Installation guide

Chapter 7. Guest installation overview
After you have installed the virtualization packages on the host system you can create guest
operating systems. You can create guests using the New button in virt - man ag er 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 and Windows. See Chapter 8, Guest operating system installation procedures for
those procedures.
7.1. Creat ing guest s wit h virt -inst all
You can use the virt-install command to create 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.
Examp le 7.1. Usin g virt - in st all wit h KVM t o creat e a Red H at En t erp rise Lin u x 3 g u est
This example creates a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 guest, named rhel3support, from a CD-ROM,
with virtual networking and with a 5 GB file-based block device image. This example uses the KVM
hypervisor.
# virt-install --accelerate --hvm --connect qemu:///system \
--network network:default \
--name rhel3support --ram=756\
--file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/rhel3support.img \
--file-size=6 --vnc --cdrom=/dev/sr0
Examp le 7.2. Usin g virt - in st all t o creat e a f ed o ra 11 gu est
# virt-install --name fedora11 --ram 512 --
file=/var/lib/libvirt/images/fedora11.img \
--file-size=3 --vnc --cdrom=/var/lib/libvirt/images/fedora11.iso
7.2. Creat ing guest s wit h virt -manager
virt-manager, also known as Virtual Machine Manager, is a graphical tool for creating and
managing guests.
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