What's inside

This container provides a kvm toolstack inside a container.

• Dockerfile with the definition of the kvm container currently based on the openSUSE Tumbleweed BCI image. Installs qemu, libvirt, virt-install and some additional tools
• kvm-server.conf contains environment variables used during deployment
• kvm-server-manage is a script to manage the deployment of the kvm container and the required libvirt services
• virt-install-demo.sh is a demo script to quickly install a test VM
• default_network.xml contains a deafult network configuration for the container and its workloads

Current deployments

For each of the commands below, replace <registry_path> with one of the following:

• registry.opensuse.org/suse/alp/workloads/tumbleweed_containerfiles/suse/alp/workloads/kvm-server - The latest stable release deployed to the SUSE ALP distribution (Default)
• registry.opensuse.org/virtualization/containerfile/suse/alp/workloads/kvm-server - The latest development branch of the kvm server container
• <custom-registry-path> - Path to your OBS home project registry, local registy, or external registry

How to get a working kvm server container

Prepare your host system

# podman container runlabel install <registry_path>:latest

Note: All commands to be run as root

Deploy the container

# kvm-server-manage enable

This will first start the container, then will deploy the libvirt services inside the container. If the container is already running, only the services will be restarted

Verify the deployment

# kvm-server-manage verify

This will verify successful deployment of the container and all required services

Install the test VM

# virt-install-demo.sh

Local VM management

Any virtualization client packages can be installed on the host and should work out of the box

Alternatively, refer to the KVM Client Container for containerized client tooling

Remote VM management

Ensure ssh access is configured between the client machine (running virsh or virt-manager locally) and the container host (where the kvm server container was deployed), then:

virsh -c "qemu+ssh://root@CONTAINER_HOST/system"

Optionally with an ssh key:

virsh -c "qemu+ssh://root@CONTAINER_HOST/system?keyfile=<local_path_to_private_key>"

VM access

Ensure a serial console or VNC server is configured with virt-install during installation or by modifying the libvirt xml with virsh edit

Attach via serial console

# virsh console <vm_name>

Attach via VNC

Local VNC client

• Find configured VNC port: virsh vncdisplay <vm_name>
• Establish VNC connection: vncviewer localhost:<vnc_port>

Remote VNC client

• Ensure the VM was created with a VNC server which is configured to listen on 0.0.0.0 or any of the host's external-facing IPs, preferably with a password
  • virt-install ... --graphics vnc,listen=0.0.0.0,port=5950,password=<vnc_password>
• Find configured VNC port: virsh vncdisplay <vm_name>
• Establish VNC connection from client: vncviewer <host_ip>:<vnc_host_port>

Remote VNC client over SSH

• Ensure SSH access is configured between the client machine and the container host
• Ensure the VM was created with a VNC server which is configured to only listen on localhost
  • virt-install ... --graphics vnc,listen=127.0.0.1,port=5950
• Find configured VNC port: virsh -c "qemu+ssh://root@CONTAINER_HOST/system" vncdisplay <vm_name>
• Create a port-forwarded ssh tunnel: ssh -NL <vnc_client_port>:127.0.0.1:<vnc_host_port> <ip_of_container_host>
  • If the client also has a VNC server running on port 5900, then <vnc_client_port> must be port 5901 and above
• Establish VNC connection from client: vncviewer 127.0.0.1:<vnc_client_port>

Restart the container

# kvm-server-manage restart

A fresh deployment of the container and all required services If the container is already running, all running VMs will be stopped and the container will be restarted

Stop the container

# kvm-server-manage stop

This will stop all services, stop the container, and stop any running VMs. The container, along with the services, will be started again upon the next host boot or Restart the container as desired

Note using podman stop is not advised. Since the container lifecycle is managed by systemd, this will only cause the container to re-exec but none of the container's libvirt services will be restarted

Update the container

First stop the container with kvm-server-manage stop, then:

# sudo podman container runlabel update <registry_path>

This will update to the latest container image including updated virtualization components

Disable the container

# kvm-server-manage disable

This will stop all libvirt service in the container, stop the container, and disable the service from running on the next reboot. Nothing is uninstalled from the host. Redeploy as desired.

Uninstall the kvm server container

# sudo podman container runlabel uninstall <registry_path>

Warning

This code is only provided for experimentation.