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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Virtualization Host Configuration and Guest Installation Guide

Virtualization Documentation

Edition 0.2

Red Hat Engineering Content Services

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Abstract
This guide covers KVM packages, compatibility and restrictions. Also included are host configuration details and instructions for installing guests of different types, PCI device assignment and SR-IOV.

Preface
1. Document Conventions
1.1. Typographic Conventions
1.2. Pull-quote Conventions
1.3. Notes and Warnings
2. Getting Help and Giving Feedback
2.1. Do You Need Help?
2.2. We Need Feedback!
1. Introduction
1.1. What's in this guide?
2. System Requirements
3. KVM Guest VM Compatibility
3.1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 support limits
3.2. Supported CPU Models
4. Virtualization restrictions
4.1. KVM restrictions
4.2. Application restrictions
4.3. Other restrictions
5. Installing the virtualization packages
5.1. Installing KVM with a new Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation
5.2. Installing virtualization packages on an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux system
6. Virtualized guest installation overview
6.1. Virtualized guest prerequisites and considerations
6.2. Creating guests with virt-install
6.3. Creating guests with virt-manager
6.4. Installing guests with PXE
7. Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a fully virtualized guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
7.1. Creating a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guest with local installation media
7.2. Creating a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guest with a network installation tree
7.3. Creating a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guest with PXE
8. Installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a Xen para-virtualized guest on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
8.1. Using virt-install
8.2. Using virt-manager
9. Installing a fully-virtualized Windows guest
9.1. Using virt-install to create a guest
9.2. Installing the Windows Balloon driver
10. KVM Para-virtualized Drivers
10.1. Installing the KVM Windows para-virtualized drivers
10.1.1. Installing the drivers on an installed Windows guest
10.1.2. Installing drivers during the Windows installation
10.2. Using the para-virtualized drivers with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.9 guests
10.3. Using KVM para-virtualized drivers for existing devices
10.4. Using KVM para-virtualized drivers for new devices
11. Network Configuration
11.1. Network Address Translation (NAT) with libvirt
11.2. Disabling vhost-net
11.2.1. Checksum correction for older DHCP clients
11.3. Bridged networking with libvirt
12. PCI device assignment
12.1. Adding a PCI device with virsh
12.2. Adding a PCI device with virt-manager
12.3. PCI device assignment with virt-install
13. SR-IOV
13.1. Introduction
13.2. Using SR-IOV
13.3. Troubleshooting SR-IOV
14. KVM guest timing management
15. Network booting with libvirt
15.1. Preparing the boot server
15.1.1. Setting up a PXE boot server on a private libvirt network
15.2. Booting a guest using PXE
15.2.1. Using bridged networking
15.2.2. Using a private libvirt network
A. Revision History