This is a work in progress, 20201015
Just a note, the files created by virsh and virt-install are stored in /etc/libvirt/qemu/. However, they should not be hand-edited; only edit with virsh.
First, verify you have the required hardware virtualization support in your CPU:
#Verify the hvm support egrep --color 'vmx|svm' /proc/cpuinfo
You should see either vmx or svm in the output.
Now, install the basic packages needed, a couple of utilities, but not all the extra crud. netcat-openbsd is only needed if you're going to cluster and migrate virtuals from one hypervisor to another, from what I can tell. virt-top is a nice little top for seeing what is running and what resources they are using in real time.
apt install -y --no-install-recommends qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils libguestfs-tools genisoimage virtinst libosinfo-bin virt-top netcat-openbsd reboot # brings libraries online
Verify system is working ok
Commands are of the form: virsh --connect qemu:///system command where command is any of the commands accepted by virsh.
sudo su # become root user virsh --connect qemu:///system list --all
The --connect qemu:///system is the connection used, which is not the default. To set that to the default, run the following one time. This will become the “norm” on the next login:
echo "# set default uri for libvirt" >> ~/.profile echo "export LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI='qemu:///system'" >> ~/.profile
For your network, you need bridges for the outside world.
This is a basic setup that will work for a single interface as per the Debian documentation. It sets up one bridge off of eth0 and gives it a static IP.
auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface auto eth0 #make sure we don't get addresses on our raw device iface eth0 inet manual iface eth0 inet6 manual #set up bridge and give it a static ip auto br0 iface br0 inet static address 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.1.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.1 bridge_ports eth0 bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 bridge_maxwait 0 dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8
I'm hoping, if you're reading this article, you know how to set up bonding and vlans. The following is a more real world scenario and sets up three bridges, br_lan, br_dmz and br_wan for LAN, DMZ and public interface respectively. br_wan and br_dmz are set to dummy IP's with a netmask of 255.255.255.255, meaning they can't respond to anything but themselves. br_lan gets its IP from DHCP, so only the LAN interface can be accessed on the hypervisor. Modify it as you want.
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). source /etc/network/interfaces.d/* # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eth0 inet manual iface eth0 inet6 manual iface eth1 inet manual iface eth1 inet6 manual auto bond0 iface bond0 inet manual bond-mode 4 bond-miimon 100 bond_xit_hash_policy layer2+3 bond_lacp_rate slow slaves eth0 eth1 iface bond0.10 inet manual vlan-raw-device bond0.10 iface bond0.20 inet manual vlan-raw-device bond0.20 iface bond0.30 inet manual vlan-raw-device bond0.30 # the public interface on vlan 10 auto br_wan iface br_wan inet static address 192.168.1.13 netmask 255.255.255.255 bridge_ports bond0.10 bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 bridge_maxwait 0 # the DMZ on vlan 20 auto br_dmz iface br_dmz inet static address 192.168.1.12 netmask 255.255.255.255 bridge_ports bond0.20 bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 bridge_maxwait 0 # the private (LAN) interface on vlan 30 auto br_lan iface br_lan inet dhcp bridge_ports bond0.30 bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 bridge_maxwait 0
In order to use a network with vir-lib, you need to define it. The best way is to create a few XML files, then use virsh to define them into the system.
Create one XML file per interface as follows:
<network> <name>br_wan</name> <forward mode="bridge"/> <bridge name="br_wan"/> </network>
Then, import it into the system with virsh, then set it to autostart on boot
# import the network xml file virsh net-define --file br_wan.xml # set to autostart on boot virsh net-autostart br_wan
I'm lazy, so I just created all three, then imported them all at one time.
#! /usr/bin/env bash # create the xml definitions. The br is prepended. # Add/remove interfaces if needed for interface in wan lan dmz do cat << EOF > br_$interface.xml <network> <name>br_$interface</name> <forward mode="bridge"/> <bridge name="br_$interface"/> </network> EOF done # uncomment this if you want to view your xml files but # not process them # exit # find all xml files and do the net-define for interface in `ls *.xml` do virsh net-define --file $interface done # since the bridge name is followed by xml, simply remove that # and set to autostart and start it for interface in `ls *.xml | cut -d'.' -f1` do virsh net-autostart $interface virsh net-start $interface done # show me the list of network names virsh net-list
This script assumes your network names are of the form br_something and it creates the file name as br_something.xml. It then looks for all XML files (so, you don't want any others in the current directory), the processes them.
The last loop assumes there are no periods in the network name. Be warned.
In our example, we are going to use LVM2 to grab a piece of the disk for a new virtual. You can also use a file (File Backed Device, or FBD) by running fallocate, or set up access to an iSCSI. virt-install will, by default, create an FBD in its default location, so if you're happy with that, ignore this whole section.
By default, libvirt uses File Backed Devices (FBD's) from a pool defined internally. You can manually override this by defining a new pool, or by creating a file in your location using fallocate. For example, to create a 10G file in /srv/images named test.disk, you would use:
fallocate -l 10G /srv/images/test.disk
and use that when you create the virtual. However, it is better (easier) if you define a pool (or use the default). I have not researched this; see man virt-install.
Just create an LV the way you always do.
lvcreate -L 10G -n test.disk vg0
Ok, if you're using iSCSI, I'm guessing you know how to set it up. Just make sure it is available, then use the correct path when you create the image.
You can probably create a virtual by manually creating the XML file, but why do that when virt-install is your friend. Sure, there are a bunch of parameters, but they are very, very well documented, and will create your system for your rapidly
This example creates a virtual installing the opnSense firewall/router.
virt-install \ --hvm \ --connect qemu:///system \ --name router-a \ --memory 4096 \ --vcpus 4 \ --disk path=/dev/vg0/router-a.disk0,bus=virtio,target=sda \ --graphics vnc,port=5901 \ --noautoconsole \ --cdrom /media/xen-store/OPNsense-20.1-OpenSSL-dvd-amd64.iso \ --os-variant freebsd11.1 \ --metadata uuid=d9510e01-e461-461f-9aa8-3cee223cb4a0,name=router-a,title=router-a,description='Primary Router' \ --boot hd,cdrom,menu=on \ --network bridge=br_wan,mac=00:16:3e:bd:26:70,model=virtio \ --network bridge=br_dmz,mac=00:16:3e:bd:26:71,model=virtio \ --network bridge=br_lan,mac=00:16:3e:bd:26:72,model=virtio
Other useful options are
most of the parameters are self evident, but I'll quickly talk about why I did some of them.
For most systems, I use VNC to do the install. Since I'm remote, I use the following ssh command:
ssh -L localhost:5910:localhost:5901 server
where
Then, when I run the virt-install command, I simply make a VNC connection to localhost:5910 and can do my install.
If you want the domain to come up automatically when the hypervisor is turned on, the autostart flag needs to be set. Do this with
virsh autostart domainname