[libvirt-users] Error creating a new vm

[Jiri Denemark]

Hi Tony,

> Well iv installed the default RPMS via Centos (5.5)

Hmm, than you should probably ask CentOS guys for help. They apparently left
RHEL's libvirt but made their own qemu package. Since libvirt 0.6.3 wasn't
very smart, it had to be modified to support machine types provided by RHEL's
qemu. Newer libvirt releases have automatic runtime detection of supported
machine types so they don't suffer this issue.

> How do I get around this? Isnt that kind of weird that you an install a rhel
> machine on what is essentially a rhel machine?

The OS you are trying to install inside a vm doesn't matter here. It's just an
issue of your host OS (which is not exactly RHEL).

To work around this, you basically have three options.

1. Do the install manually, that is download the images virt-install downloads
for you, take the XML generated by virt-install, add the "machine='pc'"
attribute in <type> element, define the XML using virsh define and start it
with virsh start.

2. Rename /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 to /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64.orig,
create /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 shell script, which executes
/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64.orig with -M pc instead of -M rhel5.4.0. Once you
have the machine installed, you can use virsh edit VM to change machine type
to 'pc' and then you can rename /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64.orig back to
/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64.

3. Install upstream virt-install and use its --machine as suggested by Cole.

Jirka