Book Image

Mastering KVM Virtualization

Book Image

Mastering KVM Virtualization

Overview of this book

A robust datacenter is essential for any organization – but you don’t want to waste resources. With KVM you can virtualize your datacenter, transforming a Linux operating system into a powerful hypervisor that allows you to manage multiple OS with minimal fuss. This book doesn’t just show you how to virtualize with KVM – it shows you how to do it well. Written to make you an expert on KVM, you’ll learn to manage the three essential pillars of scalability, performance and security – as well as some useful integrations with cloud services such as OpenStack. From the fundamentals of setting up a standalone KVM virtualization platform, and the best tools to harness it effectively, including virt-manager, and kimchi-project, everything you do is built around making KVM work for you in the real-world, helping you to interact and customize it as you need it. With further guidance on performance optimization for Microsoft Windows and RHEL virtual machines, as well as proven strategies for backup and disaster recovery, you’ll can be confident that your virtualized data center is working for your organization – not hampering it. Finally, the book will empower you to unlock the full potential of cloud through KVM. Migrating your physical machines to the cloud can be challenging, but once you’ve mastered KVM, it’s a little easie.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Mastering KVM Virtualization
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating virtual machines using the Virtual Machine Manager


The following methods are available with virt-manager for Guest OS installation:

  • Local installation media (ISO Image or CD-ROM)

  • Network installation (HTTP, FTP, or NFS)

  • Network boot (PXE)

  • Importing existing disk images

In this section, we will create new virtual machines running different operating systems, each using one of the aforementioned installation methods, so that by the end of this chapter you will be familiar with all the available methods for creating virtual machines and will thoroughly understand the Create a new virtual machine wizard.

We will create the following Guest OS:

  • Windows 7

  • CentOS 6

To create the VM using a graphical interface, start the Virtual Machine Manager by executing the virt-manager command or open it from the Applications | System Tools menu.

Creating a new virtual machine wizard

From Virtual Machine Manager, click on the Create a new virtual machine button on the toolbar or select File | New Virtual Machine...