KVM at MSU

While most of the VM infrastructure resides within vSphere, we want to keep a backup windows install with the standalone client to debug problems with in case the vSphere infrastructure fails. For this purpose, we are installing KVM on senna.pa.msu.edu.

Installation

yum -y install kvm qemu-kvm qemu-kvm-tools
#verify that we have intel CPUs
#cat /proc/cpuinfo
#Here I had to reboot to turn on virtualization support in the BIOS
modprobe kvm-intel
# Something about how nx/x2go handles 
# 
ssh -X root@localhost
virt-manager

If you are running a windows VM, iptables on the host machine has to be updated to allow forwarded traffic on the desired network(s)

-A FORWARD -s 10.10.128.0/20 -j ACCEPT

now you can configure bridged networking on desired interface, create VMs, run VMs

Setting up bridged networking with virt-manager

• Go to Edit-Connection Details->Network Interfaces
• Click on the plus button
• Make sure Bridge is selected and click Forward
• Write down a reasonable name, select onboot as 'Start mode', select Activate now, and select the interface you want to bridge. Make sure the new IP settings are going to be copied from this interface.
• Click Finish, and confirm at the next screen

Interacting with running VMs

When a VM is running, you can view it through virt-manager, but I had problems with the screen not refreshing. I had much more success connecting to it from VNC. First enable VNC server for the VM through virt-manager by clicking the VM, Edit-> Virtual Machine Details -> Display -> Type ->VNC. If the machine is already running, you will have to shut it down (NOT reboot!) and start it up again. Then from a normal user terminal you can connect with:

vncviewer localhost:5900

-- JamesKoll - 04 Feb 2014