A virtual machine is comprised of data and operating system files that define the virtual environment. Virtual machines are hosted and controlled by the virtual machine host.
This section provides generalized instructions for installing virtual machines. See the Novell Virtualization Technology: Guest Operating System Guide for detailed information regarding installation and management issues for the OS you are installing.
Virtual machines have few if any requirements above those required to run the operating system. If the operating system has not been optimized for the virtual machine host environment, the unmodified OS can run only on hardware-assisted virtualization computer hardware, in full virtualization mode, and requires specific device drivers to be loaded.
You should be aware of any licensing issues related to running a single licensed copy of an operating system on multiple virtual machines. Consult the operating system license agreement for more information.
The virtual machine host can emulate x86-32 bit and x86-64 bit architectures only. It does not emulate other system architectures such as Itanium*, or IBM* POWER (formerly IBM iSeries and IBM pSeries systems).
Before creating a virtual machine, you need the following:
If you want to use an automated installation file (AutoYaST, in openSUSE), you should create and download it to a directory on the host machine server or make it available on the network.
If you are installing openSUSE, you need a network installation source. For procedures to create the installation sources, see Section 1.2, Setting Up the Server Holding the Installation Sources.
The Create Virtual Machine Wizard helps you through the steps required to create a virtual machine and install its operating system. The information that follows is generalized for installing any operating system. In addition to these instructions, you should consult the Novell Virtualization Technology: Guest Operating System Guide for information specific to the operating system you are installing.
Launch the Create Virtual Machine Wizard by using one of the following methods:
From the virtualization host server desktop, click .
If YaST doesn’t appear in your list of applications, you can run it by logging in as root and entering yast2 at a terminal.
From within Virtual Machine Manager, click .
At the command line, enter vm-install.
If the wizard does not appear or the vm-install command does not work, review the process of installing and starting the virtualization host server. The virtualization software might not be installed properly.
You can choose to run an installation program or choose a disk or disk image that already has an installed and bootable operating system.
If you choose to run an installation program, you are presented with a list of operating systems. Select the one you want to install.
On the summary page you can click on any of the headings to edit the information. As you edit the information in the Summary, consult the Novell Virtualization Technology: Guest Operating System Guide for instructions specific to the operating system you are installing.
The Virtualization Method page allows you to select the type of virtualization you want to implement.
If your computer supports hardware-assisted virtualization, you can create a virtual machine that runs in fully virtual mode. If you are installing an operating system that is modified for virtualization, you can create a virtual machine that runs in paravirtual mode. For more information about virtualization modes, see Section 9.1.1, Understanding Virtualization Modes.
Each virtual machine must have a unique name. The name entered on this page is used to create and name the virtual machine’s configuration file. The configuration file contains parameters that define the virtual machine and is saved to the /etc/xen/vm/ directory.
The Hardware page allows you to specify the amount of memory and number of virtual processors for your virtual machine.
The amount of memory initially allocated to the virtual machine (specified in megabytes).
The largest amount of memory the VM will ever need.
If desired, you can specify that the virtual machine has more virtual CPUs than the number of physical CPUs. You can specify up to 32 virtual CPUs: however, for best performance, the number of virtual processors should be less than or equal to the number of physical processors.
The virtual machine operates like a server without a monitor. You can access the operating system through operating system supported services, such as SSH or VNC.
Requires that an appropriate graphics driver is installed in the operating system.
A virtual machine must have at least one virtual disk. Virtual disks can be:
File backed, which means that the virtual disk is a single image file on a larger physical disk.
A sparse image file, which means that the virtual disk is a single image file, but the space is not pre-allocated.
Configured from a block device, such as an entire disk, partition, or volume.
For best performance, create each virtual disk from an entire disk or a partition. For the next best performance, create an image file but do not create it as a sparse image file. A virtual disk based on a sparse image file delivers the most disk-space flexibility but the slowest installation and disk access speeds.
By default, a single, file-backed 4 GB virtual disk is created as a sparse image file in /var/lib/xen/images/ vm_name where vm_name is the name of the virtual machine. You can change this configuration to meet your specific requirements.
When creating the virtual disk, you can click to edit its properties to meet your specific configuration requirements.
Virtual disks have drive designations that use Linux device naming conventions, such as hda. The designation dictates how the virtual disk appears to the virtual machine. For example, a virtual drive designated as hda appears to the virtual machine as the first disk device. Paravirtual disks appear as generic disks (not IDE, SCSI, etc.). Fully virtualized disks appear to the guest as IDE. In all cases, naming is left up to the guest OS.
Depending on your specific requirements, you might need to change the location where the disk image file is created and stored, or specify which disk, partition, or volume to use.
A virtual disk based on a sparse image file does not consume the entire amount of disk space specified but uses disk space only as needed. This is a good option for quickly creating virtual disks, but for best performance, you might want to “pre-allocate” the disk space by deselecting .
A virtual disk can be safely shared among multiple virtual machines only if every use of the virtual disk is marked as Read Only.
A virtual machine can have more than one virtual disk. When creating a virtual machine, you can create additional virtual disks based on files or specify existing disk images or block devices as additional virtual disks.
By default, a single virtual network card is created for the virtual machine. It has a randomly generated MAC address that you can change to fit your desired configuration. You can also create additional virtual network cards. In paravirtual machines, virtual network cards communicate by using a generic network card driver compatible with Xen.
The operating system can be installed from a CD/DVD device or an ISO image file. In addition, if you are installing a openSUSE system, you can install the operating system from a network installation source.
If you are installing a paravirtual machine's operating system from CD, you should remove the virtual CD reader from the virtual machine after completing the installation because the virtual machine assumes that the original CD is still in the CD reader, even if it is ejected. If it is ejected, the virtual machine cannot access the CD (or any other newly inserted CD) and receives I/O errors.
For instructions on removing the virtual CD reader, see
Virtual
CD Readers
in
Configuration Options and Settings
for more information.
If the installation program is capable of recognizing an installation profile, response file, or script, you can automate the installation settings by specifying the location of the profile, response file, or script you want to use. For example, openSUSE uses an AutoYaST profile.
You can also pass instructions to the kernel at install time by entering parameters for the field.
For example, on openSUSE, if you wanted to specify the parameters for an IP address of 192.35.1.10, a netmask of 255.255.255.0, a gateway of 192.35.1.254 for the virtual server, and use SSH to access installation, you could enter the following parameters in the field:
hostip=192.35.1.10 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.35.1.254 \ usessh=1 sshpassword=<password>
When you have finished entering all the information in the Operating System Installation page, click to return to the Summary page.
If all the information on the Summary page is correct, click to create the virtual machine. A TightVNC screen appears and at this point you begin the installation of your OS. From this point on, follow the regular installation instructions for installing your OS and consult the Novell Virtualization Technology: Guest Operating System Guide for any instructions that might be different for installing your OS in a virtualized environment.