virt-install(1)

NAME

virt-install - provision new virtual machines

SYNOPSIS

virt-install [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION

virt-install is a command line tool for provisioning new virtual machines using the "libvirt" hypervisor management library. The tool
supports both text based & graphical installations, using serial
console, SDL graphics or a VNC client/server pair. The guest can be
configured with one or more virtual disks and network interfaces
plumbed through to the host.

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.

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. A companion
tool "virt-clone(1)" is provided for cloning pre-existing guests if
their installation cannot be easily automated from pristine media.

OPTIONS

Any of the options can be omitted, in which case "virt-install" will
run interactively prompting for input as required.

-h, --help: Show the help message and exit
-n NAME, --name=NAME: Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique amongst all guests known to the hypervisor on this machine,
including those not currently active. To re-define an existing
guest, use the virsh(1) tool to shut it down & delete it prior to
running "virt-install". This parameter will be prompted for if
omitted on the command line.
-r MEMORY, --ram=MEMORY: Memory to allocate for guest instance in megabytes. If the
hypervisor does not have enough free memory, it is usual for it to automatically take memory away from the host operating system to
satisfy this allocation. This parameter will be prompted for if
omitted on the command line.
-u UUID, --uuid=UUID: UUID for the guest; if none is given a random UUID will be
generated. If you specify UUID, you should use a 32-digit
hexadecimal number. UUID are intended to be unique across the
entire data center, and indeed world. Bear this in mind if manually specifying a UUID
--vcpus=VCPUS: Number of virtual cpus to configure for the guest. Not all
hypervisors support SMP guests, in which case this argument will be silently ignored
--check-cpu: Check that the number virtual cpus requested does not exceed
physical CPUs and warn if they do.
--cpuset=CPUSET: Set which physical cpus the guest can use. "CPUSET" is a comma
separated list of numbers, which can also be specified in ranges.
Example:

0,2,3,5 : Use processors 0,2,3 and 5
1-3,5,6-8 : Use processors 1,2,3,5,6,7 and 8; If the value 'auto' is passed, virt-install attempts to
automatically determine an optimal cpu pinning using NUMA data, if available.
--disk=DISKOPTS: 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,...; To specify media, one of the following options is required:; path
A path to some storage media to use, existing or not. Existing media can be a file or block device. If installing on a remote host, the existing media must be shared as a libvirt storage
volume.

Specifying a non-existent path implies attempting to create the new storage, and will require specifyng a 'size' value. If the base directory of the path is a libvirt storage pool on the
host, the new storage will be created as a libvirt storage
volume. For remote hosts, the base directory is required to be a storage pool if using this method.; pool
An existing libvirt storage pool name to create new storage on. Requires specifying a 'size' value.; vol An existing libvirt storage volume to use. This is specified as
'poolname:volname'.; Other available options:; device
Disk device type. Value can be 'cdrom', 'disk', or 'floppy'.
Default is 'disk'. If a 'cdrom' is specified, and no install
method is chosen, the cdrom is used as the install media.; perms
Disk permissions. Value can be 'rw' (Read/Write), 'ro'
(Readonly), or 'sh' (Shared Read/Write). Default is 'rw'; size
size (in GB) to use if creating new storage; sparse
whether to skip fully allocating newly created storage. Value
is 'true' or 'false'. Default is 'true' (do not fully
allocate).; See the examples section for some uses. This option deprecates
"--file", "--file-size", and "--nonsparse".
--nodisks: Request a virtual machine without any local disk storage, typically used for running 'Live CD' images or installing to network storage (iSCSI or NFS root).
-f DISKFILE, --file=DISKFILE: Path to the file, disk partition, or logical volume to use as the
backing store for the guest's virtual disk. If the path does not
exist, then "--file-size" option should also be specified, allowing the disk to be created. This parameter can be repeated multiple
times to add many disk. This option is deprecated in favor of
--disk.
-s DISKSIZE, --file-size=DISKSIZE: Size of the file to create for the guest virtual disk, if the path given to "--file" does not already exist. The size is to be
specified in gigabytes, with fractional numbers allowed. The
storage for the file will not be pre-allocated unless the
"--nonsparse" option is also specified. This parameter will be
prompted for if omitted on the command line & a new file is to be
created.
--nonsparse: Request creation of a non-sparse file for the guest virtual disk.
The initial time taken to fully-allocate the guest virtual disk
will be usually by balanced by faster install times inside the
guest. Thus use of this optional is recommended to ensure
consistently high performance and to avoid I/O errors in the guest should the host filesystem fill up.
-m MAC, --mac=MAC: Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or
the value "RANDOM" is specified a suitable address will be randomly generated. For Xen virtual machines it is required that the first 3 pairs in the MAC address be the sequence '00:16:3e', while for QEMU or KVM virtual machines it must be '54:52:00'.
-b BRIDGE, --bridge=BRIDGE: Bridge device to connect the guest NIC to. This parameter is
deprecated in favour of the "--network" parameter.
-w NETWORK, --network=NETWORK: Connect the guest to the host network. The value for "NETWORK" can take one of 3 formats:; bridge:BRIDGE
Connect to a bridge device in the host called "BRIDGE". Use
this option if the host has static networking config & the
guest requires full outbound and inbound connectivity to/from the LAN. Also use this if live migration will be used with this guest.; network:NAME
Connect to a virtual network in the host called "NAME". Virtual networks can be listed, created, deleted using the "virsh"
command line tool. In an unmodified install of "libvirt" there is usually a virtual network with a name of "default". Use a
virtual network if the host has dynamic networking (eg
NetworkManager), or using wireless. The guest will be NATed to the LAN by whichever connection is active.; user
Connect to the LAN using SLIRP. Only use this if running a QEMU guest as an unprivileged user. This provides a very limited
form of NAT.; If this option is omitted a single NIC will be created in the
guest. If there is a bridge device in the host with a physical
interface enslaved, that will be used for connectivity. Failing
that, the virtual network called "default" will be used. This
option can be specified multiple times to setup more than one NIC.
--vnc: Setup a virtual console in the guest and export it as a VNC server in the host. Unless the "--vncport" parameter is also provided, the VNC server will run on the first free port number at 5900 or above. The actual VNC display allocated can be obtained using the
"vncdisplay" command to "virsh". If neither this, nor the "--sdl"
or "--nographics" parameters are specified, this will be prompted
for.
--vncport=VNCPORT: Request a permanent, statically assigned port number for the guest VNC console. Use of this option is discouraged as other guests may automatically choose to run on this port causing a clash.
--sdl: Setup a virtual console in the guest and display an SDL window in
the host to render the output. If the SDL window is closed the
guest may be unconditionally terminated.
--nographics: Disable all interactive prompts for the guest virtual console. No
graphical console will be allocated for the guest. A text based
console will always be available on the first serial port (or
equivalent paravirtualised console device).
--noautoconsole: Don't automatically try to connect to the guest console. The
default behaviour is to launch a VNC client 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.
-k KEYMAP, --keymap=KEYMAP: Request that the virtual console be configured to run with a nonEnglish keyboard layout.
--accelerate: When installing a QEMU guest, make use of the KVM or KQEMU kernel
acceleration capabilities if available. Use of this option is
recommended unless a guest OS is known to be incompatible with the accelerators. The KVM accelerator is preferred over KQEMU if both
are available.
--connect=CONNECT Connect to hypervisor with URI: Connect to a non-default hypervisor. The default connection is
chosen based on the following rules:; xen If running on a host with the Xen kernel (checks against
/proc/xen); qemu:///system
If running on a bare metal kernel as root; qemu:///session
If running on a bare metal kernel as non-root; It is only necessary to provide the "--connect" argument if this
default prioritization is incorrect, eg if wanting to use QEMU
while on a Xen kernel.
--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 "--nodisks" flag in combination.
-v, --hvm This guest should be a fully virtualized guest: 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.
-c CDROM, --cdrom=CDROM: File to use a virtual CD-ROM device for fully virtualized guests.
It can be path to an ISO image, or to a CDROM device. It can also
be 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.
--pxe: Use the PXE boot protocol to load the initial ramdisk and kernel
for starting the guest installation process. If this parameter is
omitted then either the "--location" or "--cdrom" arguments must be given to specify a location for the kernel and initrd.
--os-type=OS_TYPE: Optimize the guest configuration for a type of operating system.
This will attempt to pick the most suitable ACPI & APIC settings,
optimally supported mouse drivers and generally accommodate other
operating system quirks. The valid operating system types are; linux
Linux 2.x series; windows
Microsoft Windows 9x or later; unix
Traditional UNIX BSD or SysV derivatives; other
Operating systems not in one of the 3 prior groups
--os-variant=OS_VARIANT: Further optimize the guest configuration for a specific operating
system variant. This parameter is optional. The valid variants are; linux
rhel2.1
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1

rhel3

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3

rhel4

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

rhel5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

centos5

Cent OS 5

fedora5

Fedora Core 5

fedora6

Fedora Core 6

fedora7

Fedora 7

sles10

Suse Linux Enterprise Server 10.x

debianEtch

Debian 4.0 (Etch)

debianLenny

Debian Lenny

generic26

Generic Linux 2.6.x kernel

generic24

Generic Linux 2.4.x kernel
windows: winxp
Microsoft Windows XP; win2k
Microsoft Windows 2000; win2k3
Microsoft Windows 2003; vista
Microsoft Windows Vista
unix: solaris9
Sun Solaris 9; solaris10
Sun Solaris 10; freebsd6
Free BSD 6.x; openbsd4
Open BSD 4.x
other: msdos
Microsoft DOS; netware4
Novell Netware 4; netware5
Novell Netware 5; netware6
Novell Netware 6
--noapic: Override the OS type / variant to disables the APIC setting for
fully virtualized guest.
--noacpi: Override the OS type / variant to disables the ACPI setting for
fully virtualized guest.
--arch=ARCH: Request a non-native CPU architecture for the guest virtual
machine. The option is only currently available with QEMU guests, and will not enable use of acceleration. If omitted, the host CPU
architecture will be used in the guest.
-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 prompted for interactively.
-l LOCATION, --location=LOCATION: Installation source for guest virtual machine kernel+initrd pair.
This is required for paravirtualized guests. Fully virtualized
guests must use either "--location" to specify a kernel+initrd, or the "--cdrom" parameter to specify an ISO/CDROM image. The
"LOCATION" can take one of the following forms:; DIRECTORY
Path to a local directory containing an installable
distribution image; nfs:host:/path or nfs://host/path
An NFS server location containing an installable distribution
image; http://host/path
An HTTP server location containing an installable distribution image; ftp://host/path
An FTP server location containing an installable distribution
image
-x EXTRA, --extra-args=EXTRA: Additional kernel command line arguments to pass to the installer
when performing a guest install from a kernel+initrd.
-d, --debug: Print debugging information to the terminal when running the
install process. The debugging information is also stored in
"$HOME/.virtinst/virt-install.log" even if this parameter is
omitted.
--noreboot: Prevent the domain from automatically rebooting after a graphical
install.
--force: Prevent interactive prompts. If the intended prompt was a yes/no
prompt, always say yes. For any other prompts, the application will exit.
--prompt: Specifically enable prompting. Default prompting is off (as os
virtinst 0.400.0)
--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 neccessarily 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 succeeded, virt-install simply exits, leaving the virtual machine in its current state.

EXAMPLES

Install a KVM guest, creating a new storage file, virtual networking, booting from the host CDROM, using VNC server/viewer: # virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/demo.img,size=5 \
--network network:default \
--accelerate \
--vnc \
--cdrom /dev/cdrom; Install a Fedora 9 KVM guest, using LVM partition, virtual networking, booting from PXE, using VNC server/viewer

# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/dev/HostVG/DemoVM \
--network network:default \
--accelerate \
--vnc \
--os-variant fedora9

Install a QEMU guest, with a real partition, for a different
architecture using SDL graphics, using a remote kernel and initrd pair:

# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--disk path=/dev/hdc \
--network bridge:eth1 \
--arch ppc64 \
--sdl \
--location http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/x86_64/os/

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

# virt-install \
--hvm \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--nodisks \
--livecd \
--vnc \
--cdrom /root/fedora7live.iso

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

# virt-install \
--paravirt \
--name demo \
--ram 500 \
--file /var/lib/xen/images/demo.img \
--file-size 6 \
--nographics \
--location http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/x86_64/os/

AUTHOR

Written by Daniel P. Berrange, Hugh Brock, Jeremy Katz, Cole Robinson
and a team of many other contributors. See the AUTHORS file in the
source distribution for the complete list of credits.

BUGS

Report bugs to the mailing list
"http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/et-mgmt-tools" or directly to
BugZilla "http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/" against the "Fedora"
product, and the "python-virtinst" component.

When filing a bug, please run the failing command with the --debug
command line flag and post the output to the bug report, along with
$HOME/.virtinst/virt-install.log

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2006-2007 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.

docs.sk

comprehensive documentation repository

See also