How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

[Bob Cochran]

I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it is 
still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a 
virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to 
install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0" 
functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that 
Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows 
7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.

Thanks for any advice!

Bob Cochran

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

----- Original Message -----
>  I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it
> is
>  still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
>  virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
>  install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0"
>  functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
>  Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
>  7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices. 
I would say to check out the Fedora Virtualization Guide but it appears the most current
version is for Fedora 13.   While it is a bit outdated, I'm sure much of it is still
useful:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/13/html/Virtualization_Guide/i...

I don't think Xen does USB.  I believe KVM can do USB but I've not tried it
myself.

I prefer KVM but it does require VT support in the CPU.  If you don't have that, maybe
you'd want to check out VirtualBox.  Since your system appears to be new, it should
support KVM.

To try KVM in Fedora 16 just make sure to install the x86_64 version, libvirt, qemu-kvm,
and virt-manager.

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
[phone] [home]
[phone] [work]

[Anand Nande]

Hi,

I would recommend you to go through the 'getting started' guide which 
should fairly work on all the Fedora releases:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_virtualization

If you want to seek some immediate assistance on issues with the 
Virt-Manager head to the following IRC channel:

#virt <irc://irc.oftc.net/#virt>

For a virtualization mailing list: 
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

-- 
Regards,
ANAND NANDE
Red Hat - India


On 11/12/2011 07:54 AM, Bob Cochran wrote:
>  I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it
> is
>  still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
>  virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
>  install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0"
>  functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
>  Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
>  7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.
>
>  Thanks for any advice!
>
>  Bob Cochran
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  virt mailing list
>  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

[Anand Nande]

On 11/12/2011 10:02 AM, Anand Nande wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>  I would recommend you to go through the 'getting started' guide which 
>  should fairly work on all the Fedora releases:
>
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_virtualization
>
>  If you want to seek some immediate assistance on issues with the 
>  Virt-Manager head to the following IRC channel:
>
>  #virt <irc://irc.oftc.net/#virt> 
[correction] Not only related to virt-manager, any virt issues

>  For a virtualization mailing list: 
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>
>  -- 
>  Regards,
>  ANAND NANDE
>  Red Hat - India
>
>  On 11/12/2011 07:54 AM, Bob Cochran wrote:
> > I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it is
> > still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
> > virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
> > install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0"
> > functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
> > Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
> > 7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.
> >
> > Thanks for any advice!
> >
> > Bob Cochran
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > virt mailing list
> > virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  virt mailing list
>  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

[Bob Cochran]

I installed Fedora 16 on my new machine and then perused the 
getting-started guide below to create my first guest, a Fedora 16 guest. 
The attempt failed.

First I tried to use command line virt-install with the --prompt option 
to create a machine named 'bobf16'. This terminated abruptly after I 
answered the second question. I'll try it again late tomorrow and post 
the output here.

Then I tried the graphical virt-manager install. I tried to create a 
machine named 'bobf16' which is a linux OS and specifically a Fedora 16 
OS. I allocated 8 Gb of space for the container, 1 cpu core, and 4096 Mb 
of memory. I used the Fedora 16 DVD which was in a physical DVD drive. 
This worked much better until the anaconda installer inside the 
container started computing dependencies and, apparently, space 
requirements also. It issued a dialog box stating

"You need 3396 Mb of free space but do not have enough space...."

And the process offered me the option of going back to my package 
selections to reduce the count of them, or to exit the installer. The 
process does not tell me the amount of space that I need to reduce by 
and for a system with an 8 Gb container, in my eyes 3396 Mb appears to 
be ample...so I wonder if this is a bug in anaconda when presented with 
small containers?

The final issue is that the Fedora 16 host OS is installed on a Mushkin 
240 Gb SSD drive, but the virt-manager graphical interface seems to 
suggest that I have only 44 Gb of this space available for containers. 
How can this be? I don't think the host system needs more than about 8 
Gb of space....there should be at least 200 Gb of space available on the 
mushkin drive. (Now I'm wondering if my swap space was set to twice the 
amount of my physical RAM. I have 32 Gb installed memory. I must check 
the size of my swap space.)

Thanks for advice and suggestions!

Bob


On 11/11/11 11:34 PM, Anand Nande wrote:
>  On 11/12/2011 10:02 AM, Anand Nande wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I would recommend you to go through the 'getting started' guide which 
> > should fairly work on all the Fedora releases:
> >
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_virtualization
> >
> > If you want to seek some immediate assistance on issues with the 
> > Virt-Manager head to the following IRC channel:
> >
> > #virt <irc://irc.oftc.net/#virt>
>
>  [correction] Not only related to virt-manager, any virt issues
>
> >
> > For a virtualization mailing list: 
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> > -- 
> > Regards,
> > ANAND NANDE
> > Red Hat - India
> >
> > On 11/12/2011 07:54 AM, Bob Cochran wrote:
> >> I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it is
> >> still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
> >> virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
> >> install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0"
> >> functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
> >> Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
> >> 7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.
> >>
> >> Thanks for any advice!
> >>
> >> Bob Cochran
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> virt mailing list
> >> virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > virt mailing list
> > virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>
>
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  virt mailing list
>  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

Fwd: Re: How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

[Bob Cochran]

Reposting to see if anyone will help with my beginner questions.

Thanks

Bob


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [fedora-virt] How To Get Started With Virtualization In 
Fedora 16
Date: 	Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:04:20 -0500
From: 	Bob Cochran <bcochran13(a)verizon.net&gt;
To: 	virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org



I installed Fedora 16 on my new machine and then perused the
getting-started guide below to create my first guest, a Fedora 16 guest.
The attempt failed.

First I tried to use command line virt-install with the --prompt option
to create a machine named 'bobf16'. This terminated abruptly after I
answered the second question. I'll try it again late tomorrow and post
the output here.

Then I tried the graphical virt-manager install. I tried to create a
machine named 'bobf16' which is a linux OS and specifically a Fedora 16
OS. I allocated 8 Gb of space for the container, 1 cpu core, and 4096 Mb
of memory. I used the Fedora 16 DVD which was in a physical DVD drive.
This worked much better until the anaconda installer inside the
container started computing dependencies and, apparently, space
requirements also. It issued a dialog box stating

"You need 3396 Mb of free space but do not have enough space...."

And the process offered me the option of going back to my package
selections to reduce the count of them, or to exit the installer. The
process does not tell me the amount of space that I need to reduce by
and for a system with an 8 Gb container, in my eyes 3396 Mb appears to
be ample...so I wonder if this is a bug in anaconda when presented with
small containers?

The final issue is that the Fedora 16 host OS is installed on a Mushkin
240 Gb SSD drive, but the virt-manager graphical interface seems to
suggest that I have only 44 Gb of this space available for containers.
How can this be? I don't think the host system needs more than about 8
Gb of space....there should be at least 200 Gb of space available on the
mushkin drive. (Now I'm wondering if my swap space was set to twice the
amount of my physical RAM. I have 32 Gb installed memory. I must check
the size of my swap space.)

Thanks for advice and suggestions!

Bob


On 11/11/11 11:34 PM, Anand Nande wrote:
>   On 11/12/2011 10:02 AM, Anand Nande wrote:
> >  Hi,
> >
> >  I would recommend you to go through the 'getting started' guide which
> >  should fairly work on all the Fedora releases:
> >
> >  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_virtualization
> >
> >  If you want to seek some immediate assistance on issues with the
> >  Virt-Manager head to the following IRC channel:
> >
> >  #virt<irc://irc.oftc.net/#virt>
>
>   [correction] Not only related to virt-manager, any virt issues
>
> >
> >  For a virtualization mailing list:
> >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> >  -- 
> >  Regards,
> >  ANAND NANDE
> >  Red Hat - India
> >
> >  On 11/12/2011 07:54 AM, Bob Cochran wrote:
> >>  I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it is
> >>  still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
> >>  virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
> >>  install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much "Dom0"
> >>  functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
> >>  Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
> >>  7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.
> >>
> >>  Thanks for any advice!
> >>
> >>  Bob Cochran
> >>
> >>  _______________________________________________
> >>  virt mailing list
> >>  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> >
> >  _______________________________________________
> >  virt mailing list
> >  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
>   virt mailing list
>   virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>   https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
_______________________________________________
virt mailing list
virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

Fwd: Re: How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

[Daniel Sanabria]

On 13 November 2011 21:08, Bob Cochran <bcochran13(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote:

>  Reposting to see if anyone will help with my beginner questions.
>
>  Thanks
>
>  Bob
>
>
>  The final issue is that the Fedora 16 host OS is installed on a Mushkin
>  240 Gb SSD drive, but the virt-manager graphical interface seems to
>  suggest that I have only 44 Gb of this space available for containers.
>  How can this be? I don't think the host system needs more than about 8
>  Gb of space....there should be at least 200 Gb of space available on the
>  mushkin drive. (Now I'm wondering if my swap space was set to twice the
>  amount of my physical RAM. I have 32 Gb installed memory. I must check
>  the size of my swap space.)
>  
How big is /var ? I'm asking because if you are using the default settings
you might be restricted by your partition sizes.

Fwd: Re: How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

[Bob Cochran]

On 11/14/11 4:23 AM, Daniel Sanabria wrote:
>  On 13 November 2011 21:08, Bob Cochran <bcochran13(a)verizon.net 
>  <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>      Reposting to see if anyone will help with my beginner questions.
>
>      Thanks
>
>      Bob
>
>
>      The final issue is that the Fedora 16 host OS is installed on a
>      Mushkin
>      240 Gb SSD drive, but the virt-manager graphical interface seems to
>      suggest that I have only 44 Gb of this space available for containers.
>      How can this be? I don't think the host system needs more than about 8
>      Gb of space....there should be at least 200 Gb of space available
>      on the
>      mushkin drive. (Now I'm wondering if my swap space was set to
>      twice the
>      amount of my physical RAM. I have 32 Gb installed memory. I must check
>      the size of my swap space.)
>
>
>  How big is /var ? I'm asking because if you are using the default 
>  settings you might be restricted by your partition sizes. 
Hi Dan,

Yes I discovered exactly what you mean after studying the disk 
partitioning some more. / was not getting much space and most of it was 
going to /home which is the opposite of what I want: more space in /var. 
So I reinstalled Fedora 16 a second time with an extremely generous 21 
Gb going to /home and / getting as much space as possible.

Since I have 32 Gb of memory and this is my first experience with that 
much memory, I was rather put off when the swap partition got set to 32 
Gb also, I don't think swap needs to be so big and I definitely do not 
want that space on an expensive SSD drive that I'd rather dedicate to 
being a container for virtual machines. So I'm probably going to 
reinstall Fedora 16 a third time to either dramatically cut down the 
swap partition size, or move the swap partition onto a "classic" (much 
slower) hard drive.

Thanks for responding to my email.

Bob

Fwd: Re: How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

[Greg Scott]

I've posted a zillion questions lately, I'll take a stab at answering this one:

On your storage space - how is your SSD partitioned?  As I recall, the default location
for VMs is /var/lib/libvirt/images.  So depending on how you're partitioned, maybe the
partition where this ended up doesn't have much room.  You can set up other storage
pools using virt-manager.  What really happens is, it sets up some LVM stuff, and then you
can point it anywhere convenient.  Right-click on the hostname and go to details.  When I
set up a host to handle a bunch of VMs, I usually make a /data LVM logical volume and a
/sys volume.  The /data volume gets all the VMs and any application stuff.  Then I can do
fresh installs in the /sys volume when new OS versions come out.  

I don't have a clue why F16 Anaconda would fail a dependency check.  I wonder what
would happen with an older Fedora release as a test VM?  Or even, say, a Windows XP
install (but don't activate it).  Just anything so you can get your first test VM up
and running and then bootstrap from there.

- Greg



-----Original Message-----
From: virt-bounces(a)lists.fedoraproject.org [mailto:[e-mail]]
On Behalf Of Bob Cochran
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 3:08 PM
To: virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
Subject: [fedora-virt] Fwd: Re: How To Get Started With Virtualization In Fedora 16

Reposting to see if anyone will help with my beginner questions.

Thanks

Bob


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [fedora-virt] How To Get Started With Virtualization In 
Fedora 16
Date: 	Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:04:20 -0500
From: 	Bob Cochran <bcochran13(a)verizon.net&gt;
To: 	virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org



I installed Fedora 16 on my new machine and then perused the
getting-started guide below to create my first guest, a Fedora 16 guest.
The attempt failed.

First I tried to use command line virt-install with the --prompt option
to create a machine named 'bobf16'. This terminated abruptly after I
answered the second question. I'll try it again late tomorrow and post
the output here.

Then I tried the graphical virt-manager install. I tried to create a
machine named 'bobf16' which is a linux OS and specifically a Fedora 16
OS. I allocated 8 Gb of space for the container, 1 cpu core, and 4096 Mb
of memory. I used the Fedora 16 DVD which was in a physical DVD drive.
This worked much better until the anaconda installer inside the
container started computing dependencies and, apparently, space
requirements also. It issued a dialog box stating

"You need 3396 Mb of free space but do not have enough space...."

And the process offered me the option of going back to my package
selections to reduce the count of them, or to exit the installer. The
process does not tell me the amount of space that I need to reduce by
and for a system with an 8 Gb container, in my eyes 3396 Mb appears to
be ample...so I wonder if this is a bug in anaconda when presented with
small containers?

The final issue is that the Fedora 16 host OS is installed on a Mushkin
240 Gb SSD drive, but the virt-manager graphical interface seems to
suggest that I have only 44 Gb of this space available for containers.
How can this be? I don't think the host system needs more than about 8
Gb of space....there should be at least 200 Gb of space available on the
mushkin drive. (Now I'm wondering if my swap space was set to twice the
amount of my physical RAM. I have 32 Gb installed memory. I must check
the size of my swap space.)

Thanks for advice and suggestions!

Bob


On 11/11/11 11:34 PM, Anand Nande wrote:
>   On 11/12/2011 10:02 AM, Anand Nande wrote:
> >  Hi,
> >
> >  I would recommend you to go through the 'getting started' guide which
> >  should fairly work on all the Fedora releases:
> >
> >  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_virtualization
> >
> >  If you want to seek some immediate assistance on issues with the
> >  Virt-Manager head to the following IRC channel:
> >
> >  #virt<irc://irc.oftc.net/#virt>
>
>   [correction] Not only related to virt-manager, any virt issues
>
> >
> >  For a virtualization mailing list:
> >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> >  -- 
> >  Regards,
> >  ANAND NANDE
> >  Red Hat - India
> >
> >  On 11/12/2011 07:54 AM, Bob Cochran wrote:
> >>  I should have a server-class AMD Opteron system ready to use soon; it is
> >>  still being built. I want to install Fedora 16 on this as a
> >>  virtualization host. How do I get started with that? Do I need to
> >>  install an Xen kernel from M. A. Young? I want to have as much
> "Dom0"
> >>  functionality as possible. I know from posing an earlier question that
> >>  Xen has limitations with USB support. My friend will be using a Windows
> >>  7 guest instance and is heavily dependent on USB devices.
> >>
> >>  Thanks for any advice!
> >>
> >>  Bob Cochran
> >>
> >>  _______________________________________________
> >>  virt mailing list
> >>  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
> >
> >
> >  _______________________________________________
> >  virt mailing list
> >  virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> >  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>
>
>
>
>   _______________________________________________
>   virt mailing list
>   virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>   https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt
>  
_______________________________________________
virt mailing list
virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt


_______________________________________________
virt mailing list
virt(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/virt

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:04:20AM -0500, Bob Cochran wrote:
>  I installed Fedora 16 on my new machine and then perused the 
>  getting-started guide below to create my first guest, a Fedora 16 guest. 
>  The attempt failed.
>  
>  First I tried to use command line virt-install with the --prompt option 
>  to create a machine named 'bobf16'. This terminated abruptly after I 
>  answered the second question. I'll try it again late tomorrow and post 
>  the output here.
>  
>  Then I tried the graphical virt-manager install. I tried to create a 
>  machine named 'bobf16' which is a linux OS and specifically a Fedora 16 
>  OS. I allocated 8 Gb of space for the container, 1 cpu core, and 4096 Mb 
>  of memory. I used the Fedora 16 DVD which was in a physical DVD drive. 
>  This worked much better until the anaconda installer inside the 
>  container started computing dependencies and, apparently, space 
>  requirements also. It issued a dialog box stating
>  
>  "You need 3396 Mb of free space but do not have enough space...." 
There's not enough information to properly diagnose this.  However if
I were to guess I'd say it's because Anaconda has decided that because
the guest has 4 GB of RAM, it needs a large swap space, and that large
guest swap space has eaten up most of your guest disk space, leaving
not very much for storage of the OS, files etc.

So: give the guest less RAM, more disk; or don't use Anaconda's
automatic partitioning, instead choose the partition sizes yourself by
hand.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any
software inside the virtual machine.  Supports Linux and Windows.
http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/