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ContentsContents
Virtualization Guide
  1. Preface
  2. I Introduction
    1. 1 Virtualization technology
    2. 2 Virtualization scenarios
    3. 3 Introduction to Xen virtualization
    4. 4 Introduction to KVM virtualization
    5. 5 Virtualization tools
    6. 6 Installation of virtualization components
    7. 7 Virtualization limits and support
  3. II Managing virtual machines with libvirt
    1. 8 Starting and stopping libvirtd
    2. 9 Preparing the VM Host Server
    3. 10 Guest installation
    4. 11 Basic VM Guest management
    5. 12 Connecting and authorizing
    6. 13 Advanced storage topics
    7. 14 Configuring virtual machines with Virtual Machine Manager
    8. 15 Configuring virtual machines with virsh
    9. 16 Managing virtual machines with Vagrant
    10. 17 Xen to KVM migration guide
  4. III Hypervisor-independent features
    1. 18 Disk cache modes
    2. 19 VM Guest clock settings
    3. 20 libguestfs
    4. 21 QEMU guest agent
    5. 22 Software TPM emulator
  5. IV Managing virtual machines with Xen
    1. 23 Setting up a virtual machine host
    2. 24 Virtual networking
    3. 25 Managing a virtualization environment
    4. 26 Block devices in Xen
    5. 27 Virtualization: configuration options and settings
    6. 28 Administrative tasks
    7. 29 XenStore: configuration database shared between domains
    8. 30 Xen as a high-availability virtualization host
    9. 31 Xen: converting a paravirtual (PV) guest into a fully virtual (FV/HVM) guest
  6. V Managing virtual machines with QEMU
    1. 32 QEMU overview
    2. 33 Setting up a KVM VM Host Server
    3. 34 Guest installation
    4. 35 Running virtual machines with qemu-system-ARCH
    5. 36 Virtual machine administration using QEMU monitor
  7. Glossary
  8. A Virtual machine drivers
  9. B Configuring GPU Pass-Through for NVIDIA cards
  10. C XM, XL toolstacks, and the libvirt framework
  11. D GNU licenses
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SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3

Virtualization Guide

This guide describes virtualization technology in general. It introduces libvirt—the unified interface to virtualization—and provides detailed information on specific hypervisors.

Publication Date: January 21, 2022
Preface
Available documentation
Improving the documentation
Documentation conventions
Support
I Introduction
1 Virtualization technology
1.1 Overview
1.2 Virtualization benefits
1.3 Virtualization modes
1.4 I/O virtualization
2 Virtualization scenarios
2.1 Server consolidation
2.2 Isolation
2.3 Disaster recovery
2.4 Dynamic load balancing
3 Introduction to Xen virtualization
3.1 Basic components
3.2 Xen virtualization architecture
4 Introduction to KVM virtualization
4.1 Basic components
4.2 KVM virtualization architecture
5 Virtualization tools
5.1 Virtualization console tools
5.2 Virtualization GUI tools
6 Installation of virtualization components
6.1 Specifying a system role
6.2 Running the yast2-vm module
6.3 Patterns
6.4 Installing UEFI support
6.5 Enable nested virtualization in KVM
7 Virtualization limits and support
7.1 Architecture support
7.2 Hypervisor limits
7.3 Supported host environments (hypervisors)
7.4 Supported guest operating systems
7.5 Supported VM migration scenarios
7.6 Feature support
7.7 Nested virtualization
II Managing virtual machines with libvirt
8 Starting and stopping libvirtd
9 Preparing the VM Host Server
9.1 Configuring networks
9.2 Configuring a storage pool
10 Guest installation
10.1 GUI-based guest installation
10.2 Installing from the command line with virt-install
10.3 Advanced guest installation scenarios
11 Basic VM Guest management
11.1 Listing VM Guests
11.2 Accessing the VM Guest via console
11.3 Changing a VM Guest's state: start, stop, pause
11.4 Saving and restoring the state of a VM Guest
11.5 Creating and managing snapshots
11.6 Deleting a VM Guest
11.7 Migrating VM Guests
11.8 Monitoring
12 Connecting and authorizing
12.1 Authentication
12.2 Connecting to a VM Host Server
12.3 Configuring remote connections
13 Advanced storage topics
13.1 Locking disk files and block devices with virtlockd
13.2 Online resizing of guest block devices
13.3 Sharing directories between host and guests (file system pass-through)
13.4 Using RADOS block devices with libvirt
14 Configuring virtual machines with Virtual Machine Manager
14.1 Machine setup
14.2 Storage
14.3 Controllers
14.4 Networking
14.5 Input devices
14.6 Video
14.7 USB redirectors
14.8 Miscellaneous
14.9 Adding a CD/DVD-ROM device with Virtual Machine Manager
14.10 Adding a floppy device with Virtual Machine Manager
14.11 Ejecting and changing floppy or CD/DVD-ROM media with Virtual Machine Manager
14.12 Assigning a host PCI device to a VM Guest
14.13 Assigning a host USB device to a VM Guest
15 Configuring virtual machines with virsh
15.1 Editing the VM configuration
15.2 Changing the machine type
15.3 Configuring hypervisor features
15.4 Configuring CPU
15.5 Changing boot options
15.6 Configuring memory allocation
15.7 Adding a PCI device
15.8 Adding a USB device
15.9 Adding SR-IOV devices
15.10 Listing attached devices
15.11 Configuring storage devices
15.12 Configuring controller devices
15.13 Configuring video devices
15.14 Configuring network devices
15.15 Using macvtap to share VM Host Server network interfaces
15.16 Disabling a memory balloon device
15.17 Configuring multiple monitors (dual head)
15.18 Crypto adapter pass-through to KVM guests on IBM Z
16 Managing virtual machines with Vagrant
16.1 Introduction to Vagrant
16.2 Vagrant boxes for SUSE Linux Enterprise
16.3 Further reading
17 Xen to KVM migration guide
17.1 Migration to KVM using virt-v2v
17.2 Xen to KVM manual migration
17.3 More information
III Hypervisor-independent features
18 Disk cache modes
18.1 What is a disk cache?
18.2 How does a disk cache work?
18.3 Benefits of disk caching
18.4 Virtual disk cache modes
18.5 Cache modes and data integrity
18.6 Cache modes and live migration
19 VM Guest clock settings
19.1 KVM: using kvm_clock
19.2 Xen virtual machine clock settings
20 libguestfs
20.1 VM Guest manipulation overview
20.2 Package installation
20.3 Guestfs tools
20.4 Troubleshooting
20.5 More information
21 QEMU guest agent
21.1 Running QEMU GA commands
21.2 virsh commands that require QEMU GA
21.3 Enhancing libvirt commands
21.4 More information
22 Software TPM emulator
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Prerequisites
22.3 Installation
22.4 Using swtpm with QEMU
22.5 Using swtpm with libvirt
22.6 TPM measurement with OVMF firmware
22.7 Resources
IV Managing virtual machines with Xen
23 Setting up a virtual machine host
23.1 Best practices and suggestions
23.2 Managing Dom0 memory
23.3 Network card in fully virtualized guests
23.4 Starting the virtual machine host
23.5 PCI Pass-Through
23.6 USB pass-through
24 Virtual networking
24.1 Network devices for guest systems
24.2 Host-based routing in Xen
24.3 Creating a masqueraded network setup
24.4 Special configurations
25 Managing a virtualization environment
25.1 XL—Xen management tool
25.2 Automatic start of guest domains
25.3 Event actions
25.4 Time Stamp Counter
25.5 Saving virtual machines
25.6 Restoring virtual machines
25.7 Virtual machine states
26 Block devices in Xen
26.1 Mapping physical storage to virtual disks
26.2 Mapping network storage to virtual disk
26.3 File-backed virtual disks and loopback devices
26.4 Resizing block devices
26.5 Scripts for managing advanced storage scenarios
27 Virtualization: configuration options and settings
27.1 Virtual CD readers
27.2 Remote access methods
27.3 VNC viewer
27.4 Virtual keyboards
27.5 Dedicating CPU resources
27.6 HVM features
27.7 Virtual CPU scheduling
28 Administrative tasks
28.1 The boot loader program
28.2 Sparse image files and disk space
28.3 Migrating Xen VM Guest systems
28.4 Monitoring Xen
28.5 Providing host information for VM Guest systems
29 XenStore: configuration database shared between domains
29.1 Introduction
29.2 File system interface
30 Xen as a high-availability virtualization host
30.1 Xen HA with remote storage
30.2 Xen HA with local storage
30.3 Xen HA and private bridges
31 Xen: converting a paravirtual (PV) guest into a fully virtual (FV/HVM) guest
V Managing virtual machines with QEMU
32 QEMU overview
33 Setting up a KVM VM Host Server
33.1 CPU support for virtualization
33.2 Required software
33.3 KVM host-specific features
34 Guest installation
34.1 Basic installation with qemu-system-ARCH
34.2 Managing disk images with qemu-img
35 Running virtual machines with qemu-system-ARCH
35.1 Basic qemu-system-ARCH invocation
35.2 General qemu-system-ARCH options
35.3 Using devices in QEMU
35.4 Networking in QEMU
35.5 Viewing a VM Guest with VNC
36 Virtual machine administration using QEMU monitor
36.1 Accessing monitor console
36.2 Getting information about the guest system
36.3 Changing VNC password
36.4 Managing devices
36.5 Controlling keyboard and mouse
36.6 Changing available memory
36.7 Dumping virtual machine memory
36.8 Managing virtual machine snapshots
36.9 Suspending and resuming virtual machine execution
36.10 Live migration
36.11 QMP - QEMU machine protocol
Glossary
A Virtual machine drivers
B Configuring GPU Pass-Through for NVIDIA cards
B.1 Introduction
B.2 Prerequisites
B.3 Configuring the host
B.4 Configuring the guest
C XM, XL toolstacks, and the libvirt framework
C.1 Xen toolstacks
C.2 Import Xen domain configuration into libvirt
C.3 Differences between the xm and xl applications
C.4 External links
C.5 Saving a Xen guest configuration in an xm compatible format
D GNU licenses
D.1 GNU free documentation license
List of Figures
3.1 Xen virtualization architecture
4.1 KVM virtualization architecture
6.1 System Role screen
9.1 Connection details
9.2 Create virtual network
14.1 Details view of a VM Guest
14.2 Overview details
14.3 VM Guest title and description
14.4 Performance
14.5 Statistics charts
14.6 Processor view
14.7 Memory view
14.8 Boot options
14.9 Add a new storage
14.10 Add a new controller
14.11 Add a new network interface
14.12 Add a new input device
14.13 Add a new video device
14.14 Add a new USB redirector
14.15 Adding a PCI device
14.16 Adding a USB device
18.1 Caching mechanism
28.1 Boot loader settings
33.1 Installing the KVM hypervisor and tools
33.2 Network bridge
35.1 QEMU window with SLES as VM Guest
35.2 QEMU VNC session
35.3 Authentication dialog in Remmina
List of Tables
7.1 KVM VM limits
7.2 Xen VM limits
7.3 Xen host limits
7.4 The following SUSE host environments are supported
7.5 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3
7.6 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4
7.7 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5
7.8 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 GA
7.9 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1
7.10 Offline supported migrating guests from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2
7.11 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 12 SP3
7.12 supported live-migrating guests from SLES 12 SP4
7.13 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 12 SP5
7.14 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 15
7.15 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 15 SP1
7.16 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 15 SP2
7.17 Supported live-migrating guests from SLES 15 SP3
7.18 Feature support—host (Dom0)
7.19 Feature support—paravirtualized guest
7.20 Feature support—fully virtualized guest
30.1 Xen remote storage
C.1 Notation conventions
C.2 New global options
C.3 Common options
C.4 Domain management removed options
C.5 USB devices management removed options
C.6 CPU management removed options
C.7 Other options
C.8 xl create Changed options
C.9 xm create Removed options
C.10 xl create Added options
C.11 xl console Added options
C.12 xm info Removed options
C.13 xm dump-core Removed options
C.14 xm list Removed options
C.15 xl list Added options
C.16 xl mem-* Changed options
C.17 xm migrate Removed options
C.18 xl migrate Added options
C.19 xm reboot Removed options
C.20 xl reboot Added options
C.21 xl save Added options
C.22 xl restore Added options
C.23 xm shutdown Removed options
C.24 xl shutdown Added options
C.25 xl trigger Changed options
C.26 xm sched-credit Removed options
C.27 xl sched-credit Added options
C.28 xm sched-credit2 Removed options
C.29 xl sched-credit2 Added options
C.30 xm sched-sedf removed options
C.31 xl sched-sedf added options
C.32 xm cpupool-list removed options
C.33 xm cpupool-create removed options
C.34 xl pci-detach added options
C.35 xm block-list removed options
C.36 Other options
C.37 Network options
C.38 xl network-attach removed options
C.39 New options
List of Examples
9.1 NAT-based network
9.2 Routed network
9.3 Isolated network
9.4 Using an existing bridge on VM Host Server
10.1 Loading kernel and initrd from HTTP server
10.2 Example of a virt-install command line
11.1 Typical output of kvm_stat
15.1 Example XML configuration file
25.1 Guest domain configuration file for SLED 12: /etc/xen/sled12.cfg
33.1 Exporting host's file system with VirtFS
35.1 Restricted user-mode networking
35.2 User-mode networking with custom IP range
35.3 User-mode networking with network-boot and TFTP
35.4 User-mode networking with host port forwarding
35.5 Password authentication
35.6 x509 certificate authentication
35.7 x509 certificate and password authentication
35.8 SASL authentication
C.1 Converting Xen domain configuration to libvirt

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