KVM setup on Headless Ubuntu 18.04 Server

This guide show you how to setup KVM on a headless ubuntu 18.04 Server and setup Kimchi, a HTML5 Client to manage the VMs.

Prerequisites

A bare metal machine with ubuntu 18.04 Server instaleld on it, Fully patched and SSH enabled. My Server is called KVM and has a static IP address of 192.168.127.200

Install KVM

Run the following commands to install the base KVM packages via SSHing in the server.

sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin virtinst cpu-checker 

Run the following Commands to check that your CPU support KVM

kvm-ok 

Setup Network Bridge

To allow your VMs access to your network so that they appair that they have IP address of your local lan network.

Edit you network config using netplan

sudo vi /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

Below is my current static IP address setup configured by netplan

network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
        enp0s25:
            dhcp4: no
            addresses: [192.168.127.200/24]
            gateway4: 192.168.127.10
            nameservers:
                addresses: [192.168.127.10]

Update the netplan config so that you enable a bridge on enp0s25 interface

network:
    version: 2
    ethernets:
        enp0s25:
            dhcp4: no
    bridges:
        br0:
            interfaces: [enp0s25]
            dhcp4: no
            addresses: [192.168.127.200/24]
            gateway4: 192.168.127.1
            nameservers:
                addresses: [192.168.127.10]

Apply the following command to apply the config

sudo netplan --debug  apply

You will proably get disconnected from the VM, SSH back in the KVM host to make sure the Network is working correctly

Create your First Virtual Machine

We first need to download the lastest Ubuntu ISO to the KVM server.

sudo wget -P /var/lib/libvirt/images http://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso /var/lib/libvirt/images

On your local Linux Desktop you can use Virtual Machine Manager to Create your first VM. Watch the youtube video (link at the top of the page) on what steps are need to create and install VMs.

Use the Follow comamd on your client to install the Virtual Machine Manager

sudo apt-get install virt-manager

Set Kimchi and Wok

We are now going to install Kimchi and Wok so that we can manage Virtual Machines via a HTML5 web browser.

SSH back on to the KVM server

Install dependencies required for Kimchi and Wok

sudo apt install python-paramiko python-pil novnc python-libvirt python-ethtool python-ipaddr python-guestfs libguestfs-tools spice-html5 spice-html5 python-magic keyutils libnfsidmap2 libtirpc1 nfs-common rpcbind python-configobj python-parted nginx -y

Download the wok and kimchi deb packages

wget https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/releases/download/2.5.0/wok-2.5.0-0.noarch.deb

wget https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/releases/download/2.5.0/kimchi-2.5.0-0.noarch.deb

Install wok by running the following command

sudo dpkg -i wok-2.5.0-0.noarch.deb

Run the following command to install the missing dependencies for wok and allow apt to then install wok

sudo apt install -f -y

Install Kimchi by running the following command

sudo dpkg --ignore-depends=python-imaging -i kimchi-2.5.0-0.noarch.deb

Download the following patch to fix the iso images error when try to add templates in kimchi

sudo wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/1ec059af4040c50b1a7b9a34253510a46ca09d3b/model/templates.py -O /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/wok/plugins/kimchi/model/templates.py

Run the following command to allow kimchi to have access to ubuntu iso

sudo cp /var/lib/libvirt/images/ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso /var/lib/kimchi/isos/ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso

Reboot the server to apply changes

sudo shutdown -r now

Goto https://kvm:8001 to start managing VMs via HTML5 Web browsers