Recommendations when building a Linux VM to host KVM?

I'm trying to work my way past the RHEL v6 KVM portion of Mike Jang's RHEL book.

It seems that I'm not beefing up my KVM machine enough, it seems to struggle to install and run the VMs that I'm trying to build under KVM.

Any recommendations on settings of the guest?

UPDATE, I keep getting the following output when trying to kick off the CD/DVD install:

RHEL6 KVM waiting for hardware to initialize...

I was allocating 8 GB of HD Space, however if I give it 12 GB, seems to be doing better.

This is a VM within a VM, or a nested VM, however I'm running VirtualBox 5.0.8.

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asummers

That sounds like a VM inside a VM inside a real O/S. Are you trying to run a RHEL image inside Virtualbox which is inside Windows?

Verities

You're going to have a lot of issues doing nested virtualization with KVM on desktop virtualization apps. I ran into a similar issue when I was attempting this going through Jang's book. I highly suggest trying the process on AWS or something equivalent.

JockVSJock

I can't remember if I posted the info here or not. However, yes it is a nested VM within a VM. The Host is Win7, the 1st guest is RHEL6 and trying to host another RHEL6 guest.

The newer version of VirtualBox has a feature that I can't remember right now, where you select KVM.

Looking around online in the blogsphere, there are a number of folks who are trying to nest with a vm: Nested Virtualization with KVM Intel | Kashyap Chamarthy

However I'm just looking doing a basic install and installing a new hard disk.

Verities

If you're not already, use a minimal ISO so its only a few hundred MB and will give you what you need.

I ran my guests with 512 MB RAM and 2.5 GB hard drive for testing purposes and it did take a while, but eventually it got going. If you can increase the RAM for the guest, then by all means do it.

JockVSJock

Thanks for the info.

I believe that one of Jang's exercises, he has you create a 12 GB Guest. I tried that yesterday and it took forever to run the install.

I'm going to do what you recommended and also not install the GUI either. Just a bare minimum install.

thanks

JockVSJock

So doing more research last night, looks like VirtualBox doesn't support KVM (at this time).

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-virtualization-and-cloud-90/problem-with-nested-virtualization-4175558228/

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4032

However KVM does.

I did download and install all of the KVM packages on a VM on Linux Acacdemy, however I have to upload the ISO to it and that will take time. I need to log in via VNC and test if KVM will kick off to confirm that all packages installed ok.

In the meantime, I looked at renting a physical server to lab with. One place quoted me $500 a month. I did find this place that seemed reasonable:

SoftLayer | Cloud Servers, Storage, Big Data, & More IAAS Solutions

jdancer

Have you looked into VMWare Player version 12? Free for non-commercial use. I use it to run ESXi, KVM, and Hyper-V.

JockVSJock

jdancer wrote: »

Have you looked into VMWare Player version 12? Free for non-commercial use. I use it to run ESXi, KVM, and Hyper-V.

I have looked into VMWare Player, however I wasn't sure if it would do the nesting that I need. Since VirtualBox doesn't support nesting at this time.

I keep everyone posted on what route I take.

thanks

Bodanel

Use virt-manager with KVM. I've done my RHCE with these on a Fedora desktop.

LeBroke

It works fine with VMware Workstation. One of my best investments, ever. I usually give VMs 4 GB RAM and 20-40 GB hard drive (thin provision) on an SSD (I move them to a platter drive when not using them), and have yet to run into issues.

brombulec

IMHO the best solution for home lab is to buy 2 or 3 refurbished PCs (I have two used HP DC7800 USFF - they're quiet, 2/4 core CPUs, 4GB of RAM, one local drive - 250GB - more than enough to do all the excersises), one passive switch and you're good to go.
I used them for all exams on RedHat Certified Architect path - even for EX236 it will be a good lab.
Of course you can buy Intel NUCs - it's even better equipment and not so expensive. You can use it later for ESXi hosts.

asummers

brombulec wrote: »

IMHO the best solution for home lab is to buy 2 or 3 refurbished PCs (I have two used HP DC7800 USFF - they're quiet, 2/4 core CPUs, 4GB of RAM, one local drive - 250GB - more than enough to do all the excersises), one passive switch and you're good to go.
I used them for all exams on RedHat Certified Architect path - even for EX236 it will be a good lab.
Of course you can buy Intel NUCs - it's even better equipment and not so expensive. You can use it later for ESXi hosts.

I would add to the case for real machines. I have a couple of HP MicroServers which are regularly on sale - and an additional 8GB memory stick and they are fantastic little machines for lab work.

I do also run virtualisation within my O/S but only if I am away from my lab (without connectivity in) for any reason

Xavor

Does this return anything for you?

egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo

We would need to know how many vms you're trying to run and your hardware specs. Instead of spending $500 for rentals, you can buy old server/desktop gear for $150 each. The HP Microservers go up used all the time for about that time and are the size of a small cooler.

512 MB, 8-12 GB root drives per vm is enough for minimal server installs to build services on.

JockVSJock

Xavor wrote: »

Does this return anything for you?

egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo

We would need to know how many vms you're trying to run and your hardware specs. Instead of spending $500 for rentals, you can buy old server/desktop gear for $150 each. The HP Microservers go up used all the time for about that time and are the size of a small cooler.

512 MB, 8-12 GB root drives per vm is enough for minimal server installs to build services on.

The guest, my laptop is Intel based. And I'm able to load the KVM module, however I can't load the kvm_intel module (I'm not at home right now so I don't know what the error message says exactly).

I'm using RHEL7.1 as the guest for KVM and VMWare Workstation (the latest) as the host.

I was finally able to get one up and running last night. Took forever for it to complete, however it works.

From the sounds of it, sounds like you only need to know how to install KVM and run basic commands which should cover my needs for the exam.

asummers

When is your exam? When looking at exam objectives remember to answer the following two questions:

1. Highlight the biggest hitters on the objectives - the things you think will definitely be tested - this especially includes everything that is core o/s
2. If something takes a really long time, and it's really easy to do - then why would the person creating the test want you to do that - they would rather test something trickier.

Based on the above - always look at objectives and assess ... e.g. what are the chances of KVM being on the exam ...

JockVSJock

I went out and bought a used HP 8200 Elite Desktop with 16 GB of RAM, 200 GB hard disk and Intel Core i5, which I'm using to run KVM on it.

Remember to check ahead to make sure the BIOS supports virtualization.

VMs get created, start up and stop great.