Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Virtualization Guide

Red Hat, Inc.

Christopher Curran

Red Hat
 Engineering Content Services

Jan Mark Holzer

Red Hat
 Emerging Technology Group

Don Dutile

Technical Editor for the para-virtualized drivers section.
Red Hat
 Emerging Technology Group

Barry Donahue

Technical Editor for the para-virtualized drivers section.
Red Hat
 Quality Assurance Group

Rick Ring

Technical Editor for the Virtual Machine Manager Section.
Red Hat
 Sales

Michael Kearey

Technical Editor for the sections on using XML configuration files with virsh and virtualized floppy drives.
Red Hat
 Global Support Services

Marco Grigull

Technical Editor for the software compatibility and performance section.
Red Hat
 Global Support Services

Eugene Teo

Technical Editor for the Managing Guests with virsh section.
Red Hat
 Global Support Services

Copyright © 2008 Red Hat, Inc

Legal Notice
Abstract

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization Guide contains information on installation, configuring, administering, tips, tricks and troubleshooting virtualization technologies used in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

How should CIO's Think about Virtualization?
1. About this book
2. Document Conventions
3. We Need Feedback
I. System Requirements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization
1. System requirements
1.1. Hardware prerequisites
2. Compatibility of host and guest combinations
3. Virtualization limitations
II. Installation Procedures
Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization
4. Installing Red Hat Virtualization packages on the host
4.1. Installing Red Hat Virtualization during a new Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation
4.2. Installing Red Hat Virtualization on an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux system
5. Installing guests
5.1. Create a guest using virt-install
5.2. Create a guest using virt-manager
6. Guest operating system installation processes
6.1. Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 as a para-virtualized guest
6.1.1. Graphical Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 installation
6.1.2. The first boot after the guest installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
6.1.3. First boot configuration
6.2. Installing a Windows XP Guest as a fully virtualized guest
6.3. Installing a Windows 2003 SP1 Server Guest as a fully-virtualized guest
III. Configuration
Configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization
7. Virtualized block devices
7.1. Installing a virtualized floppy disk controller
7.2. Adding additional storage devices to a guest
7.3. Configuring persistent storage in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 environment
7.4. Adding an ISO file as a CD-ROM to a guest configuration file
8. Configuring networks and guests
9. Server best practices
10. Securing the host
11. SELinux and virtualization
12. Virtualized network devices
12.1. Configuring multiple guest network bridges to use multiple ethernet cards
12.2. Laptop network configuration
13. Introduction to Para-virtualized Drivers
13.1. System requirements
13.2. Para-virtualization Restrictions and Support
13.3. Installation and Configuration of Para-virtualized Drivers
13.3.1. Common installation steps
13.3.2. Installation and Configuration of Para-virtualized Drivers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
13.3.3. Installation and Configuration of Para-virtualized Drivers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
13.3.4. Installation and Configuration of Para-virtualized Drivers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
13.4. Para-virtualized Network Driver Configuration
13.5. Additional Para-virtualized Hardware Configuration
13.5.1. Virtualized Network Interfaces
13.5.2. Virtual Storage Devices
IV. Administration
Administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization
14. Starting or stopping a domain during the boot phase
15. Managing guests with xend
16. Managing CPUs
17. Virtualization live migration
17.1. A live migration example
18. Remote management of virtualized guests
18.1. Remote management with ssh
18.2. Remote management over TLS and SSL
V. Virtualization Reference Guide
Tools Reference Guide for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Virtualization
19. Red Hat Virtualization tools
20. Managing guests with virsh
21. Managing guests with Virtual Machine Manager(virt-manager)
21.1. Virtual Machine Manager Architecture
21.2. The open connection window
21.3. The Virtual Machine Manager main window
21.4. The Virtual Machine Manager details window
21.5. Virtual Machine graphical console
21.6. Starting virt-manager
21.7. Creating a new guest
21.8. Restoring a saved machine
21.9. Displaying guest details
21.10. Status monitoring
21.11. Displaying domain ID
21.12. Displaying a guest's status
21.13. Displaying virtual CPUs
21.14. Displaying CPU usage
21.15. Displaying memory usage
21.16. Managing a virtual network
21.17. Creating a virtual network
22. Commands for Red Hat Virtualization
22.1. virsh the command line interface tool for virtualization
22.2. The xm command line interface
23. Configuring GRUB
24. Configuring ELILO
25. Configuration files
VI. Tips and Tricks
Tips and Tricks to Enhance Productivity
26. Tips and tricks
26.1. Automatically starting domains during the host system boot
26.2. Modifying /etc/grub.conf
26.3. Example guest configuration files and parameters
26.4. Duplicating an existing guest and its configuration file
26.5. Identifying guest type and implementation
26.6. Generating a new unique MAC address
26.7. Limit network bandwidth for a guest
26.8. Starting domains automatically during system boot
26.9. Modifying dom0
26.10. Configuring guest live migration
26.11. Very Secure ftpd
26.12. Configuring LUN Persistence
26.13. Disable SMART disk monitoring for guests
26.14. Cleaning up the /var/lib/xen/ folder
26.15. Configuring a VNC Server
26.16. Cloning guest configuration files
27. Creating custom Red Hat Virtualization scripts
27.1. Using XML configuration files with virsh
28. Compiling para-virtualized driver packages from source code
VII. Troubleshooting
Introduction to Troubleshooting and Problem Solving
29. How To troubleshoot Red Hat Virtualization
29.1. Debugging and troubleshooting Red Hat Virtualization
29.2. Log files overview
29.3. Log file descriptions
29.4. Important directory locations
29.5. Troubleshooting with the logs
29.6. Troubleshooting with the serial console
29.7. Para-virtualized guest console access
29.8. Fully virtualized guest console access
29.9. SELinux considerations
29.10. Accessing data on guest disk image
29.11. Common troubleshooting situations
29.12. Guest creation errors
29.13. Serial console errors
29.14. Network bridge errors
29.15. Guest configuration files
29.16. Interpreting error messages
29.17. The layout of the log directories
29.18. Online troubleshooting resources
30. Troubleshooting
30.1. Identifying available storage and partitions
30.2. Virtualized ethernet devices are not found by networking tools
30.3. Loop device errors
30.4. Failed domain creation caused by a memory shortage
30.5. Wrong kernel image error - using a non-Xen kernel in a para-virtualized guest
30.6. Wrong kernel image error - non-PAE kernel on a PAE platform
30.7. Fully-virtualized x86_64 guest fails to boot
30.8. Missing localhost entry in /etc/hosts causing virt-manager to fail
30.9. Microcode error during guest boot
30.10. Wrong bridge configured on guest causing Xen hot plug scripts to timeout
30.11. Python depreciation warning messages when starting a virtual machine
31. Troubleshooting Para-virtualized Drivers
31.1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Virtualization log file and directories
31.2. Para-virtualized guest fail to load on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 guest operating system
31.3. A warning message is displayed while installing the para-virtualized drivers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3
31.4. What to do if the guest operating system has been booted with virt-manager or virsh
31.5. Manually loading the para-virtualized drivers
31.6. Verifying the para-virtualized drivers have successfully loaded
31.7. The system has limited throughput with para-virtualized drivers
A. Revision History
B. Red Hat Virtualization system architecture
C. Additional resources
C.1. Online resources
C.2. Installed documentation
Glossary

Note: This documentation is provided {and copyrighted} by Red Hat®, Inc. and is released via the Open Publication License. The copyright holder has added the further requirement that Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. The CentOS project redistributes these original works (in their unmodified form) as a reference for CentOS-5 because CentOS-5 is built from publicly available, open source SRPMS. The documentation is unmodified to be compliant with upstream distribution policy. Neither CentOS-5 nor the CentOS Project are in any way affiliated with or sponsored by Red Hat®, Inc.