How to access a KVM virtual-machine?

Question

I've created a KVM VM using virt-install. There is an image file in the directory /ssd/kvms.

How do I access the virtual machine and turn it on? Do I need to assign an IP address, and if so, how do I do that?

Olaf Dietsche · Answer 1 · 2012-11-16 13:37:11Z

If it's for the same architecture, you can start it with something like

kvm -cpu host -m 1024 -hda /ssd/kvms/my-image.bin

Options

-cpu host

means use same CPU as host machine

-m 1024

use 1GB main memory

-hda /ssd/kvms/my-image.bin

this image is my first hard disk

There are many more options listed in man kvm.

Jim Paris · Answer 2 · 2012-11-16 15:59:03Z

up vote 1 down vote

If you used virt-install, you're using libvirt, and you can use virt-manager to manage and view the VM.

answered Nov 16 '12 at 15:59

Jim Paris
5,0002516

	Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager.py", line 383, in <module> main() File "/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager.py", line 286, in main raise gtk_error RuntimeError: could not open display – Richard Nov 16 '12 at 23:41
	I got the above error after installing virt-manager using yum and starting it. Is there any way to access SSH of the VM without using virt-manager? Must I assign it an IP?> – Richard Nov 16 '12 at 23:42
	For your first question, you need an X display (e.g. `ssh -X` to your server) to run virt-manager. For the second question, yes, SSH uses the network and so you need an IP address. – Jim Paris Nov 17 '12 at 21:11

MIrra · Answer 3 · 2012-12-27 22:14:42Z

What distro are you using? Debian? Centos? Arch? Ubuntu? Suse?

I can recommend http://virt-manager.org/ (older versions can be found in your package manager at your distribution of linux) Very good tutorial can be found here: http://virt-tools.org/learning/start-install-with-virt-manager/

All basic operations with KVM can very easily be done with virt-manager. It is easy, fast and quiet safe for newbies.

All others possibilities how to control KVM can be found here: linux-kvm.org/page/Management_Tools

But i tried some of them and did not working.

3 Answers