A la pointe

Red Hat is a very important actor in the virtualization open-source world. So I ran a try with CentOs from Red Hat on my all Intel cpu + mobo. It’s definitely easier than Ubuntu. Here are the steps :

1. go into your bios and enable vt-d
2. download the netinstall of CentOS 6.3
3. use UNetbootin to put that on your usb key
4. let’s go to the netinstall!
5. hard disk I created a
   • /boot 500mb
   • a volume vg_pctele with three partitions
   • /vg_pctele/root = / (10gb)
   • /vg_pctele/swap = swap (8 gb)
   • /vg_pctele/windows = /media/secondos (20gb)
6. choose the configuration mini desktop and customize to add all the packages needed for virtualization
7. #yum install kvm kvm_intel
8. #yum upgrade
9. #append intel_iommu=on to the kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf
10. #/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ -> create a bridge br0 of eth0 (cf doc)
11. #chkconfig NetworkManager off
12. #chkconfig network on
13. #/etc/init.d/NetworkManager stop;/etc/init.d/network restart
14. get the name of your pci to passthrough with lspci -nn
15. get the name of the driver using your pci with lspci -k
16. #echo "blacklist mydriver" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist4myvm.conf
17. #reboot
18. get the corresponding libvirt name in virsh nodedev-list | grep pci
19. #virsh nodedev-dettach pci_0000_03_00_0
20. #virt-install --connect qemu:///system --arch=x86_64 -n vm1 -r 4096 --vcpus=4 -c /dev/dvd --vnc --noautoconsole --os-type windows --os-variant winxp --network=bridge:br0 --disk path=/dev/vg --accelerate --host-device=pci_0000_03_00_0
21. #chkconfig libvirtd on
22. #service libvirtd start
23. #nano /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/50-libvirt.pkla and paste :

    [libvirt Management Access]
Identity=unix-group:libvirt
Action=org.libvirt.unix.manage
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes
ResultActive=yes


24. #sudo groupadd libvirt
25. #usermod -G libvirt -a fred
26. virt-manager
27. I did two changes before starting the vm with my user fred:
    • Processor : copy Host configuration and set the topology to 4 cores 4 threads 1 socket (adjust these numbers to your fit!)
    • add Cdrom to the boot menu
28. 
    install the virtualized os with the driver for your pci card!

I hope every steps are in this article to help you.
I forgot smthg? please let me know.

[Optional]

1. Spice for linux/windows xp/7
   • yum install spice-server spice-client spice-protocol –y
   • in virt-manager, set Spice in Graphics and qxl in Video
   • install the drivers from http://spice-space.org/download.html
2. no windows 8 won’t be possible for now due to a new kind of window manager from microsoft
3. Tips
   • try virtio disk and virtio network to improve the performance.
   • personally, it didn’t work so well. I replaced the real tek network card by an e1000 to increase the network performance.