should now show the VM as running:
virsh # list
Id Name State
----------------------------------
1 vm1 running
virsh #
To stop a VM, run
shutdown vm1
To immediately stop it (i.e., pull the power plug), run
destroy vm1
Suspend a VM:
suspend vm1
Resume a VM:
resume vm1
These are the most important commands.
Type
quit
to leave the virtual shell.
6 Creating An LVM-Based VM
LVM-based VMs have some advantages over image-based VMs. They are not as heavy on hard disk IO, and they are easier to back up (using LVM snapshots).
To use LVM-based VMs, you need a volume group that has some free space that is not allocated to any logical volume. In this example, I use the volume group /dev/vg01 with a size of approx. 454GB...
vgdisplay
root@server1:~# vgdisplay
--- Volume group ---
VG Name vg01
System ID
Format lvm2
Metadata Areas 1
Metadata Sequence No 2
VG Access read/write
VG Status resizable
MAX LV 0
Cur LV 1
Open LV 1
Max PV 0
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 454.67 GB
PE Size 4.00 MB
Total PE 116396
Alloc PE / Size 75000 / 292.97 GB
Free PE / Size 41396 / 161.70 GB
VG UUID q3xIiX-LDlm-IbMu-2PK2-WVoc-zHb8-8ibb32
root@server1:~#
... that contains the logical volume /dev/vg01/root with a size of approx. 292GB - the rest is not allocated and can be used for VMs:
lvdisplay
root@server1:~# lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name /dev/vg01/root
VG Name vg01
LV UUID f9W43z-RC1i-9JE8-CvOS-Qa89-0STq-q1M71e
LV Write Access read/write
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 292.97 GB
Current LE 75000
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 254:0
root@server1:~#
I will now create the virtual machine vm5 as an LVM-based VM. We can use the vmbuilder command again. vmbuilder knows the --raw option which allows to write the VM to a block device (e.g. /dev/vg01/vm5) - I've tried this, and it gave back no errors, however, I was not able to boot the VM (start vm5 didn't show any errors either, but I've never been able to access the VM). Therefore, I will create vm5 as an image-based VM first and then convert it into an LVM-based VM.
mkdir -p ~/vm5/mytemplates/libvirt
cp /etc/vmbuilder/libvirt/* ~/vm5/mytemplates/libvirt/
vi ~/vm5/mytemplates/libvirt/libvirtxml.tmpl
Make sure that you create all partitions in just one image file, so don't use --- in the vmbuilder.partition file:
vi ~/vm5/vmbuilder.partition
root 8000 |
vi ~/vm5/boot.sh
cd ~/vm5/
vmbuilder kvm ubuntu --suite=intrepid --flavour=virtual --arch=amd64 --mirror=http://192.168.0.100:9999/ubuntu -o --libvirt=qemu:///system --tmpfs=- --ip=192.168.0.105 --part=vmbuilder.partition --templates=mytemplates --user=administrator --name=Administrator --pass=howtoforge --addpkg=vim-nox --addpkg=unattended-upgrades --addpkg=acpid --firstboot=boot.sh --mem=256 --hostname=vm5
As you see from the vmbuilder.partition file, the VM will use a max. of 20GB, so we create a logical volume called /dev/vg01/vm5 with a size of 20GB now:
lvcreate -L20G -n vm5 vg01
Don't create a file system in the new logical volume!
We will use the qemu-img command to convert the image to an LVM-based VM. The qemu-img command is part of the qemu package which we must install now:
apt-get install qemu
Then we go to the VM's ubuntu-kvm/ directory...
cd ~/vm5/ubuntu-kvm/
... and convert the image as follows:
qemu-img convert disk0.qcow2 -O raw /dev/vg01/vm5
Afterwards you can delete the disk image:
rm -f disk0.qcow2
Now we must open the VM's xml configuration file /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm5.xml...
vi /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm5.xml
... and change the following section...
[...] |
... so that it looks as follows:
[...] |
That's it! You can now use virsh to manage the VM.
7 Links
- KVM (Ubuntu Community Documentation): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM
- vmbuilder: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JeOSVMBuilder
- JeOS and vmbuilder: http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/serverguide/C/jeos-and-vmbuilder.html
- Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
