Kernel Virtual Machine Guest

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Introduction

  • Using Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 as host.
  • Using 32 bit kernel, so limiting guests to 32 bit kernels and 2GB ram.
  • Will be using bridge support on host.

KVM Guest configuration

  • The define or create commands imports the xml file into virsh.
  • The xml files can be generated by virsh or ubuntu-vm-builder or edited manually.

Creating a guest with virt-install

Create a sparse disk image

  • Create a disk image for the root install:

Running virt-install

  • Run virt-install for ubuntu guest:
  • For OpenBSD guest:

Connecting over VNC

  • Check the vnc port in virsh:
  • The output will be the vnc port number to connect to on the host server.
  • Use ssh to tunnel into the server and make the vnc port available locally.
  • If the output from vncdisplay was :0:
  • If the output from vncdisplay was :4:
  • Use Chicken of the VNC on OS X or RealVNV VNC Viewer Free Edition on Windows.
Port 5910 is used to avoid collision with Screen Sharing on OS X. If not using OS X (or not running a local VNC server), port 5900 is safe to use.
  • Using Chicken of the VNC, don't specify the full port only the display.
Eg for 5910 on OS X, use host: localhost and display 10
  • Once connected over vnc, install as normal.
Occasionally the Ubuntu install would hang on the at about 43% Scanning disks... partitioning screen and reboot was required.

No clear reason why this was happening and it was happening inconsistently.

Updates to virsh xml

  • These should not be necessary, but can be useful if cloning guests.
  • Change interface to:
  • To generate a new mac address:
  • To generate a new UUID number:
  • Remove any graphics reference
  • Remove any input mouse references:
  • Add device:

Finish Ubuntu guest install

  • To have ubuntu guest respond to the shutdown command, install apcid:
  • Run updates, upgrade and dist-upgrade:
  • Install the grub serial and console code.

Grub 2 - setting up serial console

  • The following is the complete replacement for the grub file.
  • On guest run:
  • Update grub with the new settings:
  • Ubuntu already has ttyS0 in /etc/securetty.
  • Setup ttyS0 to start:
  • Content should be:

Finish OpenBSD guest install

Disable mpbios

First boot

  • After installation, reboot the guest vm and quickly reconnect the vnc client.
  • At the boot> prompt type:
  • If the guest vm has already started to boot it will hand and you will have to use virsh to destroy the vm.

Configure kernel

  • The change made during boot will no persist, editing the kernel config is required.
  • Login as root and type:

Networking

  • There are recommendations to change the network card type to e1000 to avoid hang ups and performance problems.
  • Using --os-variant openbsd4 in the virt-install resulted in the following config:
  • The code was updated to:
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