[clug] I need help with KVM vitualization

[Michael Still]

KVM is a totally cromulent tool to do this sort of thing, but you'd have a
better experience if you were using libvirt or a libvirt wrapper
(virt-manager, a hobby project from a burnt out cloud engineer, that sort
of thing).

What you describe should just work.

Michael

On Sun, 19 Jul 2020, 4:51 pm Eyal Lebedinsky via linux, <
linux at lists.samba.org> wrote:

> The first thing I need is a pointer at a good doco that explains what
> linux kvm is and how to import
> a physical machine into the virtual domain.
>
> I dd'ed the root disk (/dev/sda) to a file on a local disk of the machine
> that will be the VM host.
> I searched for instructions and found most are missing what I consider
> essential detail, like where
> exactly I should run each step etc. Others have a more complicated setup
> (lvm and what not).
>
> My main worry is that I tried it once, used the GUI tool (virt-manager)
> and pointed it at a disk
> image (from a VirtualBox I had lying around). It started booting (offered
> the grub selection)
> then showed a screen with three dots and gone quiet. After a few minutes I
> got an error message
> and a dracut prompt.
>
> Not knowing how to proceed I decided to just abandon this vm. I issued
> 'halt' inside the small
> console window and it did it.
> It also shut down the host machine (and probably every other linux machine
> in Australia - I
> could not tell).
>
> I was surprised that a virtual tool can do this to the host, having used
> Vmware and VirtualBox
> where there is a clear fence around the VM world.
>
> So much fun, but I probably need to educate myself better about what KVM
> really is.
>
> My need is simple:
>    - I have an image (dd) of the disk from a physical machine. I want to
> run it as a virtual
>      machine on another host. How do I import the image?
>    - Is kvm the correct tool for this? Should I go back to using
> VirtualBox?
>
> TIA
>
> --
> Eyal at Home (eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)
>
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