KVM Guest

Links

Prerequisites

Follow the KVM Install instructions…

Bridge Network

I am using a NAT network, so we can ssh in from the host to the guest and from the guest to the host.

I failed trying to setup a bridge network using the ArchWiki, Network bridge With iproute2 instructions. I think I created the bridge, but couldn’t get an IP4 address on the guest (probably a firewall issue).

virt-manager GUI

Convert from VirtualBox (vdi) format to Virt-Manager (qcow2) format (from DistroTube, Virt-Manager Is The Better Way To Manage VMs):

sudo qemu-img convert -f vdi -O qcow2 Ubuntu-20-04.vdi /var/lib/libvirt/images/ubuntu-20-04.qcow2

Windows 10 - Development

Warning

This takes up a massive amount of space, so unless you have capacity, I would try the Windows 10 Disc Image (ISO File).

Get a Windows 10 development environment
Extract the first archive to get an ova file.
Extract the next archive to get an vmdk file (takes a long time).

Convert the vmdk file to qcow2 format:

sudo qemu-img convert -O qcow2 ./WinDev2006Eval-disk001.vmdk /var/lib/libvirt/images/WinDev2006Eval.qcow2

Command Line - Ubuntu VM

Create

To create an Ubuntu virtual machine:

If you followed the KVM Install instructions (on Ubuntu), you will have installed the ubuntu-vm-builder package.

Create the virtual machine:

sudo ubuntu-vm-builder kvm lucid \
    --bridge=br0 \
    --libvirt qemu:///system \
    --addpkg vim openssh-server \
    --domain newvm \
    --dest newvm \
    --hostname hostnameformyvm \
    --mem 256 \
    --user john \
    --pass doe \
    --ip 192.168.11.77 \
    --mask 255.255.255.0 \
    --net 192.168.0.0 \
    --bcast 192.168.11.255 \
    --gw 192.168.0.1 \
    --dns 192.168.0.1 \
    --components main,universe

openssh-server should allow us to ssh into the new machine.
bridge should set-up bridged networking.
libvirt will allow us to manage the virtual machine using virsh.
dest, domain and hostname should set to the name of the virtual machine.

First Steps

Note: I don’t understand this yet, but this is what I get so far…

Try and list your virtual machine:

$ virsh -c qemu:///system
Welcome to virsh, the virtualisation interactive terminal.

Type:  'help' for help with commands
       'quit' to quit

virsh # list --all
 Id Name                 State
----------------------------------
  - ubuntu               shut off

To start your virtual machine:

virsh # start ubuntu
Domain ubuntu started

Note: If you get errors like the following:

error: Failed to start domain ubuntu
error: Failed to add tap interface to bridge 'br0': No such device

… then make sure you have set-up the br0 interface (see KVM Install, Configuration for details).

To view the state of your virtual machine:

$ virsh -c qemu:///system
virsh # list --all
 Id Name                 State
----------------------------------
  2 ubuntu               running

To connect to your machine console, find the Id (see previous step):

$ virt-viewer --connect qemu:///system 2

Note: You have to click on the window to activate keyboard input. Ctrl, Alt to exit from this mode.