Installing KVM with RHEL5.4 is pretty easy. These were some of my notes that I hope you can somewhat follow along with. I have since done it with RHEL5.5 with the same results. Here's how I got my virtual machine up:
1. Install Packages
[cc lang="bash"]
yum -y install kvm python-virtinst libvirt libvirt-python virt-manager virt-viewer
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** Note: I got some of these packages from xCAT's distribution which has some updates. But some of these should still work.
2. Start libvirt
[cc lang="bash"]
chkconfig --level 345 libvirtd on
service libvirtd start
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In my set up I want my virtual machines to be able to access the network. I also want machines on the network to access my virtual machine. In my setup, eth1 is on the internal network to my cluster. What I will do is create a bridge with eth1. I also need to make a few aliases to handle my different networks.
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
[cc lang="bash"]
# Intel Corporation 80003ES2LAN Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper)
DEVICE=eth1
HWADDR=00:15:17:85:A8:CD
ONBOOT=yes
BRIDGE=br0
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/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0
[cc lang="bash"]
DEVICE=br0
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Bridge
IPADDR=172.20.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.0.0
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/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0:1
[cc lang="bash"]
DEVICE=br0:1
IPADDR=172.29.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.0.0
ONBOOT=yes
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/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0:2
[cc lang="bash"]
DEVICE=br0:2
IPADDR=172.30.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.0.0
ONBOOT=yes
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4. Create Virtual Machine
[cc lang="bash"]
virt-install --name xcatmgr --ram 1024 --connect qemu:///system --disk path=/install/libvirt/images/xcat.img,size=10 --vnc --cdrom=/install/isos/RHEL5.4-Server-20090819.0-x86_64-DVD.iso -b br0 --os-variant=rhel5
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4.2 Copying Virtual Appliance
I created an xCAT appliance that I wanted to run:
[cc lang="bash"]
modprobe kvm
modprobe kvm.intel
service libvirshd restart
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Then import my machine:
define /install/xcatapp/xcatmgr.xml
(or just copy it to /etc/libvirtd/qemu and restart libvirshd)
From there it just booted up, launched virt-viewer and away it went. I'm doing this on 1TB SATA disks, and the performance is just horrible.
Even though I did this all with RHEL5.4, this
post was very helpful as well.
Now, I also want my nodes to bridge directly to the physical network.
[cc lang="bash"]
service libvirtd stop
ip link set virbr0 down
brctl delbr virbr0
create br0 with /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
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bind it to eth1
then make new net:
[cc lang="bash"]
brctl setfd vlan1 0
ip addr add dev vlan1 172.20.1.19/16
brctl addif vlan1 eth0
ip addr del dev eth0 172.20.1.19/16
ip link set vlan1 up
virt-viewer xcatmgr
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Other good notes:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/KVM#head-c02a0b33e7949b0bc3b151ac6e0bdfb91b6bbd1c