22.2. Recommended features in RHEL 9 virtualization
The following features are recommended for use with the KVM hypervisor included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9):
Host system architectures
RHEL 9 with KVM is only supported on the following host architectures:
- AMD64 and Intel 64
- IBM Z - IBM z13 systems and later
Any other hardware architectures are not supported for using RHEL 9 as a KVM virtualization host, and Red Hat highly discourages doing so. Notably, this includes the 64-bit ARM architecture (ARM 64), which is only provided as Technology Preview.
Guest operating systems
Red Hat provides support with KVM virtual machines that use specific guest operating systems (OSs). For a detailed list of supported guest OSs, see the Certified Guest Operating Systems in the Red Hat KnowledgeBase.
Note, however, that by default, your guest OS does not use the same subscription as your host. Therefore, you must activate a separate licence or subscription for the guest OS to work properly.
Machine types
To ensure that your VM is compatible with your host architecture and that the guest OS runs optimally, the VM must use an appropriate machine type.
In RHEL 9, pc-i440fx-rhel7.5.0
and earlier machine types, which were default in earlier major versions of RHEL, are no longer supported. As a consequence, attempting to start a VM with such machine types on a RHEL 9 host fails with an unsupported configuration
error. If you encounter this problem after upgrading your host to RHEL 9, see the Red Hat KnowledgeBase.
When creating a VM using the command line, the virt-install
utility provides multiple methods of setting the machine type.
-
When you use the
--os-variant
option,virt-install
automatically selects the machine type recommended for your host CPU and supported by the guest OS. -
If you do not use
--os-variant
or require a different machine type, use the--machine
option to specify the machine type explicitly. -
If you specify a
--machine
value that is unsupported or not compatible with your host,virt-install
fails and displays an error message.
The recommended machine types for KVM virtual machines on supported architectures, and the corresponding values for the --machine
option, are as follows. Y stands for the latest minor version of RHEL 9.
-
On Intel 64 and AMD64 (x86_64):
pc-q35-rhel9.Y.0
--machine=q35
-
On IBM Z (s390x):
s390-ccw-virtio-rhel9.Y.0
--machine=s390-ccw-virtio
To obtain the machine type of an existing VM:
# virsh dumpxml VM-name | grep machine=
To view the full list of machine types supported on your host:
# /usr/libexec/qemu-kvm -M help
Ressources supplémentaires