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KVM Virtualization Cookbook
KVM Virtualization Cookbook

KVM Virtualization Cookbook: Learn how to use KVM effectively in production

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KVM Virtualization Cookbook

Getting Started with QEMU and KVM

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Installing and configuring QEMU
  • Managing disk images with qemu-img
  • Preparing images for OS installation with qemu-nbd
  • Installing a custom OS on the image with debootstrap
  • Resizing an image
  • Using pre-existing images
  • Running virtual machines with qemu-system-*
  • Starting the QEMU VM with KVM support
  • Connecting to a running instance with VNC

Introduction

Quick Emulator (QEMU) is the main component of the QEMU/KVM virtualization technology suit. It provides hardware virtualization and processor emulation. QEMU runs in userspace and, without the need for kernel, drivers can still provide fast system emulation. QEMU supports two operating modes:

  • Full system emulation, where QEMU emulates an entire computer system, including the CPU type and peripherals
  • User mode emulation, where QEMU can run a process that has been compiled on a different CPU architecture natively

In this book, we are going to focus on full system emulation with the hardware acceleration support provided by the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor.

In this chapter, we will start by installing QEMU on Linux, then explore various examples of building, managing, and using disk images for the virtual instances. We will then have an in-depth look at running QEMU in full system emulation mode, using the provided binaries. We will see examples of using the KVM kernel module to accelerate the QEMU processes. Finally, we are going to end the chapter with details on how to connect to the virtual machines we started earlier, using VNC clients.

Installing and configuring QEMU

In this recipe, we will look at installing QEMU on a single server with the provided distribution packages. For production environments, we recommend using precompiled, packaged versions of QEMU for easier and more consistent deployments. However, we are going to see an example of how to compile QEMU from source, in case you need a certain version that you might want to package later.

Getting ready

Depending on your Linux distribution, the package name and installation commands will differ. You can use your system's package manager, such as apt, dnf, or yum to search for any packages containing the QEMU string and get familiar with what is available for your particular Linux variant. The source code can be downloaded from the official QEMU project website at http://www.qemu-project.org/download/#source.

How to do it...

Perform the following steps to install QEMU from packages on Ubuntu/Debian and RHEL/CentOS distributions:

  1. On Ubuntu/Debian distributions, update your packages index:
root@kvm:~# apt-get update
  1. Install the package:
root@kvm:~# apt-get install -y qemu





  1. On CentOS/RHEL distributions execute:
root@kvm:~# yum install qemu-kvm

To install from source, execute the following:

  1. Download the archive first:
root@kvm:~#cd /usr/src && wget 
http://download.qemu-project.org/qemu-2.8.0.tar.xz
  1. Extract the files from the archive:
root@kvm:/usr/src# tar xvJf qemu-2.8.0.tar.xz && cd qemu-        2.8.0
  1. Configure and compile the source code:
root@kvm:/usr/src/qemu-2.8.0# ./configure  
root@kvm:/usr/src/qemu-2.8.0# make && make install

How it works...

Installing QEMU is quite trivial, as we just saw. Let's have a look at what the QEMU metapackage installed on Ubuntu looks like:

root@kvm:~# dpkg --list | grep qemu
ii ipxe-qemu 1.0.0+git-20150424.a25a16d-1ubuntu1 all PXE boot firmware - ROM images for qemu
ii qemu 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 fast processor emulator
ii qemu-block-extra:amd64 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 extra block backend modules for qemu-system and qemu-utils
ii qemu-slof 20151103+dfsg-1ubuntu1 all Slimline Open Firmware -- QEMU PowerPC version
ii qemu-system 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries
ii qemu-system-arm 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (arm)
ii qemu-system-common 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (common files)
ii qemu-system-mips 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (mips)
ii qemu-system-misc 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (miscelaneous)
ii qemu-system-ppc 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (ppc)
ii qemu-system-sparc 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (sparc)
ii qemu-system-x86 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU full system emulation binaries (x86)
ii qemu-user 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU user mode emulation binaries
ii qemu-user-binfmt 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU user mode binfmt registration for qemu-user
ii qemu-utils 1:2.5+dfsg-5ubuntu10.8 amd64 QEMU utilities
root@kvm:~#

From the preceding output, we can see that there are few packages involved. If you are interested, you can read the individual description to get more familiar with what each package provides.

It's worth mentioning that all binaries provided from the earlier-mentioned packages start with the prefix QEMU. You can use tab completion to see the list of available executables:

root@kvm:~# qemu-
qemu-aarch64 qemu-io qemu-mips64el qemu-ppc64 qemu-sparc32plus qemu-system-lm32 qemu-system-mipsel qemu-system-sh4 qemu-system-xtensa
qemu-alpha qemu-m68k qemu-mipsel qemu-ppc64abi32 qemu-sparc64 qemu-system-m68k qemu-system-moxie qemu-system-sh4eb qemu-system-xtensaeb
qemu-arm qemu-make-debian-root qemu-mipsn32 qemu-ppc64le qemu-system-aarch64 qemu-system-microblaze qemu-system-or32 qemu-system-sparc qemu-tilegx
qemu-armeb qemu-microblaze qemu-mipsn32el qemu-s390x qemu-system-alpha qemu-system-microblazeel qemu-system-ppc qemu-system-sparc64 qemu-unicore32
qemu-cris qemu-microblazeel qemu-nbd qemu-sh4 qemu-system-arm qemu-system-mips qemu-system-ppc64 qemu-system-tricore qemu-x86_64
qemu-i386 qemu-mips qemu-or32 qemu-sh4eb qemu-system-cris qemu-system-mips64 qemu-system-ppc64le qemu-system-unicore32
qemu-img qemu-mips64 qemu-ppc qemu-sparc qemu-system-i386 qemu-system-mips64el qemu-system-ppcemb qemu-system-x86_64
root@kvm:~#

We can see that there's a single executable for each CPU architecture type that can be emulated.

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Key benefits

  • - Build, manage and scale virtual machines with practical step-by-step examples
  • - Leverage the libvirt user-space tools and libraries to manage the life-cycle of KVM instances
  • - Deploy and scale applications inside KVM virtual machines with OpenStack

Description

Virtualization technologies such as KVM allow for better control over the available server resources, by deploying multiple virtual instances on the same physical host, or clusters of compute resources. With KVM it is possible to run various workloads in isolation with the hypervisor layer providing better tenant isolation and higher degree of security. This book will provide a deep dive into deploying KVM virtual machines using qemu and libvirt and will demonstrate practical examples on how to run, scale, monitor, migrate and backup such instances. You will also discover real production ready recipes on deploying KVM instances with OpenStack and how to programatically manage the life cycle of KVM virtual machines using Python. You will learn numerous tips and techniques which will help you deploy & plan the KVM infrastructure. Next, you will be introduced to the working of libvirt libraries and the iPython development environment. Finally, you will be able to tune your Linux kernel for high throughput and better performance. By the end of this book, you will gain all the knowledge needed to be an expert in working with the KVM virtualization infrastructure.

Who is this book for?

If you are a system administrator working KVM virtualization, this book will help you grow on your expertise of working with the infrastructure to manage things in a better way. You should have a knowledge of working with Linux based systems.

What you will learn

  • - Deploy different workloads in isolation with KVM virtualization and better utilize the available compute resources
  • - Explore the benefits of running applications with KVM and learn to prevent the “bad-neighbor” effect
  • - Leveraging various networking technologies in the context of virtualization with Open vSwitch and the Linux bridge.
  • - Create KVM instances using Python and inspect running KVM instances
  • - Understand Kernel Tuning for enhanced KVM performance and better memory utilization

Product Details

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Publication date : Jun 16, 2017
Length: 340 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788291507
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Publication date : Jun 16, 2017
Length: 340 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781788291507
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Table of Contents

8 Chapters
Getting Started with QEMU and KVM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using libvirt to Manage KVM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
KVM Networking with libvirt Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Migrating KVM Instances Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Monitoring and Backup of KVM Virtual Machines Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Deploying KVM Instances with OpenStack Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Using Python to Build and Manage KVM Instances Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Kernel Tuning for KVM Performance Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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