Installation guide

Note

Fully virtualized guests on the Itanium® architecture require the guest firmware image

package (xen-ia64-guest-firmware). Append the following package to your kickstart file:

xen-ia64-guest-firmware

More information on Kickstart is available in the Installation Guide at access.redhat.com

6.2. Inst alling Xen packages on an exist ing Red Hat Ent erprise Linux

syst em

The section describes the steps necessary to install the virtualization packages on a working Red

Hat Enterprise Linux system.

Reg ist erin g yo u r syst em wit h t h e su b script io n - man ag er co mman d

Your machines must be registered on your Red Hat account to receive packages and updates. To

If you do not have a valid Red Hat subscription, visit the Red Hat online store.

Inst allin g t h e Xen h yp erviso r wit h yum

To use virtualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux you need the xen and kernel-xen packages. The

xen package contains the hypervisor and basic virtualization tools. The kernel-xen package

contains a modified Linux kernel which runs as a virtual machine guest on the hypervisor.

To install the xen and kernel-xen packages, run:

# yum install xen kernel-xen

Additional virtualization packages are available for management and configuration.

Reco mmen d ed virt u aliz at io n p ackag es:

python-virtinst

Provides the virt-install command for creating virtual machines.

libvirt

libvirt is an API library for interacting with hypervisors. libvirt uses the xm

virtualization framework and the virsh command line tool to manage and control virtual

machines.

libvirt-python

The libvirt-python package contains a module that permits applications written in the Python

programming language to use the interface supplied by the libvirt API.

⁠Chapt er 6 . Inst alling t h e virt ualizat ion packages