Installation guide

Chapter 6.

Virtualized guest installation overview

After you have installed the virtualization packages on the host system you can create guest operating

systems. This chapter describes the general processes for installing guest operating systems on

virtual machines. You can create guests using the New button in virt-manager or use the command

line interface virt-install. Both methods are covered by this chapter.

Detailed installation instructions are available for specific versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, other

Linux distributions, Solaris and Windows. Refer to the relevant procedure for you guest operating

system:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

• Para-virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5: Chapter 8, Installing

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a para-virtualized guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: Chapter 7, Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a virtualized guest

• Microsoft Windows operating systems: Chapter 9, Installing a fully-virtualized Windows guest

6.1. Virtualized guest prerequisites and considerations

Various factors should be considered before creating any virtualized guests. Factors include:

• Performance

• Input/output requirements and types of input/output.

• Storage.

• Networking and network infrastructure.

• Guest load and usage for processor and memory resources.

6.2. Creating guests with virt-install

You can use the virt-install command to create virtualized guests from the command line.

virt-install is used either interactively or as part of a script to automate the creation of virtual

machines. Using virt-install with Kickstart files allows for unattended installation of virtual

machines.

The virt-install tool provides a number of options one can pass on the command line. To see a

complete list of options run:

$ virt-install --help

The virt-install man page also documents each command option and important variables.

qemu-img is a related command which may be used before virt-install to configure storage

options.

An important option is the --vnc option which opens a graphical window for the guest's installation.

Example 6.1. Using virt-install to install a RHEL 5 guest

This example creates a RHEL 5 guest with the following settings: