[TriLUG] creating KVM virtual machines

[Paul Boyle]

Hi, 

Thanks for the responses. To Jim Ray, I looked at VMware many years ago, but haven't looked at it since. I guess I was looking at KVM not for any particular reason except that it comes with opensuse and is a part of the mainstream kernel.



On 09/18/12, "Joseph S. Tate"  <dragonstrider at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless I'm scripting something, I just use virt-manager + libvirt to
> create images. It's all Gooey and point/clicky. You can select 32 or
> 64 bits when installing, but I think that's mostly for descriptive
> purposes (see note 1 below). You have to have the libvirtd daemon
> running, but that's not a big deal, plus it starts up VMs after reboot
> and shuts them down when the host shuts down, so I like it.
> 

I've got libvirtd running.

> 
> As for your question, virt-install is a libvirt tool, so it handles
> more than just KVM. It could also generate and start Xen and other
> Virtualized guests. I'm not sure what vm-install is, but it may be a
> novell created tool to only work with Xen.
> 

I've done a little more digging around. vm-install is indeed a Novell product, but it does work with KVM as well as with Xen.

I think I will go with virt-install or virt-manager. One of the things which put me off about virt-install is that in the directions, I found

http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-kvm-on-an-opensuse-12.1-server

it talked about creating a network bridge device by hand. Another source said that wireless adapters didn't work well with KVM (i'm doing this on my laptop). vm-install just seemed to take care of this step. So, the question is, with virt-install, do I still need to create a bridge by hand, and will it work with a wireless network adapter?

Making the bridge doesn't seem so bad, but hard coding the IP address into some config file didn't seem to be such a great idea for a laptop that uses different wireless networks depending on where I am.

> 
> 
> note 1: As for the x86 on x64, the CPU will still be a 64 bit cpu to
> the guest (especially if you have the paravirt cpu extensions on your
> processor), but the kernel will be compiled to 32 if you install using
> 32 bit media, and will run in 32 bit mode. If you want a virtualized
> i586 cpu on x86_64, you'll have to use an emulator like QEMU. If you
> just want to run 32 bit kernels and apps, you don't need to emulate
> the processor.
> 

Here is the motivation for my questions: 
I've recently changed jobs and I've have inherited a fairly old scientific instrument. The instrument is no longer in production and the control software and associated data processing programs are no longer actively maintained. The source code is not available, but has been supplied by vendor as 32bit executables. I've been told by the vendor that code must be run on a 32bit machine. If one tries to run it on an x86_64 machine with 32 bit compatibility libraries, some of the programs can behave erratically and crash (don't ask, you would be appalled as to what passes for commercial "production" software in my field). The recommendation from the vendor is to run on a 32bit Linux distribution on top of 32bit hardware. The current Linux distribution on which the software runs is an old Fedora 8 distribution, and the the CPU(s) are relatively old Xeon's. 

I know I will eventually put 32bit opensuse on this machine, but I was hoping for testing purposes to set up a virtual i586 machine and see how the software ran in that environment with a 32bit opensuse 12.2 before messing with the current working system.

I'll muddle around a little more with this. Additional advice or guidance appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul


> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Paul Boyle <pboyle at uwo.ca> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > What's the difference between the command line programs vm-install and virt-install?
> >
> > From my looking at it virt-install can specify an --arch parameter whereas the vm-install can only install a vm as the native CPU architecture. It is also seems that vm-install does more of the legwork in setting up a network bridge.
> >
> > I've googled around trying to find a good compare/contrast of these programs but I haven't found one yet. Can someone explain the differences between these two programs?
> >
> > In particular, I am interested in setting up an vm with a i586 architecture on a x86_64 host.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > --
> > Paul D. Boyle, Ph. D.
> > Manager, X-ray Facility
> > Department of Chemistry
> > Western University
> > London, ON N6A 5B7
> > Canada
> > --
> > This message was sent to: Joseph Tate <dragonstrider at gmail.com>
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Joseph Tate
> Personal e-mail: jtate AT dragonstrider DOT com
> Web: http://www.dragonstrider.com
> -- 
> This message was sent to: Paul Boyle <pboyle at uwo.ca>
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> 
> 
--
Paul D. Boyle, Ph. D.
Manager, X-ray Facility
Department of Chemistry
Western University
London, ON N6A 5B7
Canada