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Virtualization Guide
ContentsContents
Virtualization Guide 
  1. Preface
  2. I Introduction  
    1.  
    2. 1 Virtualization technology
    3. 2 Virtualization scenarios
    4. 3 Introduction to Xen virtualization
    5. 4 Introduction to KVM virtualization
    6. 5 Virtualization tools
    7. 6 Installation of virtualization components
  3. II Managing virtual machines with libvirt  
    1.  
    2. 7 libvirt daemons
    3. 8 Preparing the VM Host Server
    4. 9 Guest installation
    5. 10 Basic VM Guest management
    6. 11 Connecting and authorizing
    7. 12 Advanced storage topics
    8. 13 Configuring virtual machines with Virtual Machine Manager
    9. 14 Configuring virtual machines with virsh
    10. 15 Enhancing virtual machine security with AMD SEV-SNP
    11. 16 Migrating VM Guests
    12. 17 Xen to KVM migration guide
  4. III Hypervisor-independent features  
    1.  
    2. 18 Disk cache modes
    3. 19 VM Guest clock settings
    4. 20 libguestfs
    5. 21 QEMU guest agent
    6. 22 Software TPM emulator
    7. 23 Creating crash dumps of a VM Guest
  5. IV Managing virtual machines with Xen  
    1.  
    2. 24 Setting up a virtual machine host
    3. 25 Virtual networking
    4. 26 Managing a virtualization environment
    5. 27 Block devices in Xen
    6. 28 Virtualization: configuration options and settings
    7. 29 Administrative tasks
    8. 30 XenStore: configuration database shared between domains
    9. 31 Xen as a high-availability virtualization host
    10. 32 Xen: converting a paravirtual (PV) guest into a fully virtual (FV/HVM) guest
  6. V Managing virtual machines with QEMU  
    1.  
    2. 33 QEMU overview
    3. 34 Setting up a KVM VM Host Server
    4. 35 Guest installation
    5. 36 Running virtual machines with qemu-system-ARCH
    6. 37 Virtual machine administration using QEMU monitor
  7. VI Troubleshooting  
    1.  
    2. 38 Integrated help and package documentation
    3. 39 Gathering system information and logs
  8. Glossary
  9. A Configuring GPU Pass-Through for NVIDIA cards
  10. B GNU licenses
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Virtualization Guide

Abstract

This guide describes virtualization technology in general. It introduces libvirt—the unified interface to virtualization—and provides detailed information on specific hypervisors.

Publication Date: June 20, 2025
Preface
Available documentation
Improving the documentation
Documentation conventions
I Introduction
1 Virtualization technology
1.1 Overview
1.2 Virtualization benefits
1.3 Virtualization modes
1.4 I/O virtualization
2 Virtualization scenarios
2.1 Server consolidation
2.2 Isolation
2.3 Disaster recovery
2.4 Dynamic load balancing
3 Introduction to Xen virtualization
3.1 Basic components
3.2 Xen virtualization architecture
4 Introduction to KVM virtualization
4.1 Basic components
4.2 KVM virtualization architecture
5 Virtualization tools
5.1 Virtualization console tools
5.2 Virtualization GUI tools
6 Installation of virtualization components
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Installing virtualization components
6.3 Enable nested virtualization in KVM
II Managing virtual machines with libvirt
7 libvirt daemons
7.1 Starting and stopping the modular daemons
7.2 Starting and stopping the monolithic daemon
7.3 Switching to the monolithic daemon
8 Preparing the VM Host Server
8.1 Configuring networks
8.2 Configuring a storage pool
9 Guest installation
9.1 GUI-based guest installation
9.2 Installing from the command line with virt-install
9.3 Advanced guest installation scenarios
10 Basic VM Guest management
10.1 Listing VM Guests
10.2 Accessing the VM Guest via console
10.3 Changing a VM Guest's state: start, stop, pause
10.4 Saving and restoring the state of a VM Guest
10.5 Creating and managing snapshots
10.6 Deleting a VM Guest
10.7 Monitoring
11 Connecting and authorizing
11.1 Authentication
11.2 Connecting to a VM Host Server
11.3 Configuring remote connections
12 Advanced storage topics
12.1 Locking disk files and block devices with virtlockd
12.2 Online resizing of guest block devices
12.3 Sharing directories between host and guests (file system pass-through)
12.4 Using RADOS block devices with libvirt
13 Configuring virtual machines with Virtual Machine Manager
13.1 Machine setup
13.2 Storage
13.3 Controllers
13.4 Networking
13.5 Input devices
13.6 Video
13.7 USB redirectors
13.8 Miscellaneous
13.9 Adding a CD/DVD-ROM device with Virtual Machine Manager
13.10 Adding a floppy device with Virtual Machine Manager
13.11 Ejecting and changing floppy or CD/DVD-ROM media with Virtual Machine Manager
13.12 Assigning a host PCI device to a VM Guest
13.13 Assigning a host USB device to a VM Guest
14 Configuring virtual machines with virsh
14.1 Editing the VM configuration
14.2 Changing the machine type
14.3 Configuring hypervisor features
14.4 Configuring CPU
14.5 Changing boot options
14.6 Configuring memory allocation
14.7 Adding a PCI device
14.8 Adding a USB device
14.9 Adding SR-IOV devices
14.10 Listing attached devices
14.11 Configuring storage devices
14.12 Configuring controller devices
14.13 Configuring video devices
14.14 Configuring network devices
14.15 Using macvtap to share VM Host Server network interfaces
14.16 Disabling a memory balloon device
14.17 Configuring multiple monitors (dual head)
14.18 Crypto adapter pass-through to KVM guests on IBM Z
15 Enhancing virtual machine security with AMD SEV-SNP
15.1 Supported hardware
15.2 Enabling confidential compute module
15.3 Installing packages and setting up the base system
15.4 Verifying setup
15.5 Launching an AMD SEV-SNP virtual machine
15.6 Verifying the AMD SEV-SNP virtual machine
16 Migrating VM Guests
16.1 Types of migration
16.2 Migration requirements
16.3 Live-migrating with Virtual Machine Manager
16.4 Migrating with virsh
16.5 Step-by-step example
17 Xen to KVM migration guide
17.1 Migration to KVM using virt-v2v
17.2 Xen to KVM manual migration
17.3 More information
III Hypervisor-independent features
18 Disk cache modes
18.1 What is a disk cache?
18.2 How does a disk cache work?
18.3 Benefits of disk caching
18.4 Virtual disk cache modes
18.5 Cache modes and data integrity
18.6 Cache modes and live migration
19 VM Guest clock settings
19.1 KVM: using kvm_clock
19.2 Xen virtual machine clock settings
20 libguestfs
20.1 VM Guest manipulation overview
20.2 Package installation
20.3 Guestfs tools
20.4 Troubleshooting
20.5 More information
21 QEMU guest agent
21.1 Running QEMU GA commands
21.2 virsh commands that require QEMU GA
21.3 Enhancing libvirt commands
21.4 More information
22 Software TPM emulator
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Prerequisites
22.3 Installation
22.4 Using swtpm with QEMU
22.5 Using swtpm with libvirt
22.6 TPM measurement with OVMF firmware
22.7 Resources
23 Creating crash dumps of a VM Guest
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Creating crash dumps for fully virtualized machines
23.3 Creating crash dumps for paravirtualized machines
23.4 Additional information
IV Managing virtual machines with Xen
24 Setting up a virtual machine host
24.1 Best practices and suggestions
24.2 Managing Dom0 memory
24.3 Network card in fully virtualized guests
24.4 Starting the virtual machine host
24.5 PCI Pass-Through
24.6 USB pass-through
25 Virtual networking
25.1 Network devices for guest systems
25.2 Host-based routing in Xen
25.3 Creating a masqueraded network setup
25.4 Special configurations
26 Managing a virtualization environment
26.1 XL—Xen management tool
26.2 Automatic start of guest domains
26.3 Event actions
26.4 Time Stamp Counter
26.5 Saving virtual machines
26.6 Restoring virtual machines
26.7 Virtual machine states
27 Block devices in Xen
27.1 Mapping physical storage to virtual disks
27.2 Mapping network storage to virtual disk
27.3 File-backed virtual disks and loopback devices
27.4 Resizing block devices
27.5 Scripts for managing advanced storage scenarios
28 Virtualization: configuration options and settings
28.1 Virtual CD readers
28.2 Remote access methods
28.3 VNC viewer
28.4 Virtual keyboards
28.5 Dedicating CPU resources
28.6 HVM features
28.7 Virtual CPU scheduling
29 Administrative tasks
29.1 The boot loader program
29.2 Sparse image files and disk space
29.3 Migrating Xen VM Guest systems
29.4 Monitoring Xen
29.5 Providing host information for VM Guest systems
30 XenStore: configuration database shared between domains
30.1 Introduction
30.2 File system interface
31 Xen as a high-availability virtualization host
31.1 Xen HA with remote storage
31.2 Xen HA with local storage
31.3 Xen HA and private bridges
32 Xen: converting a paravirtual (PV) guest into a fully virtual (FV/HVM) guest
V Managing virtual machines with QEMU
33 QEMU overview
34 Setting up a KVM VM Host Server
34.1 CPU support for virtualization
34.2 Required software
34.3 KVM host-specific features
35 Guest installation
35.1 Basic installation with qemu-system-ARCH
35.2 Managing disk images with qemu-img
36 Running virtual machines with qemu-system-ARCH
36.1 Basic qemu-system-ARCH invocation
36.2 General qemu-system-ARCH options
36.3 Using devices in QEMU
36.4 Networking in QEMU
36.5 Viewing a VM Guest with VNC
37 Virtual machine administration using QEMU monitor
37.1 Accessing monitor console
37.2 Getting information about the guest system
37.3 Changing VNC password
37.4 Managing devices
37.5 Controlling keyboard and mouse
37.6 Changing available memory
37.7 Dumping virtual machine memory
37.8 Managing virtual machine snapshots
37.9 Suspending and resuming virtual machine execution
37.10 Live migration
37.11 QMP - QEMU machine protocol
VI Troubleshooting
38 Integrated help and package documentation
39 Gathering system information and logs
39.1 libvirt log controls
Glossary
A Configuring GPU Pass-Through for NVIDIA cards
A.1 Introduction
A.2 Prerequisites
A.3 Configuring the host
A.4 Configuring the guest
B GNU licenses
B.1 GNU Free Documentation License
List of Figures
3.1 Xen virtualization architecture
4.1 KVM virtualization architecture
6.1 System Role screen
8.1 Connection details
8.2 Create virtual network
9.1 Specifying default options for new VMs
13.1 Details view of a VM Guest
13.2 Overview details
13.3 VM Guest title and description
13.4 Performance
13.5 Statistics charts
13.6 Processor view
13.7 Memory view
13.8 Boot options
13.9 Add a new storage
13.10 Add a new controller
13.11 Add a new network interface
13.12 Add a new input device
13.13 Add a new video device
13.14 Add a new USB redirector
13.15 Adding a PCI device
13.16 Adding a USB device
15.1 Create Virtual Machine
15.2 XML view of virtual machine configuration
15.3 Set firmware
15.4 launchSecurity
15.5 The Details view of virtual machine configuration
18.1 Caching mechanism
29.1 Boot loader settings
34.1 Installing the KVM hypervisor and tools
34.2 Network bridge
36.1 QEMU window with SLES as VM Guest
36.2 QEMU VNC session
36.3 Authentication dialog in Remmina
List of Tables
31.1 Xen remote storage
List of Examples
8.1 NAT-based network
8.2 Routed network
8.3 Isolated network
8.4 Using an existing bridge on VM Host Server
9.1 Loading kernel and initrd from HTTP server
9.2 Example of a virt-install command line
10.1 Typical output of kvm_stat
14.1 Example XML configuration file
26.1 Guest domain configuration file for SLED 12: /etc/xen/sled12.cfg
34.1 Exporting host's file system with VirtFS
36.1 Restricted user-mode networking
36.2 User-mode networking with custom IP range
36.3 User-mode networking with network-boot and TFTP
36.4 User-mode networking with host port forwarding
36.5 Password authentication
36.6 x509 certificate authentication
36.7 x509 certificate and password authentication
36.8 SASL authentication

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