NAME¶

virt-install - provision new virtual machines

SYNOPSIS¶

virt-install [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION¶

virt-install is a command line tool for creating new KVM, Xen, or Linux container guests using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. See the EXAMPLES section at the end of this document to quickly get started.

virt-install tool supports graphical installations using (for example) VNC or SPICE, as well as text mode installs over serial console. The guest can be configured to use one or more virtual disks, network interfaces, audio devices, physical USB or PCI devices, among others.

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.

Many arguments have sub options, specified like opt1=foo,opt2=bar, etc. Try --option=? to see a complete list of sub options associated with that argument, example: virt-install --disk=?

Most options are not required. Minimum requirements are --name, --memory, guest storage (--disk or --filesystem), and an install option.

CONNECTING TO LIBVIRT¶

--connect URI

Connect to a non-default hypervisor. If this isn't specified, libvirt will try and choose the most suitable default.

Some valid options here are:

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".

--memory OPTIONS

Memory to allocate for the guest, in MiB. This deprecates the -r/--ram option. Sub options are available, like 'maxmemory', 'hugepages', 'hotplugmemorymax' and 'hotplugmemoryslots'. The memory parameter is mapped to <currentMemory> element, the 'maxmemory' sub-option is mapped to <memory> element and 'hotplugmemorymax' and 'hotplugmemoryslots' are mapped to <maxMemory> element.

To configure memory modules which can be hotunplugged see --memdev description.

Use --memory=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMemoryAllocation>

--memorybacking OPTIONS

This option will influence how virtual memory pages are backed by host pages.

Use --memorybacking=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMemoryBacking>

--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.

--machine MACHINE

The machine type to emulate. This will typically not need to be specified for Xen or KVM, but is useful for choosing machine types of more exotic architectures.

--metadata OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify metadata values for the guest. Possible options include name, uuid, title, and description. This option deprecates -u/--uuid and --description.

Use --metadata=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMetadata>

--events OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify events values for the guest. Possible options include on_poweroff, on_reboot, and on_crash.

Use --events=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsEvents>

--resource OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify resource partitioning for the guest.

Use --resource=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#resPartition>

--sysinfo OPT=VAL,[...]

Configure sysinfo/SMBIOS values exposed to the guest OS. '--sysinfo host' can be used to expose the host's SMBIOS info to the VM, otherwise values can be manually specified.

Use --sysinfo=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsSysinfo>

--qemu-commandline ARGS

Pass options directly to the qemu emulator. Only works for the libvirt qemu driver. The option can take a string of arguments, for example:

  --qemu-commandline="-display gtk,gl=on"
    

Environment variables are specified with 'env', for example:

  --qemu-commandline=env=DISPLAY=:0.1
    

Complete details about the libvirt feature: <https://libvirt.org/drvqemu.html#qemucommand>

--vcpus OPTIONS

Number of virtual cpus to configure for the guest. If 'maxvcpus' is specified, the guest will be able to hotplug up to MAX vcpus while the guest is running, but will startup with VCPUS.

CPU topology can additionally be specified with sockets, cores, and threads. If values are omitted, the rest will be autofilled preferring sockets over cores over threads.

'cpuset' sets which physical cpus the guest can use. "CPUSET" is a comma separated list of numbers, which can also be specified in ranges or cpus to exclude. Example:

    0,2,3,5     : Use processors 0,2,3 and 5
    1-5,^3,8    : Use processors 1,2,4,5 and 8
    

If the value 'auto' is passed, virt-install attempts to automatically determine an optimal cpu pinning using NUMA data, if available.

Use --vcpus=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsCPUAllocation>

--numatune OPTIONS

Tune NUMA policy for the domain process. Example invocations

    --numatune 1,2,3,4-7
    --numatune 1-3,5,mode=preferred
    

Specifies the numa nodes to allocate memory from. This has the same syntax as "--vcpus cpuset=" option. mode can be one of 'interleave', 'preferred', or 'strict' (the default). See 'man 8 numactl' for information about each mode.

Use --numatune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsNUMATuning>

--memtune OPTIONS

Tune memory policy for the domain process. Example invocations

    --memtune 1000
    --memtune hard_limit=100,soft_limit=60,swap_hard_limit=150,min_guarantee=80
    

Use --memtune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMemoryTuning>

--blkiotune OPTIONS

Tune blkio policy for the domain process. Example invocations

    --blkiotune 100
    --blkiotune weight=100,device_path=/dev/sdc,device_weight=200
    

Use --blkiotune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsBlockTuning>

--cpu MODEL[,+feature][,-feature][,match=MATCH][,vendor=VENDOR],...

Configure the CPU model and CPU features exposed to the guest. The only required value is MODEL, which is a valid CPU model as known to libvirt.

Libvirt's feature policy values force, require, optional, disable, or forbid, or with the shorthand '+feature' and '-feature', which equal 'force=feature' and 'disable=feature' respectively.

If exact CPU model is specified virt-install will automatically copy CPU features available on the host to mitigate recent CPU speculative execution side channel and Microarchitectural Store Buffer Data security vulnerabilities. This however will have some impact on performance and will break migration to hosts without security patches. In order to control this behavior there is a secure parameter. Possible values are on and off, with on as the default. It is highly recommended to leave this enabled and ensure all virtualization hosts have fully up to date microcode, kernel & virtualization software installed.

Some examples:

--cputune OPTIONS

Tune CPU parameters for the guest.

Configure which of the host's physical CPUs the domain VCPU will be pinned to. Example invocation

    --cputune vpcupin0.vcpu=0,vpcupin0.cpuset=0-3,vpcupin1.vcpu=1,vpcupin1.cpuset=4-7
    

Use --cputune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsCPUTuning>

--security type=TYPE[,label=LABEL][,relabel=yes|no]

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.

To have libvirt automatically apply your static label, you must specify relabel=yes. Otherwise disk images must be manually labeled by the admin, including images that virt-install is asked to create.

Use --security=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#seclabel>

--features FEAT=on|off,...

Set elements in the guests <features> XML on or off. Examples include acpi, apic, eoi, privnet, and hyperv features. Some examples:

--clock offset=OFFSET,TIMER_OPT=VAL,...

Configure the guest's <clock> XML. Some supported options:

--pm OPTIONS

Configure guest power management features. Example suboptions include suspend_to_mem=on|off and suspend_to_disk=on|off

Use --pm=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsPowerManagement>

INSTALLATION OPTIONS¶

-c OPTIONS

--cdrom OPTIONS

File or device used as a virtual CD-ROM device. It can be path to an ISO image or 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 OPTIONS

Distribution tree installation source. virt-install can recognize certain distribution trees and fetches a bootable kernel/initrd pair to launch the install.

With libvirt 0.9.4 or later, network URL installs work for remote connections. virt-install will download kernel/initrd to the local machine, and then upload the media to the remote host. This option requires the URL to be accessible by both the local and remote host.

--location allows things like --extra-args for kernel arguments, and using --initrd-inject. If you want to use those options with CDROM media, you have a few options:

* Run virt-install as root and do --location ISO

* Mount the ISO at a local directory, and do --location DIRECTORY

* Mount the ISO at a local directory, export that directory over local http, and do --location http://localhost/DIRECTORY

The "LOCATION" can take one of the following forms:

--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 "--filesystem".

--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 "--disk none" flag in combination.

-x EXTRA

--extra-args OPTIONS

Additional kernel command line arguments to pass to the installer when performing a guest install from "--location". One common usage is specifying an anaconda kickstart file for automated installs, such as --extra-args "ks=http://myserver/my.ks"

--initrd-inject PATH

Add PATH to the root of the initrd fetched with "--location". This can be used to run an automated install without requiring a network hosted kickstart file:

--initrd-inject=/path/to/my.ks --extra-args "ks=file:/my.ks"

--os-variant OS_VARIANT

Optimize the guest configuration for a specific operating system (ex. 'fedora18', 'rhel7', 'winxp'). While not required, specifying this options is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, as it can greatly increase performance by specifying virtio among other guest tweaks.

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'. Autodetection can be forced with the special value 'auto'.

Use the command "osinfo-query os" to get the list of the accepted OS variants.

--boot BOOTOPTS

Optionally specify the post-install VM boot configuration. This option allows specifying a boot device order, permanently booting off kernel/initrd with option kernel arguments, and enabling a BIOS boot menu (requires libvirt 0.8.3 or later)

--boot can be specified in addition to other install options (such as --location, --cdrom, etc.) or can be specified on its own. In the latter case, behavior is similar to the --import install option: there is no 'install' phase, the guest is just created and launched as specified.

Some examples:

--idmap OPTIONS

If the guest configuration declares a UID or GID mapping, the 'user' namespace will be enabled to apply these. A suitably configured UID/GID mapping is a pre-requisite to make containers secure, in the absence of sVirt confinement.

--idmap can be specified to enable user namespace for LXC containers

Example:
--idmap uid_start=0,uid_target=1000,uid_count=10,gid_start=0,gid_target=1000,gid_count=10

Use --idmap=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsOSContainer>

STORAGE OPTIONS¶

--disk OPTIONS

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,...
    

The simplest invocation to create a new 10G disk image and associated disk device:

    --disk size=10
    

virt-install will generate a path name, and place it in the default image location for the hypervisor. To specify media, the command can either be:

    --disk /some/storage/path[,opt1=val1]...
    

or explicitly specify one of the following arguments:

--filesystem

Specifies a directory on the host to export to the guest. The most simple invocation is:

    --filesystem /source/on/host,/target/point/in/guest
    

Which will work for recent QEMU and linux guest OS or LXC containers. For QEMU, the target point is just a mounting hint in sysfs, so will not be automatically mounted.

The following explicit options can be specified:

NETWORKING OPTIONS¶

-w OPTIONS

--network OPTIONS

Connect the guest to the host network. The value for "NETWORK" can take one of 4 formats:

GRAPHICS OPTIONS¶

If no graphics option is specified, "virt-install" will try to select the appropriate graphics if the DISPLAY environment variable is set, otherwise '--graphics none' is used.

--graphics TYPE,opt1=arg1,opt2=arg2,...

Specifies the graphical display configuration. This does not configure any virtual hardware, just how the guest's graphical display can be accessed. Typically the user does not need to specify this option, virt-install will try and choose a useful default, and launch a suitable connection.

General format of a graphical string is

    --graphics TYPE,opt1=arg1,opt2=arg2,...
    

For example:

    --graphics vnc,password=foobar
    

The supported options are:

--noautoconsole

Don't automatically try to connect to the guest console. The default behaviour is to launch virt-viewer(1) 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 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.

--container

This guest should be a container type guest. This option is only required if the hypervisor supports other guest types as well (so for example this option is the default behavior for LXC and OpenVZ, but is provided for completeness).

--virt-type

The hypervisor to install on. Example choices are kvm, qemu, or xen. Available options are listed via 'virsh capabilities' in the <domain> tags.

This deprecates the --accelerate option, which is now the default behavior. To install a plain QEMU guest, use '--virt-type qemu'

DEVICE OPTIONS¶

All devices have a set of address.* options for configuring the particulars of the device's address on its parent controller or bus. See "http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsAddress" for details.

--controller OPTIONS

Attach a controller device to the guest. TYPE is one of: ide, fdc, scsi, sata, virtio-serial, or usb.

Controller also supports the special values usb2 and usb3 to specify which version of the USB controller should be used (version 2 or 3).

--input OPTIONS

Attach an input device to the guest. Example input device types are mouse, tablet, or keyboard.

Use --input=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsInput>

--hostdev OPTIONS

--host-device OPTIONS

Attach a physical host device to the guest. Some example values for HOSTDEV:

--sound MODEL

Attach a virtual audio device to the guest. MODEL specifies the emulated sound card model. Possible values are ich6, ich9, ac97, es1370, sb16, pcspk, or default. 'default' will try to pick the best model that the specified OS supports.

This deprecates the old --soundhw option.

Use --sound=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsSound>

--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

--parallel OPTIONS

--serial OPTIONS

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:

--channel

Specifies a communication channel device to connect the guest and host machine. This option uses the same options as --serial and --parallel for specifying the host/source end of the channel. Extra 'target' options are used to specify how the guest machine sees the channel.

Some of the types of character device redirection are:

--console

Connect a text console between the guest and host. Certain guest and hypervisor combinations can automatically set up a getty in the guest, so an out of the box text login can be provided (target_type=xen for xen paravirt guests, and possibly target_type=virtio in the future).

Example:

--video OPTIONS

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, qxl, virtio, or vmvga (vmware).

Use --video=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsVideo>

--smartcard MODE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual smartcard device.

Mode is one of host, host-certificates, or passthrough. Additional options are:

--redirdev BUS[,OPTIONS]

Add a redirected device.

--memballoon MODEL

Attach a virtual memory balloon device to the guest. If the memballoon device needs to be explicitly disabled, MODEL='none' is used.

MODEL is the type of memballoon device provided. The value can be 'virtio', 'xen' or 'none'. Some examples:

Use the recommended settings:

--memballoon virtio

Do not use memballoon device:

--memballoon none

Use --memballoon=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMemBalloon>

--tpm TYPE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual TPM device.

Type must be passthrough. Additional options are:

--rng TYPE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual RNG device.

Type can be random or egd.

If the specified type is random then these values must be specified:

--panic MODEL[,OPTS]

Attach a panic notifier device to the guest. For the recommended settings, use:

--panic default

Use --panic=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsPanic>

--memdev OPTS

Add a memory module to a guest which can be hotunplugged. To add a memdev you need to configure hotplugmemory and NUMA for a guest.

Use --memdev=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at <http://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#elementsMemory>.

MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS¶

-h

--help

Show the help message and exit

--version

Show program's version number and exit

--autostart

Set the autostart flag for a domain. This causes the domain to be started on host boot up.

--transient

Use --import or --boot and --transient if you want a transient libvirt VM. These VMs exist only until the domain is shut down or the host server is restarted. Libvirt forgets the XML configuration of the VM after either of these events. Note that the VM's disks will not be deleted. See: <http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/VM_lifecycle#Transient_guest_domains_vs_Persistent_guest_domains>

--print-xml [STEP]

Print the generated XML of the guest, instead of defining it. By default this WILL do storage creation (can be disabled with --dry-run). This option implies --quiet.

If the VM install has multiple phases, by default this will print all generated XML. If you want to print a particular step, use --print-xml 2 (for the second phase XML).

--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 necessarily 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.

--dry-run

Proceed through the guest creation process, but do NOT create storage devices, change host device configuration, or actually teach libvirt about the guest. virt-install may still fetch install media, since this is required to properly detect the OS to install.

--check

Enable or disable some validation checks. Some examples are warning about using a disk that's already assigned to another VM (--check path_in_use=on|off), or warning about potentially running out of space during disk allocation (--check disk_size=on|off). Most checks are performed by default.

-q

--quiet

Only print fatal error messages.

-d

--debug

Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install process. The debugging information is also stored in "~/.cache/virt-manager/virt-install.log" even if this parameter is omitted.

EXAMPLES¶

Install a Fedora 9 plain QEMU guest, using LVM partition, virtual networking, booting from PXE, using VNC server/viewer, with virtio-scsi disk

  # virt-install \
       --connect qemu:///system \
       --name demo \
       --memory 500 \
       --disk path=/dev/HostVG/DemoVM,bus=scsi \
       --controller virtio-scsi \
       --network network=default \
       --virt-type qemu \
       --graphics vnc \
       --os-variant fedora9

Run a Live CD image under Xen fullyvirt, in diskless environment

  # virt-install \
       --hvm \
       --name demo \
       --memory 500 \
       --disk none \
       --livecd \
       --graphics vnc \
       --cdrom /root/fedora7live.iso

Run /usr/bin/httpd in a linux container guest (LXC). Resource usage is capped at 512 MiB of ram and 2 host cpus:

  # virt-install \
        --connect lxc:/// \
        --name httpd_guest \
        --memory 512 \
        --vcpus 2 \
        --init /usr/bin/httpd

Start a linux container guest(LXC) with a private root filesystem, using /bin/sh as init. Container's root will be under host dir /home/LXC. The host dir "/home/test" will be mounted at "/mnt" dir inside container:

  # virt-install \
        --connect lxc:/// \
        --name container \
        --memory 128 \
        --filesystem /home/LXC,/ \
        --filesystem /home/test,/mnt \
        --init /bin/sh

Install a paravirtualized Xen guest, 500 MiB of RAM, a 5 GiB of disk, and Fedora Core 6 from a web server, in text-only mode, with old style --file options:

  # virt-install \
       --paravirt \
       --name demo \
       --memory 500 \
       --disk /var/lib/xen/images/demo.img,size=6 \
       --graphics none \
       --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 \
       --memory 512 \
       --disk /home/user/VMs/mydisk.img \
       --import

Start serial QEMU ARM VM, which requires specifying a manual kernel.

  # virt-install \
       --name armtest \
       --memory 1024 \
       --arch armv7l --machine vexpress-a9 \
       --disk /home/user/VMs/myarmdisk.img \
       --boot kernel=/tmp/my-arm-kernel,initrd=/tmp/my-arm-initrd,dtb=/tmp/my-arm-dtb,kernel_args="console=ttyAMA0 rw root=/dev/mmcblk0p3" \
       --graphics none

BUGS¶

Please see http://virt-manager.org/page/BugReporting

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright (C) 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"