Re: [gentoo-user] installing virtual machine under gentoo

[John Covici]

On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 12:50:43 -0500,
Grant Taylor wrote:
>
> On 12/31/21 8:12 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > ++
>
> +++ to KVM / libvirt / VirtManager (GUI)
>
> > This is just a front-end to libvirt and kvm, so you're building
> > entirely on solid technologies, and anything you set up with
> > the GUI can be edited or run or otherwise managed from the
> > command line, and vice-versa.
>
> Close, but not quite.
>
> Yes, anything that can be done in the GUI can be done at the CLI
> / config files.
>
> Though I have had some more essoteric things that had to be done
> at the CLI / config files that couldn't be done in the GUI.  This
> usually has to do with more advanced things like iSCSI, Fibre
> Channel, ZFS pools / dataset per guest, etc.
>
> The vast majority of the things that someone starting with KVM
> will want to do can be done with the Virtual Machine Manager GUI.
>
> > It ends up resembling something like VirtualBox or the old
> > VMWare Workstation edition, but it is all FOSS and in-kernel so
> > it just is more reliable/etc.
>
> Yep.  There are only so many ways that you can present a concept;
> inventory of VMs, VM console, VM management.  They start to look
> similar after a while.
>
> > That said, I only use VMs situationally and at this point just
> > about everything I'm doing is in containers if it can be
> > linux-based. Way lighter all-around, even if I'm running a full
> > OS in the container. I personally prefer to run my containers
> > with nspawn and virtual ethernet, so each container gets its
> > own IP via DHCP.
>
> The Virtual Machine Manager GUI can also administer / manage some
> aspects of containers.
>
> I would highly suggest giving Virtual Machine Manager GUI for
> KVM+libvert+qemu a try.  It is probably the quintessential Linux
> virtualization method.
>
> > Oh, and for kvm if you want to run your guests on your main LAN
> > you'll probably need to set up a bridge interface.
>
> Yes, bridging is very nice and is my preferred way for most VM
> use cases.  Though it might be a bit more than someone wants to
> tackle while getting their feet wet with virtualization.
> Especially if you're trying to share a single NIC for other
> aspects of the hosting system.  It can all be done, but there is
> a lot of minutia (methods and configurations therein) that are
> easy to get lost in.  I'd probably recommend a second NIC, even
> if it's an inexpensive USB NIC just for the virtualization. Doing
> that will avoid complexities that don't need to be dealt with
> /now/.  --  Reduce the number of variables that you're working
> with at one time.
>
>

OK, I made some progress -- I emerged qemu/kvm packages including
libvirtd and virt-manager came along.  Now, when I start virt-manager,
it complains the qqemu/kvm  not connected.  I am running virt-manager
as my regular user.

Is it correct that the command line version of this is virt-install ?


-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
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you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         covici@××××××××××.com