NAME
virt-install - provision new virtual machines
SYNOPSIS
virt-install [OPTION]...
DESCRIPTION
virt-install is a command line tool for provisioning new virtual
machines using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. The tool
supports both text based & graphical installations, using serial
console, SDL graphics or a VNC client/server pair. The guest can be
configured to use one or more virtual disks, network interfaces, audio
devices, and physical host devices (USB, PCI).
The installation media can be held locally or remotely on NFS, HTTP,
FTP servers. In the latter case "virt-install" will fetch the minimal
files necessary to kick off the installation process, allowing the
guest to fetch the rest of the OS distribution as needed. PXE booting,
and importing an existing disk image (thus skipping the install phase)
are also supported.
Given suitable command line arguments, "virt-install" is capable of
running completely unattended, with the guest ’kickstarting’ itself
too. This allows for easy automation of guest installs. An interactive
mode is also available with the --prompt option, but this will only ask
for the minimum required options.
OPTIONS
Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --name, --ram,
guest storage (--disk or --nodisks), and an install option.
-h, --help
Show the help message and exit
--connect=CONNECT
Connect to a non-default hypervisor. The default connection is chosen
based on the following rules:
xen If running on a host with the Xen kernel (checks against
/proc/xen)
qemu:///system
If running on a bare metal kernel as root (needed for KVM
installs)
qemu:///session
If running on a bare metal kernel as non-root
It is only necessary to provide the "--connect" argument if this
default prioritization is incorrect, eg if wanting to use QEMU
while on a Xen kernel.
General Options
General configuration parameters that apply to all types of guest
installs.
-n NAME, --name=NAME
Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique
amongst all guests known to the hypervisor on the connection,
including those not currently active. To re-define an existing guest,
use the virsh(1) tool to shut it down (’virsh shutdown’) & delete
(’virsh undefine’) it prior to running "virt-install".
-r MEMORY, --ram=MEMORY
Memory to allocate for guest instance in megabytes. If the hypervisor
does not have enough free memory, it is usual for it to automatically
take memory away from the host operating system to satisfy this
allocation.
--arch=ARCH
Request a non-native CPU architecture for the guest virtual machine.
If omitted, the host CPU architecture will be used in the guest.
-u UUID, --uuid=UUID
UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be generated.
If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit hexadecimal number.
UUID are intended to be unique across the entire data center, and
indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually specifying a UUID
--vcpus=VCPUS
Number of virtual cpus to configure for the guest. Not all
hypervisors support SMP guests, in which case this argument will be
silently ignored
--cpuset=CPUSET
Set which physical cpus the guest can use. "CPUSET" is a comma
separated list of numbers, which can also be specified in ranges.
Example:
0,2,3,5 : Use processors 0,2,3 and 5
1-3,5,6-8 : Use processors 1,2,3,5,6,7 and 8
If the value ’auto’ is passed, virt-install attempts to automatically
determine an optimal cpu pinning using NUMA data, if available.
--description
Human readable text description of the virtual machine. This will be
stored in the guests XML configuration for access by other
applications.
--security type=TYPE[,label=LABEL]
Configure domain security driver settings. Type can be either
’static’ or ’dynamic’. ’static’ configuration requires a security
LABEL. Specifying LABEL without TYPE implies static configuration.
Installation Method options
-c CDROM, --cdrom=CDROM
File or device use as a virtual CD-ROM device for fully virtualized
guests. It can be path to an ISO image, or to a CDROM device. It can
also be a URL from which to fetch/access a minimal boot ISO image.
The URLs take the same format as described for the "--location"
argument. If a cdrom has been specified via the "--disk" option, and
neither "--cdrom" nor any other install option is specified, the
"--disk" cdrom is used as the install media.
-l LOCATION, --location=LOCATION
Installation source for guest virtual machine kernel+initrd pair.
The "LOCATION" can take one of the following forms:
DIRECTORY
Path to a local directory containing an installable distribution
image
nfs:host:/path or nfs://host/path
An NFS server location containing an installable distribution
image
http://host/path
An HTTP server location containing an installable distribution
image
ftp://host/path
An FTP server location containing an installable distribution
image
Some distro specific url samples:
Fedora/Red Hat Based
http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/10/Fedora/i386/os/
Debian/Ubuntu
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/main/installer-amd64/
Suse
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/repo/oss/
Mandriva
ftp://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mandrake/official/2009.0/i586/
--pxe
Use the PXE boot protocol to load the initial ramdisk and kernel for
starting the guest installation process.
--import
Skip the OS installation process, and build a guest around an
existing disk image. The device used for booting is the first device
specified via "--disk" or "--file".
--livecd
Specify that the installation media is a live CD and thus the guest
needs to be configured to boot off the CDROM device permanently. It
may be desirable to also use the "--nodisks" flag in combination.
-x EXTRA, --extra-args=EXTRA
Additional kernel command line arguments to pass to the installer
when performing a guest install from "--location".
--os-type=OS_TYPE
Optimize the guest configuration for a type of operating system (ex.
’linux’, ’windows’). This will attempt to pick the most suitable ACPI
& APIC settings, optimally supported mouse drivers, virtio, and
generally accommodate other operating system quirks.
By default, virt-install will attempt to auto detect this value from
the install media (currently only supported for URL installs).
Autodetection can be disabled with the special value ’none’
See "--os-variant" for valid options.
--os-variant=OS_VARIANT
Further optimize the guest configuration for a specific operating
system variant (ex. ’fedora8’, ’winxp’). This parameter is optional,
and does not require an "--os-type" to be specified.
By default, virt-install will attempt to auto detect this value from
the install media (currently only supported for URL installs).
Autodetection can be disabled with the special value ’none’.
Valid values are:
linux
debianetch
Debian Etch
debianlenny
Debian Lenny
debiansqueeze
Debian Squeeze
fedora5
Fedora Core 5
fedora6
Fedora Core 6
fedora7
Fedora 7
fedora8
Fedora 8
fedora9
Fedora 9
fedora10
Fedora 10
fedora11
Fedora 11
fedora12
Fedora 12
fedora13
Fedora 13
generic24
Generic 2.4.x kernel
generic26
Generic 2.6.x kernel
virtio26
Generic 2.6.25 or later kernel with virtio
mandriva2009
Mandriva Linux 2009 and earlier
mandriva2010
Mandriva Linux 2010 and later
mes5
Mandriva Enterprise Server 5.0
mes5.1
Mandriva Enterprise Server 5.1 and later
rhel2.1
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1
rhel3
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
rhel4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
rhel5
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
rhel5.4
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 or later
rhel6
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
sles10
Suse Linux Enterprise Server
sles11
Suse Linux Enterprise Server 11
ubuntuhardy
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)
ubuntuintrepid
Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)
ubuntujaunty
Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)
ubuntukarmic
Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
other
generic
Generic
msdos
MS-DOS
netware4
Novell Netware 4
netware5
Novell Netware 5
netware6
Novell Netware 6
solaris
opensolaris
Sun OpenSolaris
solaris10
Sun Solaris 10
solaris9
Sun Solaris 9
unix
freebsd6
Free BSD 6.x
freebsd7
Free BSD 7.x
openbsd4
Open BSD 4.x
windows
vista
Microsoft Windows Vista
win2k
Microsoft Windows 2000
win2k3
Microsoft Windows 2003
win2k8
Microsoft Windows 2008
win7
Microsoft Windows 7
winxp
Microsoft Windows XP (x86)
winxp64
Microsoft Windows XP (x86_64)
none
No OS version specified (disables autodetect)
Storage Configuration
--disk=DISKOPTS
Specifies media to use as storage for the guest, with various
options. The general format of a disk string is
--disk opt1=val1,opt2=val2,...
To specify media, the command can either be:
--disk /some/storage/path,opt1=val1
or explicitly specify one of the following arguments:
path
A path to some storage media to use, existing or not. Existing
media can be a file or block device. If installing on a remote
host, the existing media must be shared as a libvirt storage
volume.
Specifying a non-existent path implies attempting to create the
new storage, and will require specifyng a ’size’ value. If the
base directory of the path is a libvirt storage pool on the host,
the new storage will be created as a libvirt storage volume. For
remote hosts, the base directory is required to be a storage pool
if using this method.
pool
An existing libvirt storage pool name to create new storage on.
Requires specifying a ’size’ value.
vol An existing libvirt storage volume to use. This is specified as
’poolname/volname’.
Other available options:
device
Disk device type. Value can be ’cdrom’, ’disk’, or ’floppy’.
Default is ’disk’. If a ’cdrom’ is specified, and no install
method is chosen, the cdrom is used as the install media.
bus Disk bus type. Value can be ’ide’, ’scsi’, ’usb’, ’virtio’ or
’xen’. The default is hypervisor dependent since not all
hypervisors support all bus types.
perms
Disk permissions. Value can be ’rw’ (Read/Write), ’ro’
(Readonly), or ’sh’ (Shared Read/Write). Default is ’rw’
size
size (in GB) to use if creating new storage
sparse
whether to skip fully allocating newly created storage. Value is
’true’ or ’false’. Default is ’true’ (do not fully allocate).
The initial time taken to fully-allocate the guest virtual disk
(spare=false) will be usually by balanced by faster install times
inside the guest. Thus use of this option is recommended to
ensure consistently high performance and to avoid I/O errors in
the guest should the host filesystem fill up.
cache
The cache mode to be used. The host pagecache provides cache
memory. The cache value can be ’none’, ’writethrough’, or
’writeback’. ’writethrough’ provides read caching. ’writeback’
provides read and write caching.
format
Image format to be used if creating managed storage. For file
volumes, this can be ’raw’, ’qcow2’, ’vmdk’, etc. See format
types in <http://libvirt.org/storage.html> for possible values.
See the examples section for some uses. This option deprecates
"--file", "--file-size", and "--nonsparse".
--nodisks
Request a virtual machine without any local disk storage, typically
used for running ’Live CD’ images or installing to network storage
(iSCSI or NFS root).
-f DISKFILE, --file=DISKFILE
This option is deprecated in favor of "--disk path=DISKFILE".
-s DISKSIZE, --file-size=DISKSIZE
This option is deprecated in favor of "--disk ...,size=DISKSIZE,..."
--nonsparse
This option is deprecated in favor of "--disk ...,sparse=false,..."
Networking Configuration
-w NETWORK, --network=NETWORK,opt1=val1,opt2=val2
Connect the guest to the host network. The value for "NETWORK" can
take one of 3 formats:
bridge=BRIDGE
Connect to a bridge device in the host called "BRIDGE". Use this
option if the host has static networking config & the guest
requires full outbound and inbound connectivity to/from the LAN.
Also use this if live migration will be used with this guest.
network=NAME
Connect to a virtual network in the host called "NAME". Virtual
networks can be listed, created, deleted using the "virsh"
command line tool. In an unmodified install of "libvirt" there is
usually a virtual network with a name of "default". Use a virtual
network if the host has dynamic networking (eg NetworkManager),
or using wireless. The guest will be NATed to the LAN by
whichever connection is active.
user
Connect to the LAN using SLIRP. Only use this if running a QEMU
guest as an unprivileged user. This provides a very limited form
of NAT.
If this option is omitted a single NIC will be created in the guest.
If there is a bridge device in the host with a physical interface
enslaved, that will be used for connectivity. Failing that, the
virtual network called "default" will be used. This option can be
specified multiple times to setup more than one NIC.
Other available options are:
model
Network device model as seen by the guest. Value can be any nic
model supported by the hypervisor, e.g.: ’e1000’, ’rtl8139’,
’virtio’, ...
mac Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or
the value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be
randomly generated. For Xen virtual machines it is required that
the first 3 pairs in the MAC address be the sequence ’00:16:3e’,
while for QEMU or KVM virtual machines it must be ’52:54:00’.
--nonetworks
Request a virtual machine without any network interfaces.
-b BRIDGE, --bridge=BRIDGE
This parameter is deprecated in favour of "--network
bridge=bridge_name".
-m MAC, --mac=MAC
This parameter is deprecated in favour of "--network
NETWORK,mac=12:34..."
Graphics Configuration
If no graphics option is specified, "virt-install" will default to
--vnc if the DISPLAY environment variable is set, otherwise
--nographics is used.
--vnc
Setup a virtual console in the guest and export it as a VNC server in
the host. Unless the "--vncport" parameter is also provided, the VNC
server will run on the first free port number at 5900 or above. The
actual VNC display allocated can be obtained using the "vncdisplay"
command to "virsh" (or virt-viewer(1) can be used which handles this
detail for the use).
--vncport=VNCPORT
Request a permanent, statically assigned port number for the guest
VNC console. Use of this option is discouraged as other guests may
automatically choose to run on this port causing a clash.
--vnclisten=VNCLISTEN
Address to listen on for VNC connections. Default is typically
127.0.0.1 (localhost only), but some hypervisors allow changing this
globally (for example, the qemu driver default can be changed in
/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf). Use 0.0.0.0 to allow access from other
machines.
-k KEYMAP, --keymap=KEYMAP
Request that the virtual VNC console be configured to run with a
specific keyboard layout. If the special value ’local’ is specified,
virt-install will attempt to configure to use the same keymap as the
local system. A value of ’none’ specifically defers to the
hypervisor. Default behavior is hypervisor specific, but typically is
the same as ’local’.
--sdl
Setup a virtual console in the guest and display an SDL window in the
host to render the output. If the SDL window is closed the guest may
be unconditionally terminated.
--nographics
No graphical console will be allocated for the guest. Fully
virtualized guests (Xen FV or QEmu/KVM) will need to have a text
console configured on the first serial port in the guest (this can be
done via the --extra-args option). Xen PV will set this up
automatically. The command ’virsh console NAME’ can be used to
connect to the serial device.
--noautoconsole
Don’t automatically try to connect to the guest console. The default
behaviour is to launch a VNC client to display the graphical console,
or to run the "virsh" "console" command to display the text console.
Use of this parameter will disable this behaviour.
Virtualization Type options
Options to override the default virtualization type choices.
-v, --hvm
Request the use of full virtualization, if both para & full
virtualization are available on the host. This parameter may not be
available if connecting to a Xen hypervisor on a machine without
hardware virtualization support. This parameter is implied if
connecting to a QEMU based hypervisor.
-p, --paravirt
This guest should be a paravirtualized guest. If the host supports
both para & full virtualization, and neither this parameter nor the
"--hvm" are specified, this will be assumed.
--virt-type
The hypervisor to install on. Example choices are kvm, qemu, xen, or
kqemu. Availabile options are listed via ’virsh capabilities’ in the
<domain> tags.
--accelerate
Prefer KVM or KQEMU (in that order) if installing a QEMU guest. This
behavior is now the default, and this option is deprecated. To
install a plain QEMU guest, use ’--virt-type qemu’
--noapic
Override the OS type / variant to disables the APIC setting for fully
virtualized guest.
--noacpi
Override the OS type / variant to disables the ACPI setting for fully
virtualized guest.
Device Options
--host-device=HOSTDEV
Attach a physical host device to the guest. Some example values for
HOSTDEV:
--host-device pci_0000_00_1b_0
A node device name via libvirt, as shown by ’virsh nodedev-list’
--host-device 001.003
USB by bus, device (via lsusb).
--host-device 0x1234:0x5678
USB by vendor, product (via lsusb).
--host-device 1f.01.02
PCI device (via lspci).
--soundhw MODEL
Attach a virtual audio device to the guest. MODEL specifies the
emulated sound card model. Possible values are ac97, es1370, sb16,
pcspk, or default. ’default’ willl be AC97 if the hypervisor
supports it, otherwise it will be ES1370.
This deprecates the old boolean --sound model (which still works the
same as a single ’--soundhw default’)
--watchdog MODEL[,action=ACTION]
Attach a virtual hardware watchdog device to the guest. This requires
a daemon and device driver in the guest. The watchdog fires a signal
when the virtual machine appears to hung. ACTION specifies what
libvirt will do when the watchdog fires. Values are
reset
Forcefully reset the guest (the default)
poweroff
Forcefully power off the guest
pause
Pause the guest
none
Do nothing
shutdown
Gracefully shutdown the guest (not recommended, since a hung
guest probably won’t respond to a graceful shutdown)
MODEL is the emulated device model: either i6300esb (the default) or
ib700. Some examples:
Use the recommended settings:
--watchdog default
Use the i6300esb with the ’poweroff’ action
--watchdog i6300esb,action=poweroff
--parallel=CHAROPTS
--serial=CHAROPTS
Specifies a serial device to attach to the guest, with various
options. The general format of a serial string is
--serial type,opt1=val1,opt2=val2,...
--serial and --parallel devices share all the same options, unless
otherwise noted. Some of the types of character device redirection
are:
--serial pty
Pseudo TTY. The allocated pty will be listed in the running
guests XML description.
--serial dev,path=HOSTPATH
Host device. For serial devices, this could be /dev/ttyS0. For
parallel devices, this could be /dev/parport0.
--serial file,path=FILENAME
Write output to FILENAME.
--serial pipe,path=PIPEPATH
Named pipe (see pipe(7))
--serial tcp,host=HOST:PORT,mode=MODE,protocol=PROTOCOL
TCP net console. MODE is either ’bind’ (wait for connections on
HOST:PORT) or ’connect’ (send output to HOST:PORT), default is
’connect’. HOST defaults to ’127.0.0.1’, but PORT is required.
PROTOCOL can be either ’raw’ or ’telnet’ (default ’raw’). If
’telnet’, the port acts like a telnet server or client. Some
examples:
Connect to localhost, port 1234:
--serial tcp,host=:1234
Wait for connections on any address, port 4567:
--serial tcp,host=0.0.0.0:4567,mode=bind
Wait for telnet connection on localhost, port 2222. The user
could then connect interactively to this console via ’telnet
localhost 2222’:
--serial tcp,host=:2222,mode=bind,protocol=telnet
--serial udp,host=CONNECT_HOST:PORT,bind_port=BIND_HOST:BIND_PORT
UDP net console. HOST:PORT is the destination to send output to
(default HOST is ’127.0.0.1’, PORT is required. BIND_HOST:PORT is
the optional local address to bind to (default BIND_HOST is
127.0.0.1, but is only set if BIND_PORT is specified.) Some
examples:
Send output to default syslog port (may need to edit
/etc/rsyslog.conf accordingly):
--serial udp,host=:514
Send output to remote host 192.168.10.20, port 4444 (this output
can be read on the remote host using ’nc -u -l 4444’:
--serial udp,host=192.168.10.20:4444
--serial unix,path=UNIXPATH,mode=MODE
Unix socket (see unix(7). MODE has similar behavior and defaults
as ’tcp’.
--video=VIDEO
Specify what video device model will be attached to the guest. Valid
values for VIDEO are hypervisor specific, but some options for recent
kvm are cirrus, vga, or vmvga (vmware).
Miscellaneous Options
--autostart
Set the autostart flag for a domain. This causes the domain to be
started on host boot up.
--noreboot
Prevent the domain from automatically rebooting after the install has
completed.
--wait=WAIT
Amount of time to wait (in minutes) for a VM to complete its install.
Without this option, virt-install will wait for the console to close
(not neccessarily indicating the guest has shutdown), or in the case
of --noautoconsole, simply kick off the install and exit. Any
negative value will make virt-install wait indefinitely, a value of 0
triggers the same results as noautoconsole. If the time limit is
exceeded, virt-install simply exits, leaving the virtual machine in
its current state.
--force
Prevent interactive prompts. If the intended prompt was a yes/no
prompt, always say yes. For any other prompts, the application will
exit.
--prompt
Specifically enable prompting for required information. Default
prompting is off (as of virtinst 0.400.0)
--check-cpu
Check that the number virtual cpus requested does not exceed physical
CPUs and warn if they do.
-d, --debug
Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install
process. The debugging information is also stored in
"$HOME/.virtinst/virt-install.log" even if this parameter is omitted.
EXAMPLES
Install a KVM guest (assuming proper host support), creating a new
storage file, virtual networking, booting from the host CDROM, using
VNC server/viewer.
# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo.img,size=5 \
--network network=default,model=virtio \
--vnc \
--cdrom /dev/cdrom
Install a Fedora 9 plain QEMU guest, using LVM partition, virtual
networking, booting from PXE, using VNC server/viewer
# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
--network network=default \
--virt-type qemu
--vnc \
--os-variant fedora9
Install a guest with a real partition, with the default QEMU hypervisor
for a different architecture using SDL graphics, using a remote kernel
and initrd pair:
# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/dev/hdc \
--network bridge=eth1 \
--arch ppc64 \
--sdl \
--location http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/x86_64/os/
Run a Live CD image under Xen fullyvirt, in diskless environment
# virt-install \
--hvm \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--nodisks \
--livecd \
--vnc \
--cdrom /root/fedora7live.iso
Install a paravirtualized Xen guest, 500 MB of RAM, a 5 GB of disk, and
Fedora Core 6 from a web server, in text-only mode, with old style
--file options:
# virt-install \
--paravirt \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/demo.img \
--file-size 6 \
--nographics \
--location http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/x86_64/os/
Create a guest from an existing disk image ’mydisk.img’ using defaults
for the rest of the options.
# virt-install \
--name demo
--ram 512
--disk /home/user/VMs/mydisk.img
--import
AUTHORS
Written by Daniel P. Berrange, Hugh Brock, Jeremy Katz, Cole Robinson
and a team of many other contributors. See the AUTHORS file in the
source distribution for the complete list of credits.
BUGS
Please see http://virt-manager.org/page/BugReporting
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Red Hat, Inc, and various contributors. This
is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License "http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html".
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
virsh(1), "virt-clone(1)", "virt-manager(1)", the project website
"http://virt-manager.org"
2010-03-24