This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:

This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
---
Title : Installing Virtual Machines with virt-install, plus copy pastable distro install one-liners
Author : Remy van Elst
Date : 08-02-2015
URL : https://raymii.org/s/articles/virt-install_introduction_and_copy_paste_distro_install_commands.html
Format : Markdown/HTML
---

![centos 7 install][1]

virt-install is a command line tool for creating new KVM , Xen or Linux
container guests using the libvirt hypervisor management library. It allows you
to create a VM and start an installation from the command line.

This article is a quick introduction to virt-install. It also has a copy
pastable getting started examples for different distro's. Make sure to change
the mirror to one near you for faster downloads.

I myself use virt-install together with kickstart, debootstrap and a PXE server
to create images for Openstack. I've used in the past with a Django web frontend
were developers could request and destroy vm's themself. Every requested VM was
a new fresh installed one, backed by KVM and virt-install.

 Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below: <a href="https://leafnode.nl">I'm developing an open source monitoring app called Leaf Node Monitoring, for windows, linux & android. Go check it out!</a> <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/RaymiiOrg/">Consider sponsoring me on Github. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs.</a> <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212">You can also sponsor me by getting a Digital Ocean VPS. With this referral link you'll get $100 credit for 60 days. </a> 

Please do note that you need to have kvm and libvirt running on your machine.
This article does not cover the installation of those, but your package manager
probably does.

### Disk images

A VM needs a place to store it's data. The hypervisor emulates a disk and most
of the time uses an image as its source. We can create an empty, 8 GB raw disk
image with the following command:

fallocate -l 8G name.img

The KVM hypervisor supports qcow2. qcow2 images support compression, snapshots
and a few other nice things like growing on demand (thin provisioning, sparse
file) and a read only base image. There was a performance overhead but nowdays
that is almost negligent. To create an 8 GB qcow2 image:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 ./name.qcow2 8G

### virt-install

The virsh-install command is an easy way to spin up a VM from the command line.
It allows you to start up an installation from a remote repo (network install),
from a pxe boot or from a local iso. It also allows you to just boot a vm from a
(live) cd iso.

Here are some copy pastable `virt-install` commands to get you up and running
with a few distributions. You do need to have libvirt and KVM running and the
disk image should exist.

Please make sure you've created a disk image before executing these commands.

If your default bridge interface is not named `br0`, change that. `vmbr0` is
also a common one.

The VM's get 1 CPU core, 1 GB of RAM and an 8 GB disk. If you want more, change
the command line accordingly.

Here is an image of an OpenSUSE install via virt install in the serial console:

![yast][3]

#### Debian 8

virt-install \
--name debian8 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./debian8.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Debian 7

virt-install \
--name debian7 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./debian7.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant debian7 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Debian 6

virt-install \
--name debian6 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./debian6.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant debian6 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/squeeze/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### CentOS 7

virt-install \
--name centos7 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./centos7.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant centos7 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://mirror.i3d.net/pub/centos/7/os/x86_64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### CentOS 6

virt-install \
--name centos6 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./centos6.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant centos6 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://mirror.i3d.net/pub/centos/6/os/x86_64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### CentOS 5

virt-install \
--name centos5 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./centos5.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant centos5 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://mirror.i3d.net/pub/centos/5/os/x86_64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Ubuntu 14.04

virt-install \
--name ubuntu1404 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./ubuntu1404.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Ubuntu 12.04

virt-install \
--name ubuntu1204 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./ubuntu1204.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant ubuntu12.04 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Ubuntu 10.04

virt-install \
--name ubuntu1004 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./ubuntu1004.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant ubuntu10.04 \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/lucid/main/installer-amd64/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### OpenSUSE 13

virt-install \
--name opensuse13 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./opensuse13.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.2/repo/oss/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### OpenSUSE 12

virt-install \
--name opensuse12 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./opensuse12.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.3/repo/oss/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### OpenSUSE 11

virt-install \
--name opensuse11 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./opensuse11.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type linux \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics none \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--location 'http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/' \
--extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'

#### Generic ISO

Download an ISO file and give the filename to the `--cdrom=` parameter. This is
used instead of `--location`. A VNC console is available on localhost, port
`5999` for you to use.

An example for FreeBSD 10. First download the ISO:

wget http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/10.1/FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso

Then start virt-install:

virt-install \
--name freebsd10 \
--ram 1024 \
--disk path=./freebsd10.qcow2,size=8 \
--vcpus 1 \
--os-type generic \
--os-variant generic \
--network bridge=virbr0 \
--graphics vnc,port=5999 \
--console pty,target_type=serial \
--cdrom ./FreeBSD-10.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso \

You need to start up a VNC client to do the installation.

Do note that this method works for Windows ISO's as well.

### os-variant

You can get a list of supported operating system variants with the `osinfo-query
os` command. Below you'll find an example output:

osinfo-query os
Short ID | Name | Version | ID
----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------------------------------------
debian7 | Debian Wheezy | 7 | http://debian.org/debian/7
freebsd10.0 | FreeBSD 10.0 | 10.0 | http://freebsd.org/freebsd/10.0
openbsd5.5 | OpenBSD 5.5 | 5.5 | http://openbsd.org/openbsd/5.5
rhel6.5 | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 | 6.5 | http://redhat.com/rhel/6.5
rhel7.0 | Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 | 7.0 | http://redhat.com/rhel/7.0
ubuntu12.04 | Ubuntu Precise Pangolin LTS | 12.04 | http://ubuntu.com/ubuntu/12.04
win3.1 | Microsoft Windows 3.1 | 3.1 | http://microsoft.com/win/3.1
win7 | Microsoft Windows 7 | 6.1 | http://microsoft.com/win/7
winxp | Microsoft Windows XP | 5.1 | http://microsoft.com/win/xp

### Kickstart and debootstrap

If you have a kickstart file set up you can give it directly to the vm using the
`--extra-args` parameter:

--extra-args "ks=http://server/vm.ks"

If you don't have a server set up you can inject a file into the `initrd` and
use that for kickstarting:

--initrd-inject=vm.ks --extra-args "ks=file:/vm.ks"

`preseed.cfg` is a regular preseed file (as described in the Debian Wiki) in
your local filesystem. It must be named preseed.cfg in order for d-i to pick it
up from the initrd.

Here is another, rather boring, image of a Debian install via virt-install:

![debian][4]

### Starting a VM

To start a VM you've just created after the installation, use the `virsh start
NAME` command:

virsh start centos7

Use the `virsh list --all` to list all available virtual machines, including
powered off ones:

$ virsh list --all
Id Name State
----------------------------------------------------
4 centos7 running
- debian7 shut off
- win7 shut off
- win98 shut off
- winxp shut off

### Stopping and removing

To stop a VM, you give the (unintuitive) command `virsh destroy NAME`:

virsh destroy centos7

It will not remove any data, just stop the VM by pulling the virtual power
cable.

If you want to remove the VM from the `virsh list`, you need to undefine it:

virsh undefine centos7

This will remove the configuration. If you don't undefine the VM and want to try
the `virt-install` again it will give an error like this:

ERROR Guest name 'centos7' is already in use.

You do manually need to remove the virtual disk after undefining a vm.

[1]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/virt-install-centos7.png
[2]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212
[3]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/virt-install-opensuse.png
[4]: https://raymii.org/s/inc/img/virt-install-debian.png

---

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