Preparing for KVM?

Richard W.M. Jones rjones at redhat.com
Fri Jan 11 13:13:29 UTC 2008


Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> I shall be getting a new 64-bit machine next month. Since it will have
> plenty of spare capacity, after initially installing Fedora 8, I
> intend to install some virtual machines with KVM.
> Is there anything I should plan for when I do my initial Fedora 8
> install? I'm thinking particularly of disk partitions. Do I need to
> reserve additional partitions for the virtual machines, or do these
> get emulated somehow?

It's best to reserve some disk space.  If you're using LVM this is 
relatively easy -- just make sure that (eg.) LogVol00 doesn't extend 
over the whole physical disk, which will give you some space to play with.

If you didn't do that, then there are two options for you:

(1) Resize your main partition down, or

(2) Use regular files as disk images for the guests.

Option (1) is complicated and potentially you can end up deleting all 
your data by accident.  Option (2) is really slow.

Other things to bare in mind for KVM:

(a) Make sure that the 64 bit processor that you buy supports 
virtualization (it's a hardware feature), _and_ that the 
BIOS/motherboard you are using allows it to be enabled.  Sometimes the 
BIOS disables this feature and you need a BIOS update to enable it. 
Sometimes the BIOS just doesn't support it at all.[i]

(b) Lots of RAM.

(c) Plenty of disk space.  Each OS you install is going to need an 
absolute _minimum_ of 4-8 GB, and a lot more if you want to run Windows.

You might want to make a plan now for how many guests you intend to 
install, how much space you'll give each one, etc.

Rich.

[i] http://www.mail-archive.com/libvir-list@redhat.com/msg01259.html

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