KVM - User contributions [en]

FAQ

2020-12-20T20:44:46Z

Iggy: minor formatting fix

=FAQ=
__TOC__
== Preparing to use KVM ==
=== What do I need to use KVM? ===
You will need an x86 machine running a recent Linux kernel on an Intel processor with VT (virtualization technology) extensions, or an AMD processor with SVM extensions (also called AMD-V). Xen has a [http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors complete list] of compatible processors. For Intel processors, see also [http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx the Intel® Virtualization Technology List].

----------
=== Are 64-bit processors supported under KVM? ===
Yes they are supported and will allow you to run 32-bit and 64-bit guests.

See also '''Can KVM run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE?''' below.

----------

=== What is Intel VT / AMD-V / hvm? ===
[http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2006/v10i3/1-hardware/6-vt-x-vt-i-solutions.htm Intel VT] and [http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8826_14287,00.html AMD's AMD-V] are instruction set extensions that provide hardware assistance to virtual machine monitors. They enable running fully isolated virtual machines at native hardware speeds, for some workloads.

HVM (for Hardware Virtual Machine) is a vendor-neutral term often used to designate the x86 instruction set extensions.

----------

=== Where do I get my kvm kernel modules from? ===

See the [[Getting the kvm kernel modules]] page.

----------

=== How can I tell if I have Intel VT or AMD-V? ===
With a recent enough Linux kernel, run the command:

'''egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo'''

If something shows up, you have VT. You can also check the processor model name (in `/proc/cpuinfo`) in the vendor's web site.

Note:

* You'll never see (vmx|svm) in /proc/cpuinfo if you're currently running in in a dom0 or domU. The Xen hypervisor suppresses these flags in order to prevent hijacking.
* Some manufacturers disable VT in the machine's BIOS, in such a way that it cannot be re-enabled.
* `/proc/cpuinfo` only shows virtualization capabilities starting with Linux 2.6.15 (Intel) and Linux 2.6.16 (AMD). Use the `uname -r` command to query your kernel version.
In case of doubt, contact your hardware vendor.

----------

=== "KVM: disabled by BIOS" error ===
Check if there is an option to enable it in the BIOS. If not, look for a more recent BIOS on the vendor's web site.

Note:

* On some hardware (e-g HP nx6320), you need to power-off/power-on the machine after enabling virtualization in the BIOS.
* Enabling some BIOS features may break VT support on some hardware (e-g Enabling Intel AMT on a Thinkpad T500 will prevent kvm-intel from loading with "disabled by bios")
* On some Dell hardware, you also need to disable "Trusted Execution", otherwise VT will not be enabled.

----------

=== How can I use AMD-V extension? ===
modprobe kvm-amd

----------

=== What user space tools does KVM use? ===
KVM uses a slightly modified [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu QEMU] program to instantiate the virtual machine. Once running, a virtual machine is just a regular process. You can use `top(1), kill(1), taskset(1)` and similar tools to manage virtual machines.

----------

=== What virtual disk formats can KVM use? ===
KVM inherits a wealth of disk formats support from QEMU; it supports raw images, the native QEMU format (qcow2), VMware format, and many more.

----------

=== How do I use KVM on a headless machine (without a local GUI?) ===
Install a management tool such as virt-manager on a remote machine.

----------

=== Are there management tools available to help me manage my virtual machines? ===
Yes. Please see the [[Management Tools]] page for some links.

----------

== Using KVM ==
=== How can I use KVM with a non-privileged user? ===
The cleanest way is probably to create a group, say ''kvm'', and add the user(s) to that group. Then you will need change /dev/kvm to owned by group ''kvm''.

On a system that runs udev, you will probably need to add the following line somewhere in your udev configuration so it will automatically give the right group to the newly created device (i-e for ubuntu add a line to ''/etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules'').

KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm"

----------

=== How can I get the most performance out of KVM? ===

See the [[Tuning KVM]] page.

----------

=== Is KVM stable? ===
KVM is stable and used in production. As with most open source projects, development snapshots are less stable than the stable release series.

If your name is Andreas Mohr, you're reporting bugs in the wrong place.
----------

=== That's alright, but can I really use it for my daily use? ===
Sure. We continuously run the most often-used OSes and configurations and if anything breaks for the developers, it's fixed as soon as it was broken. See the [[Guest Support Status]] and [[Host Support Status]] pages to find out more. Please update them with success stories so that new users would benefit from the experience of the community.

----------

=== How about production use? ===
For production use, it's recommended you use the KVM modules shipped by the distribution you're using to ensure stability. As mentioned above, it's tempting to use new features, but you never know of (unwanted) surprises hidden away. It'll be best if you can run the development snapshots with non-critical production load, so that the latest releases are stable for you when you decide to deploy them.

----------

=== What happens if I kill -9 a VM process? ===
From the guest's perspective, it is as if you yanked the power cord out. From the host's perspective, the process is killed and all resources it uses are reclaimed.

----------

=== I need help to setup the network for my guest ===
You can have a look to the [[Networking]] page of this wiki for informations on the most classical networking setup for the guests. You can also refer to the QEMU documentation.

----------

=== Where can I find more documention... ===
Most usability issues are covered in the QEMU [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/user-doc.html documentation]. There is also an extensive [http://qemu-buch.de/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions FAQ] (old vanished link: [http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions FAQ]).

----------

== Troubleshooting ==
=== How can I check that I'm not falling back to QEMU with no hardware acceleration? ===

If you think that you might not be using the hardware acceleration provided by the KVM module, here are a few steps to help you check this.

First of all, check that you don't have messages such as:

qemu-system-x86_64 -hda myvm.qcow2
open /dev/kvm: No such file or directory
Could not initialize KVM, will disable KVM support

In that case, you can check that:
* the modules are correctly loaded <code>lsmod|grep kvm
* you don't have a "KVM: disabled by BIOS" line in the output of dmesg
* /dev/kvm exists and you have the correct rights to use it

Other ways to do the diagnostic:
* if you have access to the QEMU monitor (Ctrl-Alt-2, use Ctrl-Alt-1 to get back to the VM display), enter the "info kvm" command and it should respond with "KVM support: enabled"
* the right-end columns of the output from <code>lsmod|grep kvm</code> on the host system, once the VM is started should show only non zero values. The value on the line corresponding to the architecture specific module (e-g kvm_intel, kvm_amd) show the number of VM using the module. For instance, if I have 2 VM running using the KVM module on a machine with vt, it will report:

lsmod|grep kvm
kvm_intel 44896 2
kvm 159656 1 kvm_intel

=== When connecting to a VNC terminal, a "rect too big" message appears and the VNC session disconnects ===
This happens because of a VNC protocol flaw on the way on-the-fly pixel format changes are handled (more info at [http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg04879.html this thread]). If you are using TigerVNC, you can avoid this problem by disabling on-the-fly selection of pixel encoding, using the <tt>-AutoSelect=0</tt> command-line option of vncviewer. You may also want to check the encoding options on the vncviewer man page, as this will disable automatic selection of encoding based on connection speed.

----------
'''How do I set up the network such that my guest is accessible from other machines?''' or

=== My guest network is stuck what should I do? ===
KVM uses QEMU for its device emulation. Consult the [http://qemu-project.org/Documentation/Networking QEMU network wiki page] for detailed network setup instructions.

One would probably be interested in the Root Networking Mode page and the Network Bridge page.

Guest-side network lockups (fortunately restartable) may be happening due to tun/tap bridging erroneous MAC address reconfiguration on host side, see RHEL bug #571991 and others.

----------

=== I'm experiencing timer drift issues in my VM guests, what to do? ===

Especially in case of networked systems (e.g. via NFS or Samba) it is very important to ensure stable operation of timing (both system timer and RTC).
Tell-tale signs of related trouble in VMs (apparently qemu/KVM/VMWare etc. are all affected) are e.g.
"make[2]: Warning: File `XXXXX/cmakelists_rebuilder.stamp' has modification time 0.37 s in the future"
"Clock skew detected. Your build may be incomplete."

[http://maemovmware.garage.maemo.org/2nd_edition/requirements_documentation.html Maemo docs] state that it's important to disable UTC and set the correct time zone, however I don't really see how that would help in case of diverging host/guest clocks.
IMHO much more useful and important is to configure properly working NTP server (chrony recommended, or ntpd) on both host and guest.
The single most decisive trick IMHO is to specify the '''host''' NTP server as the main entry within guest VM instead of "foreign" NTP servers, to make sure to achieve the most precise coupling between these two related systems (timing drift vs. other systems does not matter nearly as much as a tight time precision for inner host/guest system interaction e.g. in the case of NFS/Samba shares etc.).
For verification, see chronyc "sources -v", "tracking" ("System time" row) commands.

After having applied this very tight NTP coupling, this seems to finally have gotten rid of make's time drift warnings.

Perhaps qemu's -tdf (timing drift fix) option magically manages to help in your case, too.

See also [https://espace.cern.ch/it-faqs/Lists/faqs/DispForm.aspx?ID=368 Faqs: I received a message about "clock skew"].

----------
=== I get "rtc interrupts lost" messages, and the guest is very slow? ===
Try setting <code>CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y</code> in your host <code>.config</code>.

----------

=== I get an "Exception 13" or "Exception 12" message while booting a guest OS on my Intel host ===
See the [[Intel Real Mode Emulation Problems]] page.

----------

=== I have VMware/Parallels/VirtualBox installed and when I modprobe KVM, my system deadlocks. ===
Neither Intel VT nor AMD-V provide a mechanism to determine whether software is currently using the hardware virtualization extensions. This means that if you have two kernel modules loaded attempting to use hardware virtualization extensions, very bad things will happen. If you are using another type of virtualization software and experience any sort of weirdness with KVM, make sure you can reproduce the problem without the kernel modules for that software loaded before you report a bug in KVM.

----------

=== There's nothing on QEMU/KVM screen, but it's not hanged! I'm trying to install Kubuntu. ===
Try to run kvm with -std-vga option. It helps if guest operating system uses framebuffer mode like Kubuntu/Ubuntu.

----------

=== When I click the guest operating system window, mouse is grabbed. How can I get mouse to not to do that? OR Mouse doesn't show up / doesn't work in the guest. What do I do? ===
From #qemu wiki, try to run kvm/qemu with

-usb -usbdevice tablet
If that doesn't work, try this:

$ export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0
(from http://wiki.clug.org.za/wiki/QEMU_mouse_not_working )

----------

== General KVM information ==
=== What is the difference between KVM and Xen? ===
Xen is an external hypervisor; it assumes control of the machine and divides resources among guests. On the other hand, KVM is part of Linux and uses the regular Linux scheduler and memory management. This means that KVM is much smaller and simpler to use; it is also more featureful; for example KVM can swap guests to disk in order to free RAM.

KVM only run on processors that supports x86 hvm (vt/svm instructions set) whereas Xen also allows running modified operating systems on non-hvm x86 processors using a technique called paravirtualization. KVM does not support paravirtualization for CPU but may support paravirtualization for device drivers to improve I/O performance.

----------

=== What is the difference between KVM and VMware? ===
VMware is a proprietary product. KVM is Free Software released under the GPL.

----------

=== What is the difference between KVM and QEMU? ===
QEMU uses emulation; KVM uses processor extensions (HVM) for virtualization.

----------

=== Do you have a port of KVM for Windows? ===
Not officially.

Kazushi Takahashi has been working on an experimental version though, called WinKVM, available [http://github.com/ddk50/winkvm here].

----------

=== What kernel version does it work with? ===
It depends on what version of KVM you are using. The last release of KVM should work with any recent kernel (2.6.17 and above), older releases even older kernels.

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=== How much RAM do I need? ===
You will need enough memory to let the guest run comfortably while keeping enough for the host. 1GB is probably a minimum configuration for the host OS.

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=== Is dynamic memory management for guests supported? ===
This is a broad topic covering a few areas.

A. KVM only allocates memory as the guest tries to use it. Once it's allocated, KVM keeps it. Some guests (namely Microsoft guests) zero all memory at boot time. So they will use all memory.

B. Certain guests (only Linux at the moment) have a balloon driver, so the host can have the guest allocate a certain amount of memory which the guest won't be able to use anymore and it can then be freed on the host. Ballooning is controlled in the host via the [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/qemu-doc.html#SEC12 balloon monitor command].

C. Some hosts (presently only RHEL5.4 / CentOS 5.4) have a feature called KSM (Kernel Sharedpage Merging), which collapses together identical pages; this requires kernel support on the host, as well as a kvm new enough to opt in to the behavior. As some guest platforms (most notably Windows) zero out free'd memory, such pages are trivially collapsed. The ksmctl command needs to be used to enable KSM; alternately, the ksmtuned service found in Fedora 12 can be run to dynamically adjust KSM's aggressiveness based on the amount of free memory available

----------

=== What OSs can I run inside KVM VM? ===
Several. See the [[Guest Support Status]] page for details. Note that several Linux flavors are known to hang on Intel processors during startup. Workaround is to disable splash screens in grub.

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=== Does KVM support a live migration feature to move virtual machines from one host to another without downtime? ===
Yes. See the [[Migration]] page for details.

----------

=== Does KVM support live migration from an AMD host to an Intel host and back? ===
Yes. There may be issues on 32-bit Intel hosts which don't support NX (or XD), but for 64-bit hosts back and forth migration should work well. Migration of 32-bit guests should work between 32-bit hosts and 64-bit hosts.
If one of your hosts does not support NX, you may consider disabling NX when starting the guest on a NX-capable system. You can do it by passing "-cpu qemu64,-nx" parameter to the guest.

----------

=== Can KVM run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE? ===
KVM supports 32-bit guests on 64-bit hosts, and any combination of PAE and non-PAE guests and hosts. The only unsupported combination is a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host.

If you are running a Windows Virtual Machine and have problems enabling PAE in your guest see the [[Windows PAE Workaround]] page.

----------

=== Is it possible to use a host's USB devices within a guest? ===
Yes, this method is described in detail [http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/USB_Host_Device_Assigned_to_Guest here].

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=== Can I have higher or widescreen resolutions (eg 1680 x 1050) in KVM? ===
Use the -vga std parameter while starting the VM to allow high resolution and widescreen displays.

If the resolution you want to use is not available, you can patch the corresponding source files (see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.kvm.devel/13557 as a reference), or send a mail to the KVM mailing list if you are not able to patch the source yourself.

When using Windows as guest OS and not having issues with people violating the GPL you might want to use the driver from the VBEMP x86 project (http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbemp.htm) which is based on ReactOS code.

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=== Does KVM support SMP hosts? ===
Yes.

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=== Does KVM support SMP guests? ===
Yes. Up to 16 CPUs can be specified using the -smp option.

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=== Is the name 'KVM' trademarked? ===
No.

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=== I compiled a new kernel for my KVM client and the ethernet interface is not recognized ===
You can specify alternative network interfaces to qemu with the ''-net nic,model='' parameter. For example, ''-net nic,model=rtl8139'' would enable a device with the Realtek 8139 chipset.

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=== I can't ping from guest to host or vice versa. How can I access the host? ===
The ping command may not go through in this circumstance, but you may be able to access the host in another way. For example, you can access a host running Apache by entering its IP address into a browser within the guest.

----------

[[Category:Docs]][[Category:HowTo]]

Management Tools

2020-10-12T02:45:53Z

Iggy: Alphabetize list... hopefully

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:

(Please keep this list in alphabetical order)

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-
!Name/URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
!License

|-
|[http://www.abiquo.com/ Abiquo]
|Abiquo is a technology-agnostic solution for enterprises and service providers who want to quickly and simply build, manage and develop public and private clouds based on their existing heterogeneous environments.
|Web, REST
|Active
|KVM, Xen, VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V & XenServer support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Commercial

|-
|[http://archipelproject.org/ Archipel]
|Archipel is an Open Source project that aims to bring push notifications to virtualization orchestration using XMPP.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen, Virtual Box & OpenVZ support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/aqemu/ AQemu]
|a Qt4 user interface for KVM
|Desktop
|2013-05-30
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://clownix.net cloonix]
|cloonix is a virtualization management framework aimed at virtual networks building based on kvm.
|Gui/cli
|Active
|KVM
| [http://opensource.org/licenses/RPL-1.5 RPL Licence]

|-
|[http://cloudstack.org/ CloudStack]
|Cloudstack is an open source project that enables the deployment, management, and configuration of multi-tier and multi-tenant infrastructure cloud services using Xen, KVM and VMware hypervisors.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen & VMware support
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://www.convirture.com/products_opensource.php ConVirt]
|ConVirt 2.0 Open Source is the leading open source product for managing Xen and KVM, enabling you to standardize and proactively manage your virtualized environment in a centralized fashion.
|Web
|Active
|Xen & KVM; formerly known as xenman
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://src.enomaly.com/ Enomaly]
|a programmable virtual cloud infrastructure for small, medium and large businesses
|Web, REST
|Not available as of 2010-02-08
|they have commercial and open source editions
|Commercial/[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[http://www.eucalyptus.com/ Eucalyptus]
|Eucalyptus is open source software for building AWS-compatible private and hybrid clouds. Eucalyptus allows IT organizations to build an on-premises Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud that pools together compute, storage, and network resources. With Eucalyptus, developers can leverage knowledge and tools around AWS APIs, including EC2, S3, EBS, IAM, Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, and CloudWatch. IT can create a flexible hybrid cloud environment so that developers can develop sooner, test more, and deploy faster while giving IT and cloud admins greater control of cloud performance, scale, and security.
|Web, CLI, REST, SOAP
|Active
|Supports KVM and VMware. Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]. View the Eucalyptus Compatibility Matrix: http://bit.ly/QfH4Iv
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html GPL v3]

|-
|[http://theforeman.org Foreman]
|Foreman is aimed to be a Single Address For All Machines Life
Cycle Management including bare metal / vm / cloud provisioning, configuration managememnt and configureation reports/auditing using puppet
|Web, REST, CLI
|Active
| KVM, VMWare, oVirt RHEV-M, EC2, OpenStack
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html GPL v3]

|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/ Ganeti]
|Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies
|CLI
|Active
|KVM support added in Ganeti 2.0
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM]
|A Gnome user interface for KVM.
|Desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://karesansui-project.info/ Karesansui]
|Karesansui is an open-source virtualization management application. It's smart graphical user interface lowers your management cost, and brings a total management/audit solution for both physical and virtual servers.
|Web, REST
|November 2013
|KVM & Xen support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html LGPL v2.1]/[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi kimchi]
|Kimchi is an HTML5 based management tool for KVM. It is designed to make it
as easy as possible to get started with KVM and create your first guest.
|WEB
|Active
|KVM
| [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.html LGPL],[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[https://kubevirt.io/ Kubevirt]
|Virtualization API for Kubernetes
|CLI, API
|Active
|Run VMs in Kubernetes
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|CLI
|2007-09-25
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[https://github.com/jstimpfle/kvmupdown kvmupdown]
|simple, robust and no-bloat management interface.
|CLI
|Link broken, probably terminated project
|KVM
|public domain

|-
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Kvmtools kvm-admin]
|Python scripts for managing the guests (boot, shutdown ...) and include a commandline monitor .
|CLI
|Active
|kvm support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://codewreck.org/kvm-wrapper kvm-wrapper]
|kvm-wrapper is a lightweight, simple and intended to be hackable set of shell scripts that help manage kvm virtual machines a great deal.
|CLI
|Active
|KVM support
|[http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ WTFPL (v2)]

|-
|[https://mist.io Mist.io ]
|Mist.io provides a unifed dashboard / API for managing your entire infrastructure - public and private clouds, KVM and VMware hypervisors, bare metal, and containers. You can install the [http://github.com/mistio/mist.io open-source version] or use the freemium service. [https://mist.io Try it out]
|Web, Mobile, REST API, CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org/ libvirt] and [https://libcloud.apache.org/ libcloud] for VM management. Supports KVM, several public cloud providers, OpenStack, Docker and bare metal servers.
|AGPL v3 for the open source version, Commercial for the service

|-
|[https://morpheusdata.com/ Morpheus]
|Morpheus provides a single dashboard for managing hybrid infrastructure - KVM, Xen, VMware hypervisors, public clouds, bare metal, and containers. [https://morpheusdata.com/ Learn more.]
|UI, API, and CLI
|Active
|
|Commercial (community licensing for testing and lab environments; up to 25 workloads and 3 clouds)

|-
|[https://github.com/ChoHag/nbsvm nbsvm]
|No Bullshit VMs. No setup required. No dependencies but sudo, and LVM or ZFS. Start, stop, create and clone images and view VMs using simple chained commands. Basically applies sane (overridden by cli or file) defaults to the kvm invocation and gets out of the way. Sudo invocation is designed to allow user access controls.
|CLI
|February 2014
|
|[http://www.wtfpl.net/ WTFPL 2]

|-
|[http://nimbula.com/ Nimbula Director]
|Nimbula Director is a Cloud Operating System that enables Infrastructure as a Service using the KVM.
|Web, CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM support
|Commercial (Freemium)

|-
|[http://www.op5.com/op5-features/easy-monitoring-kvm/ op5]
|op5 develops and delivers op5 Monitor a enterprise-class software for IT monitoring and administration of the whole IT. op5 developed a KVM plug-in to monitor KVM virtualization infrastructure that allows organizations to have better capacity planning, which enables the provisioning of usage of resources such as storage, CPU, and memory more proactively.
|Web, REST
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]
|-
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php OpenNebula]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|CLI, XML-RPC
|Active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]
|-
|[http://opennode.activesys.org OpenNode]
|RHEL/CentOS based open-source server virtualization and management solution - simple bare-metal installer, providing KVM+OpenVZ host and standard libvirt, func management interfaces together with standard cli tools like virsh and vzctl. OpenNode Management Server with ajax web-based management console available - as is RPC-JSON API interface.
|Web, CLI, API
|Active
|Bare-metal installer, KVM, OpenVZ hypervizors and variety of management tools
|Unknown

|-
|[http://www.openqrm.com/ openQRM]
|openQRM is the next generation, open-source Data-center management platform.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen, VMware and Linux V-Server support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://ovirt.org/ oVirt]
|oVirt is a virtualization management framework constisting of a small host image, the oVirt Node, that provides the libvirt service to host virtual machines, and a robust vm management software stack, controlled by a web-based management interface, the oVirt Server.
|Web
|Active
|uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ Platform9 Managed OpenStack]
|Platform9 makes it very easy to manage a KVM environment with resource pooling and automation. Platform9's Openstack service easily integrates with any new or existing Linux servers. KVM expertise is helpful but not required. The OpenStack service supports [https://platform9.com/support/linux-kvm-support-prerequisites-platform9-openstack/ major Linux distributions including CentOS, RHEL & Ubuntu]. See the [https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ demos for KVM].
|[https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ UI], [http://docs.openstack.org/cli-reference/content/novaclient_commands.html OpenStack CLI], [http://docs.platform9.com/ OpenStack API] & integrations (puppet, ansible, chef, vagrant, etc).
|Active
|Fast, Easy & Affordable for anyone familiar with Linux. See [https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ KVM Management w/ OpenStack].
|Commercial. A free trial is available.

|-
|[https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/ Proxmox VE]
|Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization management platform to manage VMs and containers.
The Debian-based platform uses KVM as hypervisor and also provides OS-level virtualization using LXC containers. It provides enterprise-class features like clustering, high availability, networking, live migration, backup/restore, integrates a built-in firewall and come with various storage plugins such as LVM, LVM-thin, iSCSI/kernel, iSCSI/libiscsi, Ceph/RBD, Sheepdog, ZFS over iSCSI, ZFS (local), directory, NFS, CIFS, and GlusterFS.
|Web, CLI, API
|Active
|Bare-metall ISO installer including KVM and LXC management tools
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[http://pdnsoft.com/en/web/pdnen/pvm-download PVM]
| ( [http://www.pdnsoft.com/ PDNSoft ] Virtual Machine Management System) is a hypervisor based on KVM.It provides new application stack to manage KVM virtual machines instead of using Libvirt with it's own considerations.Cluster and user awareness is specific features in PVM design, so managing of HA and other features is done by PVM application stack that is placed directly on KVM.
|Desktop,CLI
|Active
|Bar-metall installer
|Commercial

|-
|Plain [http://www.linux-kvm.org qemu/kvm]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|CLI
|Active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64 or kvm or qemu-kvm) for more info
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://www.redhat.com/rhev Red Hat Virtualization / RHV]
|Commercial management solution for RHEL / KVM.
|Web
|Active
|
|Commercial

|-
|[http://www.solusvm.com/ SolusVM]
|The most popular control panel for commercial use.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen & OpenVZ support
|Commercial

|-
|[http://www.stackops.org/ Stackops Openstack Distro]
|Stackops is an Openstack Nova distribution verified and tested for KVM. You only need to download the ISO image with the distro and install it on one or more servers.
|CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM & QEMU (libvirt based)
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[https://www.univention.com/products/ucs/functions/virtualization-uvmm/ UVMM]
|UCS Virtual Machine Manager (UVMM) is an easy-to-use and powerful administration tool for KVM. It virtualizes Microsoft Windows, Univention Corporate Server and other Linux distributions by providing all the necessary functions for creating and managing virtual instances (also OpenStack and Amazon EC2-based resources) and hard drives on physical servers centrally via a web-based modern interface. On AWS it also manages Virtual Private Clouds (VPC). UVMM is included in [https://www.univention.com/products/ucs/ Univention Corporate Server] by default, an easy-to-use and scalable Enterprise distribution with an integrated management system for the central management of heterogeneous environments.
|Web, CLI
|Active
|Supports KVM, Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Free for use, [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[http://libvirt.org virsh]
|A minimal shell around libvirt for managing VMs
|CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.html LGPL]

|-
|[https://launchpad.net/virtualbrick Virtualbricks]
|Python-gtk GUI to manage guest and hybrid (host/guest) networks.
|CLI
|2011-11-23
|kvm, qemu, ksm & [http://vde.sourceforge.net/ VDE] support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://virt-manager.org VMM / Virtual Machine Manager]
|Also known as virt-manager. A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines.
|Desktop
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|VMM's supporting tools [http://virt-manager.org virt-install/clone/convert]
|Command line tools for provisioning new VMs, cloning existing VMs and importing / converting appliance images.
|CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://ispsystem.com/en/software/vmmanager VMmanager]
|Software solution for virtualization management that can be used both for hosting virtual machines and building a cloud. With VMmanager you can manage not only one server, but a large cluster of hypervisors. It delivers a number of functions, such as live migration that allows for load balancing between cluster nodes, monitoring CPU, memory and I/O operation enabling to detect problematic nodes, use of local and networks storages, and many tools for efficient management.
|Web, CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM, uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Commercial

|-
|[https://github.com/mzch/vmmaestro vmmaestro]
|vmmaestro is a tiny shell script which can start/stop/monitor KVM guests.
|CLI
|Active
|KVM
| [http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php MIT License]

|-
|[http://sparrow-devs.jimdo.com/vm-king VM-King]
|VM-King is an Android App that allows you to manage your hypervisior remotely from your Android mobile or tablet. This app supports the following functions: Start/stop/destroy VM, restore and delete snapshots, get screenshot of running VMs, get remote display connection information (VNC/Spice).
|mobile, tablet
|Active
|KVM
| free

|-
|[http://retspen.github.io/ WebVirtMgr]
|Web service for managing VMs based on the KVM
|WEB
|Active
|Only KVM; use libvirt
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://witsbits.com/ Witsbits]
|Witsbits enables you to set up your servers with virtualization and deploy virtual machines faster than ever before. It’s a complete virtualization solution with a self-upgrading hypervisor and cloud-based centralized management, reducing time spent on maintenance to a fraction of what other solutions require. The self-configuring hypervisor comes as a Live CD, delivering the fastest time-to-deployment by removing the need for spending time on installation and configuration.
|Web
|Active
|Live CD Hypervisor with SaaS Management System
|Free for 5 CPUs (full version)

|}

Management Tools

2020-10-02T21:21:27Z

Iggy: Add Morpheus community license note

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-
!Name/URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
!License

|-
|[https://morpheusdata.com/ Morpheus]
|Morpheus provides a single dashboard for managing hybrid infrastructure - KVM, Xen, VMware hypervisors, public clouds, bare metal, and containers. [https://morpheusdata.com/ Learn more.]
|UI, API, and CLI
|Active
|
|Commercial (community licensing for testing and lab environments; up to 25 workloads and 3 clouds)

|-
|[https://mist.io Mist.io ]
|Mist.io provides a unifed dashboard / API for managing your entire infrastructure - public and private clouds, KVM and VMware hypervisors, bare metal, and containers. You can install the [http://github.com/mistio/mist.io open-source version] or use the freemium service. [https://mist.io Try it out]
|Web, Mobile, REST API, CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org/ libvirt] and [https://libcloud.apache.org/ libcloud] for VM management. Supports KVM, several public cloud providers, OpenStack, Docker and bare metal servers.
|AGPL v3 for the open source version, Commercial for the service

|-
|[https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ Platform9 Managed OpenStack]
|Platform9 makes it very easy to manage a KVM environment with resource pooling and automation. Platform9's Openstack service easily integrates with any new or existing Linux servers. KVM expertise is helpful but not required. The OpenStack service supports [https://platform9.com/support/linux-kvm-support-prerequisites-platform9-openstack/ major Linux distributions including CentOS, RHEL & Ubuntu]. See the [https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ demos for KVM].
|[https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ UI], [http://docs.openstack.org/cli-reference/content/novaclient_commands.html OpenStack CLI], [http://docs.platform9.com/ OpenStack API] & integrations (puppet, ansible, chef, vagrant, etc).
|Active
|Fast, Easy & Affordable for anyone familiar with Linux. See [https://platform9.com/products/kvm/ KVM Management w/ OpenStack].
|Commercial. A free trial is available.

|-
|[https://github.com/ChoHag/nbsvm nbsvm]
|No Bullshit VMs. No setup required. No dependencies but sudo, and LVM or ZFS. Start, stop, create and clone images and view VMs using simple chained commands. Basically applies sane (overridden by cli or file) defaults to the kvm invocation and gets out of the way. Sudo invocation is designed to allow user access controls.
|CLI
|February 2014
|
|[http://www.wtfpl.net/ WTFPL 2]

|-
|[http://witsbits.com/ Witsbits]
|Witsbits enables you to set up your servers with virtualization and deploy virtual machines faster than ever before. It’s a complete virtualization solution with a self-upgrading hypervisor and cloud-based centralized management, reducing time spent on maintenance to a fraction of what other solutions require. The self-configuring hypervisor comes as a Live CD, delivering the fastest time-to-deployment by removing the need for spending time on installation and configuration.
|Web
|Active
|Live CD Hypervisor with SaaS Management System
|Free for 5 CPUs (full version)

|-
|[http://www.eucalyptus.com/ Eucalyptus]
|Eucalyptus is open source software for building AWS-compatible private and hybrid clouds. Eucalyptus allows IT organizations to build an on-premises Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud that pools together compute, storage, and network resources. With Eucalyptus, developers can leverage knowledge and tools around AWS APIs, including EC2, S3, EBS, IAM, Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, and CloudWatch. IT can create a flexible hybrid cloud environment so that developers can develop sooner, test more, and deploy faster while giving IT and cloud admins greater control of cloud performance, scale, and security.
|Web, CLI, REST, SOAP
|Active
|Supports KVM and VMware. Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]. View the Eucalyptus Compatibility Matrix: http://bit.ly/QfH4Iv
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html GPL v3]

|-
|[https://www.univention.com/products/ucs/functions/virtualization-uvmm/ UVMM]
|UCS Virtual Machine Manager (UVMM) is an easy-to-use and powerful administration tool for KVM. It virtualizes Microsoft Windows, Univention Corporate Server and other Linux distributions by providing all the necessary functions for creating and managing virtual instances (also OpenStack and Amazon EC2-based resources) and hard drives on physical servers centrally via a web-based modern interface. On AWS it also manages Virtual Private Clouds (VPC). UVMM is included in [https://www.univention.com/products/ucs/ Univention Corporate Server] by default, an easy-to-use and scalable Enterprise distribution with an integrated management system for the central management of heterogeneous environments.
|Web, CLI
|Active
|Supports KVM, Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Free for use, [http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|Plain [http://www.linux-kvm.org qemu/kvm]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|CLI
|Active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64 or kvm or qemu-kvm) for more info
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://libvirt.org virsh]
|A minimal shell around libvirt for managing VMs
|CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.html LGPL]

|-
|[http://virt-manager.org VMM / Virtual Machine Manager]
|Also known as virt-manager. A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines.
|Desktop
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|VMM's supporting tools [http://virt-manager.org virt-install/clone/convert]
|Command line tools for provisioning new VMs, cloning existing VMs and importing / converting appliance images.
|CLI
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://www.redhat.com/rhev Red Hat Virtualization / RHV]
|Commercial management solution for RHEL / KVM.
|Web
|Active
|
|Commercial

|-
|[https://kubevirt.io/ Kubevirt]
|Virtualization API for Kubernetes
|
|Active
|
|

|-
|[http://ispsystem.com/en/software/vmmanager VMmanager]
|Software solution for virtualization management that can be used both for hosting virtual machines and building a cloud. With VMmanager you can manage not only one server, but a large cluster of hypervisors. It delivers a number of functions, such as live migration that allows for load balancing between cluster nodes, monitoring CPU, memory and I/O operation enabling to detect problematic nodes, use of local and networks storages, and many tools for efficient management.
|Web, CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM, uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Commercial

|-
|[https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/ Proxmox VE]
|Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization management platform to manage VMs and containers.
The Debian-based platform uses KVM as hypervisor and also provides OS-level virtualization using LXC containers. It provides enterprise-class features like clustering, high availability, networking, live migration, backup/restore, integrates a built-in firewall and come with various storage plugins such as LVM, LVM-thin, iSCSI/kernel, iSCSI/libiscsi, Ceph/RBD, Sheepdog, ZFS over iSCSI, ZFS (local), directory, NFS, CIFS, and GlusterFS.
|Web, CLI, API
|Active
|Bare-metall ISO installer including KVM and LXC management tools
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]
|-
|[http://pdnsoft.com/en/web/pdnen/pvm-download PVM]
| ( [http://www.pdnsoft.com/ PDNSoft ] Virtual Machine Management System) is a hypervisor based on KVM.It provides new application stack to manage KVM virtual machines instead of using Libvirt with it's own considerations.Cluster and user awareness is specific features in PVM design, so managing of HA and other features is done by PVM application stack that is placed directly on KVM.
|Desktop,CLI
|Active
|Bar-metall installer
|Commercial
|-

|[http://www.convirture.com/products_opensource.php ConVirt]
|ConVirt 2.0 Open Source is the leading open source product for managing Xen and KVM, enabling you to standardize and proactively manage your virtualized environment in a centralized fashion.
|Web
|Active
|Xen & KVM; formerly known as xenman
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]
|-
|[http://ovirt.org/ oVirt]
|oVirt is a virtualization management framework constisting of a small host image, the oVirt Node, that provides the libvirt service to host virtual machines, and a robust vm management software stack, controlled by a web-based management interface, the oVirt Server.
|Web
|Active
|uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]
|-
|[http://www.op5.com/op5-features/easy-monitoring-kvm/ op5]
|op5 develops and delivers op5 Monitor a enterprise-class software for IT monitoring and administration of the whole IT. op5 developed a KVM plug-in to monitor KVM virtualization infrastructure that allows organizations to have better capacity planning, which enables the provisioning of usage of resources such as storage, CPU, and memory more proactively.
|Web, REST
|Active
|Uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]
|-
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php OpenNebula]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|CLI, XML-RPC
|Active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]
|-
|[http://opennode.activesys.org OpenNode]
|RHEL/CentOS based open-source server virtualization and management solution - simple bare-metal installer, providing KVM+OpenVZ host and standard libvirt, func management interfaces together with standard cli tools like virsh and vzctl. OpenNode Management Server with ajax web-based management console available - as is RPC-JSON API interface.
|Web, CLI, API
|Active
|Bare-metal installer, KVM, OpenVZ hypervizors and variety of management tools
|Unknown
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/ Ganeti]
|Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies
|CLI
|Active
|KVM support added in Ganeti 2.0
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]
|-
|[http://karesansui-project.info/ Karesansui]
|Karesansui is an open-source virtualization management application. It's smart graphical user interface lowers your management cost, and brings a total management/audit solution for both physical and virtual servers.
|Web, REST
|November 2013
|KVM & Xen support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html LGPL v2.1]/[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://www.openqrm.com/ openQRM]
|openQRM is the next generation, open-source Data-center management platform.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen, VMware and Linux V-Server support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://www.abiquo.com/ Abiquo]
|Abiquo is a technology-agnostic solution for enterprises and service providers who want to quickly and simply build, manage and develop public and private clouds based on their existing heterogeneous environments.
|Web, REST
|Active
|KVM, Xen, VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V & XenServer support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|Commercial

|-
|[http://cloudstack.org/ CloudStack]
|Cloudstack is an open source project that enables the deployment, management, and configuration of multi-tier and multi-tenant infrastructure cloud services using Xen, KVM and VMware hypervisors.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen & VMware support
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://nimbula.com/ Nimbula Director]
|Nimbula Director is a Cloud Operating System that enables Infrastructure as a Service using the KVM.
|Web, CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM support
|Commercial (Freemium)

|-
|[http://archipelproject.org/ Archipel]
|Archipel is an Open Source project that aims to bring push notifications to virtualization orchestration using XMPP.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen, Virtual Box & OpenVZ support; uses [http://libvirt.org libvirt]
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[http://codewreck.org/kvm-wrapper kvm-wrapper]
|kvm-wrapper is a lightweight, simple and intended to be hackable set of shell scripts that help manage kvm virtual machines a great deal.
|CLI
|Active
|KVM support
|[http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ WTFPL (v2)]

|-
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Kvmtools kvm-admin]
|Python scripts for managing the guests (boot, shutdown ...) and include a commandline monitor .
|CLI
|Active
|kvm support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://www.solusvm.com/ SolusVM]
|The most popular control panel for commercial use.
|Web
|Active
|KVM, Xen & OpenVZ support
|Commercial

|-
|[http://www.stackops.org/ Stackops Openstack Distro]
|Stackops is an Openstack Nova distribution verified and tested for KVM. You only need to download the ISO image with the distro and install it on one or more servers.
|CLI, REST
|Active
|KVM & QEMU (libvirt based)
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://retspen.github.io/ WebVirtMgr]
|Web service for managing VMs based on the KVM
|WEB
|Active
|Only KVM; use libvirt
|[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://theforeman.org Foreman]
|Foreman is aimed to be a Single Address For All Machines Life
Cycle Management including bare metal / vm / cloud provisioning, configuration managememnt and configureation reports/auditing using puppet
|Web, REST, CLI
|Active
| KVM, VMWare, oVirt RHEV-M, EC2, OpenStack
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html GPL v3]

|-
|[https://launchpad.net/virtualbrick Virtualbricks]
|Python-gtk GUI to manage guest and hybrid (host/guest) networks.
|CLI
|2011-11-23
|kvm, qemu, ksm & [http://vde.sourceforge.net/ VDE] support
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/aqemu/ AQemu]
|a Qt4 user interface for KVM
|Desktop
|2013-05-30
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://src.enomaly.com/ Enomaly]
|a programmable virtual cloud infrastructure for small, medium and large businesses
|Web, REST
|Not available as of 2010-02-08
|they have commercial and open source editions
|Commercial/[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html AGPL v3]

|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|CLI
|2007-09-25
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM]
|A Gnome user interface for KVM.
|Desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|[http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html GPL v2]

|-
|[https://github.com/jstimpfle/kvmupdown kvmupdown]
|simple, robust and no-bloat management interface.
|CLI
|Link broken, probably terminated project
|KVM
|public domain

|-
|[https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi kimchi]
|Kimchi is an HTML5 based management tool for KVM. It is designed to make it
as easy as possible to get started with KVM and create your first guest.
|WEB
|Active
|KVM
| [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.html LGPL],[http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html Apache License v2]

|-
|[http://clownix.net cloonix]
|cloonix is a virtualization management framework aimed at virtual networks building based on kvm.
|Gui/cli
|Active
|KVM
| [http://opensource.org/licenses/RPL-1.5 RPL Licence]

|-
|[https://github.com/mzch/vmmaestro vmmaestro]
|vmmaestro is a tiny shell script which can start/stop/monitor KVM guests.
|CLI
|Active
|KVM
| [http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php MIT License]

|-
|[http://sparrow-devs.jimdo.com/vm-king VM-King]
|VM-King is an Android App that allows you to manage your hypervisior remotely from your Android mobile or tablet. This app supports the following functions: Start/stop/destroy VM, restore and delete snapshots, get screenshot of running VMs, get remote display connection information (VNC/Spice).
|mobile, tablet
|Active
|KVM
| free

|}

Guest Support Status

2014-07-22T04:59:22Z

Iggy: emphasize that the list isn't comprehensive

=Guest Support Status=

==Note:==
=Qemu/kvm will likely run most production operating systems, but this page is maintained nonetheless for general information purposes. Updates are welcomed.=

== Windows Family ==
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''

|-
| Windows Small Business Server 2011
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.355.0.1.el6.centos.2
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installed on CentOS 6.4 x64. Virtio drivers are installed in the guest os. Host machine has a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz and 8GB RAM. The guest uses 4GB RAM and 1 CPU core. Works flawless. By Jens Voskuhl

|-
| Windows 2012 Standard 180-days Evaluation
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installed on CentOS 6.3 64bit. Used Windows2008 settings for guest installation. By Alexander O.
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 Essential Business Server
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| Installed on 800 MB RAM only. Host is: Ubuntu Server 9.10 64-bit, 3 x 2.7 GHz AMD Athlon X3 425, 2 x 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz, single channel, 4 x 250 GB SATA Samsung 7200 drives: approx. 498 GB RAID 10 volume for host OS and machine images, 4 x 1 GB RAID 0 volume for swap due to low host main memory. USB hardware key works (Hasp), Virtio drivers for LAN and HDD still testing. By Tomaszg.
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 Small Business Server
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| AMD
| 64
| Works (reboot from guest doesn't correctly work)
| Installed on 2 GB RAM, 1 CPU core. Host is: Ubuntu Server 9.10 64-bit, 2 x Six-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2425 HE, 8 x 4 GB DDR2, ISCSI for Guest discspace. Don't use virtio drivers (harddisc/network), use IDE (harddisc) and e1000 (network) emulation instead. By Mark.
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 Standard
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| AMD
| 64
| Works (reboot from guest doesn't correctly work)
| Installed on 2 GB RAM, 1 CPU core. Host is: Ubuntu Server 9.10 64-bit, 2 x Six-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2425 HE, 8 x 4 GB DDR2, ISCSI for Guest discspace. Don't use virtio drivers (harddisc/network), use IDE (harddisc) and e1000 (network) emulation instead. By Mark.
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 Standard
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| Installed on 1.5 GB RAM, 2 CPU core. Host is: Fedora 14 32-bit, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz, 3 x 1 GB DDR2 + 1 x 2 GB DDR2, single SATA for host, separate SATA for guest. Working just fine with virtio or Realtek for network. CPU usage near 100% when viewing with KVM console, 14% when viewing through Remmina RDP.
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 R2 RTM
| 64
| kvm-88
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installs and works with 1GB guest RAM. [http://twitpic.com/dxs0z/full screenshot]
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 R2 Standard
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.5
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installed on HP Proliant ML330 G6 with Ubuntu 10.04.1 server host (2.6.32-24-server) with kvm-kmod-2.6.32.16 using 2 CPU and 2GB guest RAM with IDE harddisc and e1000 network emulation. Works great. By Krunoslav Husak (h00s)
|-

|-
| Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.5
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installed on HP Proliant DL530 G4 with Debian 6.0.2 (2.6.32-5-amd64). Using 4 CPU and 4GB RAM for guest. Run stable. By Alexander Pushkarev. [http://www.easyfoto.ru/20110722070342560.jpg Screenshot]
|-

|-
| Windows 8 Enterprise
| 64
| qemu-kvm-devel-1.1.92 3.7.0-rc2
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| using 2CPUs and 1GB guest RAM, latest virtio drivers work fine.
|-

|-
| Windows 7 Professional (Final)
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-1 ARCH-2.6.32
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| using 2CPUs and 2GB guest RAM [http://img715.yfrog.com/img715/2143/win7profnl642proc2gb.png Screenshot]
|-

|-
| Windows 7 RTM
| 32, 64
| kvm-88
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installs and works with 1GB guest RAM. [http://twitpic.com/d3gqq/full screenshot]
|-

|-
| Windows 7 RC
| 64
| kvm-72+dfsg-5
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installs and works without any problem with 1GB guest RAM.
|-

|-
| Windows 7 Beta
| 64
| kvm-84
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| Installs and works without any problem with 512MB guest RAM.
|-

| Windows 7 Beta
| 32
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| Installed in about 25-30 minutes and worked flawlessly on my ThinkPad T60 (1953-7EU) with 1.5G of RAM
|-

| Windows 7 Beta
| 32
| kvm-62
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| "-m 2048 -vnc :0 -usbdevice tablet -smp 2 -std-vga" on qcow2
|-

| Windows Server 2008 (Datacenter)
| 64
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows Server 2008 (Datacenter)
| 32
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64, 32
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows Vista Ultimate
| 64
| kvm-84
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| (not Aero Glass capable) by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows Vista Ultimate
| 32
| kvm-84
| Intel, AMD
| 64, 32
| Works
| (not Aero Glass capable) by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows Server 2003 R2 (Std)
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.11.1
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Well with virtio drivers by Patrick.M.

|-
| Windows Server 2003 R2 (Std)
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.13
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Well with virtio drivers (1.1.13) by Alexandre D.
|-

| Windows Server 2003 x64
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.13
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| Well with virtio drivers (1.1.13) by Alexandre D.
|-

| Windows Server 2003 x64
| 64
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E. (setup is unstable, rerun several times)
|-

| Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise)
| 32
| kvm-72
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows Server 2003 (Enterprise)
| 32
| kvm-72
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows XP Pro x64
| 64
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E. (setup is unstable, rerun several times)
|-

| Windows XP Pro
| 32
| kvm-72
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows XP Pro
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| Installed on standard IDE driver. Swapped to Virtio XP drivers both for LAN and HDD after installation from "NetKVM-and-viostor.iso". Works well so far. by Tomaszg.
|-

| Windows XP Pro
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.415; kernel 2.6.32-358.23.2, CentOS 6.5
| Intel
| 64
| failing
| crashed when qed disk format and quick format during installation chosen, normal works, XP didn't manage himself to reboot, forced but unable to finish the setup.
|-

| Windows XP Pro
| 32
| kvm-72
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows 2000 Pro (SP4)
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| use Qcow2 format. (setup is unstable, rerun several times) by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows 2000 Pro (SP4)
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| use Qcow2 format. (setup is unstable, rerun several times) by Alexey.E.
|-

| Windows 2000 Advanced Server
| 32
| kvm-44
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| use Qcow2 format.
|-

| Windows 98SE
| 32
| kvm-63
| Intel
| 32
| Fails
| by Alexey.E. (halts when booting HIMEM)
|-

| Windows 98SE
| 32
| kvm-80, 2.6.27.7
| AMD
| 64
| no way
| install crashes
|-

| Windows 98SE
| 32
| kvm-1.12.5
| AMD
| 32, 64
| works with a trick
| copy an existing installation with qemu-img
opts: -no-kvm, smp 1, nic,model=ne2k_pci, soundhw none, vga=cirrus+cirrus-Win95-Driver
tested by hiekjoha
|-

| Windows NT Server 4.0 sp 1
| 32
| kvm-72, 2.6.30
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| for networking use -net nic,model=ne2k_pci and install rtl8029 guest driver (included in guest OS cd)
|-

| Windows NT Workstation 4.0 (no SP)
| 32
| qemu-kvm 0.12.3, 2.6.33
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| without any SP requires -cpu qemu64,level=1, also use -vga std
|-

| Windows NT 4.0 SP6
| 32
| kvm 1.0, 2.6.32
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| requires -cpu qemu32, use Universal VBE30 for VGA (http://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbempg.zip)
|-

| Windows NT 4.0 SP6
| 32
| qemu-kvm 1.4.1, 2.6.32
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| requires -cpu qemu32, install [https://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/3.5latest/windows/x86/VMware-tools-windows-3.5.0-988599.iso vmmouse] driver instead of default ps/2 mouse, use Universal VBE30 for VGA (http://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbempg.zip)
|-

| Windows 95
| 32
| kvm-44, 2.6.23-rc8
| AMD
| 64, 32
| no way
|
|}

== Linux Family: Fedora/RedHat Derivatives ==

=== CentOS ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| CentOS 6.5
| 64
| CentOS 6.5,qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.415, kernel 2.6.32-358.23.2
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Like a charm
|-

| CentOS 6.2
| 32, 64
| 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory (≧1G)
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| CentOS 6.1
| 32, 64
| 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory (≧1G)
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| CentOS 6.0
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| CentOS 5.8
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Alexander O.
|-

| CentOS 5.6
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| CentOS 5.5
| 64
| kvm-83-164.el5.x86_64.rpm
| AMD (Sempron 140)
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| CentOS 5.5
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Alexander O.
|-

| CentOS 5.4
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.3
| AMD
| 64
| Crashes
| When installing from the netinstall image, hangs during installation of the first packet.
|}

=== Enterprise Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Enterprise Linux 5.4 / Unbreakable Linux
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|}

=== Fedora ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Fedora 18
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory (≧1G),
install from DVD or network 
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Fedora 17
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory (≧1G),
install from DVD or network 
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Fedora 16
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory (≧1G),
install from DVD or network 
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Fedora 15
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Requires sufficient memory(e.g. 1.5G), and vga=std - by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| Fedora 13
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| Fedora 11
| 64
| kvm-87
| Intel
| 64
| Fails
| Anaconda freezes
|-

| Fedora 11
| 32
| kvm-87
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| Fedora 11 BETA
| 32, 64
| kvm-84
| Intel
| 64
| Fails
| by Alexey.E. Slowness and softlockups.
|-

| Fedora 10
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E. Updated by Lennert.B.
|-

| Fedora 9
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Fedora 8
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Fedora 7
| 32, 64
| kvm-75
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Fedora 6
| 32
| kvm-26
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
|
|-

| Fedora 5
| 32, 64
| kvm-12
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
|
|-

| Fedora 4
| 64
|
| AMD
| 64
| Works, slightly high idle cpu
|by MichaelKarliner
|-

| Fedora 3
| 64
| kvm-78
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| by George Y. Requires noacpi in boot options
|-

| Fedora 1
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.3
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes
| by Patrick.M. KVM freeze unable to kill PID.
|-

| Fedora 1
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.11.1
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Patrick.M.
|}

=== RedHat Enterprise Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| RHEL6 beta
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| RHEL5
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| RHEL4
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Frank.Q. updated by Alexey.E.
|-

| RHEL3
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Frank.Q. updated by Alexey.E.
|-

| Red Hat Linux 9
| 32
| kvm-51
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Red Hat Linux 8
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes
| Fails on init. by Frank.Q.
|-

| Red Hat Linux 7.3
| 32
| kvm-78
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| -no-kvm is required for installation
|-

| Red Hat Linux 7
| 32
| kvm-52
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Crashes
| Fails on init. by Alexey.E.
|}

=== Scientific Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Scientific Linux 5.4.1
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|}

=== Trixbox ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Trixbox (CentOS)
| 32
| kvm-12
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|}

== Linux Family: Ubuntu/Debian Derivatives ==

=== Debian GNU/Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 beta (Kernel 3.4.4)
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de Xompu]
|-

| Debian GNU/Linux 6.0
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
| 64
| kvm-88
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| 2009/10/22 by Christian Berendt / [http://www.b1-systems.de B1 Systems]
|-

| Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| Debian Lenny 5.0
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.3
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Patrick. M.
|-

| Debian Lenny 5.0
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.1
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Patrick. M.
|-

| Debian Lenny 5.0
| 32, 64
| kvm-72/77
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Buggy virtio implementation (netinst), crc errors / segfaults after instalation.
|-

| Debian Etch 4.0
| 64
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Debian Etch 4.0
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 64, 32
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Debian Etch 4.0
| 32
| kvm-64
| AMD
| 64
| FAILS, workaround exists
| by Alexey.E. (manually choose i586 kernel, do not use default "k7" kernel)
|-

| Debian Sarge 3.1
| 32
| kvm-12
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| Debian Sarge 3.1
| 32
| kvm-12
| Intel
| 64
| Mostly works
| Install hangs, will install via -no-kvm. Runs fine after
|}

=== Ubuntu ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Ubuntu 12.10
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Ubuntu 12.04
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, installs from network
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Ubuntu 11.10
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, installs from network
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Ubuntu 11.04
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, installs from network
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| Ubuntu 10.10
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
| 32, 64
| kvm-84
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| 2010/05/15 by KeithW
|-

| Ubuntu 9.04
| 64
| kvm-84
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| It's actually Xubuntu but should be the same both block and net virtio devices working too
|-

| Ubuntu 8.10
| 32
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Peter.v.V.
|-

| Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
| 32, 64
| kvm-64
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E. (some issues with virtio)
|-

| Ubuntu 7.10
| 32, 64
| kvm-62
| Intel,AMD
| 32, 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| Install using Qemu, remove GFX boot. by Alexey.E.
|-

| Ubuntu 7.10 Server
| 64
| kvm-60
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| No framebuffer (black screen at first). Hit enter to start installer.
|-

| Ubuntu 7.10 Server
| 32
| kvm-60/61
| Intel
| 64
| Doesn't work
| Installer crashes (by Ryota Ozaki)
|-

| Ubuntu 7.04
| 32, 64
| kvm-62
| Intel,AMD
| 32, 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| Install using Qemu, remove GFX boot. by Alexey.E.
|-

| Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server
| 32
| kvm-20
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| use -no-acpi
|}

=== Xandros ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Xandros 3 OCE
| 32
| kvm-29
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|}

=== Knoppix ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| KNOPPIX 5.1.1
| 32
| kvm-18
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| use nmi_watchdog=0 or nolapic kernel parameter to boot
|-

| Knoppix 5.2
| 32
| kvm-18
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| Knoppix 6.2
| 32
| kvm-1.12.5
| AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| tested by hiekjoha
|-

| Knoppix 6.7.1
| 32
| kvm-1.12.5
| AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| tested by hiekjoha
|}

== Other Linux Distros ==

=== Android ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Android 2.2
| 32
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| deactivate suspend-mode(Screen timeout), by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|}

=== SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
| 32, 64
| kvm-88
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| 2009/10/22 by Christian Berendt / [http://www.b1-systems.de B1 Systems]
|-

| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
| 32
| kvm-88
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| 2009/10/22 by Christian Berendt / [http://www.b1-systems.de B1 Systems]
|}

=== openSUSE ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| openSUSE 11.3
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| openSUSE 11.2
| 64
| kvm-83
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| openSUSE 11.1
| 32, 64
| kvm-88
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| 2009/10/22 by Christian Berendt / [http://www.b1-systems.de B1 Systems]
|-

| openSUSE 11.1
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| openSUSE 11.0
| 32, 64
| kvm-85
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| openSUSE 10.3
| 32
| kvm-57
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| openSUSE 10.3
| 32/64
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 64, 32
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| Start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| openSUSE 10.2
| 32/64
| kvm-28/kvm-51
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| Start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| SUSE Linux 10.0
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 64, 32
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| Start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| SUSE Linux 9.1
| 32
| kvm-72
| Intel/AMD
| 64, 32
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|}

=== Slackware ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Slackware 12 .2
| 32
| kvm-36
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| Slackware 12
| 32
| kvm-36
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| Slackware 11
| 32
| kvm-15
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| using test26.s kernel
|}

=== Qemu-Puppy ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Qemu-Puppy 2.01-3
| 32
| kvm-17/18
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| Qemu-Puppy 2.13-1
| 32
| kvm-17/18
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|}

=== SystemRescueCD ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| SystemRescueCD 0.3.4
| 32
| kvm-18
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Works fine, except for initial X-setting "cirrus" - changed to "vesa", then works.
|}

=== Gentoo ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Gentoo 2006.1
| 32
| kvm-24
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| Gentoo 2007.0
| 32
| kvm-24
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| Gentoo 20100311
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.1
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| using hardened kernel 2.6.32-r3
|}

=== Arch Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Arch Linux (Duke)
|32
| kvm-17
|AMD
|64
|Works
|Host: 2.6.21-ARCH, guest: 2.6.22-rc5-ARCH says "booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware"
|}

=== Mandrake Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Mandrake Linux 9.2
|32
| kvm-51
|Intel
|64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|}

=== Mandriva ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Mandriva 2009
| 32/64
| kvm-75
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| Mandriva 2008.1
| 32
| kvm-64
| Intel
| 64, 32
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| Mandriva 2008
| 32
| kvm-51
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|-

| Mandriva 2007
| 32
| kvm-51
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes, Workaround exists
| start kvm with -no-kvm for installation. Remove graphical GRUB. by Alexey.E.
|}

=== Crux Linux ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Crux Linux 2.5
| 32
| kvm-82
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| Boots Automatically at 'Guest Install' stage. Installs without issue. by Chris P
|}

=== Mikrotik ===
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Mikrotik 5.0rc3
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.13.0
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| using virtio nic + vhost_net, watchdog does not work, does not support virtio block device
|}

== UNIX Family: BSD ==

=== OpenBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| OpenBSD 5.2 (prerelease)
| 32
| qemu-kvm-1.0+noroms-0ubuntu14.1
| Intel Core2 6400
| 64
| Works
| Only tested single processor, disabling mpbios wasn't required but did reduce host CPU usage, as did disabling USB (either via guest kernel config at boot time or via omitting -usb flag)
|-

| OpenBSD 5.2 (prerelease)
| 64
| qemu-kvm-1.0+noroms-0ubuntu14.1
| Intel Core2 6400
| 64
| Works
| Only tested single processor, disabling mpbios wasn't required but did reduce host CPU usage, as did disabling USB (either via guest kernel config at boot time or via omitting -usb flag)
|-

| OpenBSD 5.0
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.15.0, Linux 2.6.37.6 (Slackware 13.37)
| Intel Core2Duo E8400
| 64
| Works
| SMP works, no need to disable mpbios anymore. Must use '''if=ide''' as the scsi interface will result in sd0(siop0) errors during install; recommend using the e1000 network driver as well. More information can be found [http://tenforward.libpcap.net:8080/2011/10/OpenBSD-5.0-supports-SMP-under-KVM here].
|-

| OpenBSD 4.9
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.14, linux 2.6.38.4 (Fedora 15 Beta)
| AMD Phenom(tm) 9650 Quad-Core
| 64
| Works
| Disable mpbios as with 4.5
|-

| OpenBSD 4.8
| 32
| kvm-83, linux 2.6.18 (CentOS 5.5)
| Intel E5700
| 64
| Works
| Disable mpbios as with 4.5
|-

| OpenBSD 4.7
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.5
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Need e1000 driver. (scsi driver does not work). Ide works out of the box. disabling the mpbios is not needed. Done with Linux 2.6.34.2 host kernel.
|-

| OpenBSD 4.6
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0-0ubuntu6.3
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Need e1000 driver and disable mpbios (same as other OpenBSD ≧ 4.5 entries)
|-

| OpenBSD 4.6
| 32
| kvm-84-7.6
| AMD
| 32
| Works
| Use the e1000 driver [-net nic,model=e1000]. Does not find the network after the installation (during install is fine) but disabling mpbios as suggested in 4.5 workaround fixes it.
|-

| OpenBSD 4.5
| 32
| kvm-85
| Intel
| 32
| Crashes
| Use the e1000 driver [-net nic,model=e1000] to avoid lockups and slow network speeds. Crashes after "setting tty flags" - Jaco van der Schyff
4.0 would hang on me at the same place if i booted /bsd.mp but not if i boot /bsd (uniprocessor kernel) - Buck 
4.5 can be made to boot by disabling mpbios as described [http://scie.nti.st/2009/10/4/running-openbsd-4-5-in-kvm-on-ubuntu-linux-9-04 here]; this is a workaround though, not a fix - Maxim
|-

| OpenBSD 4.5
| 64
| kvm-84
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Use e1000 drivers. Install from CD works, but then you must do the following at the next boot prompt: "bsd -c", "disable mpbios", then "quit"
Make this permanent by using "config -ef /bsd" as root, once everything has booted. -- Garry Dolley
|-

| OpenBSD 4.4
| 64
| kvm-78
| AMD
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| OpenBSD 4.2
| 32
| kvm-58
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| OpenBSD 4.1
| 32
| kvm-72
| Intel, AMD
| 64
| Works
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| OpenBSD 4.0
| 64
| kvm-12
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| OpenBSD 4.0
| 32
| kvm-16 + CVS
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|}

=== FreeBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

|FreeBSD CURRENT
|32, 64
|qemu-kvm-1.0+dfsg-9, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
|Intel, AMD
|32, 64
|Works, use NIC model=e1000
|Upgrade from FreeBSD 9.0-STABLE
by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

|FreeBSD 9.0
|32, 64
|qemu-kvm-1.0+dfsg-9, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
|Intel
|32, 64
|Works, use NIC model=e1000
|installed from full DVD or Network Install
by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

|FreeBSD 8.3
|32, 64
|qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
|Intel
|32, 64
|Works, use NIC model=ne2k_pci or model=e1000 (prefered)
|installed from full DVD or Network Install
by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

|FreeBSD 7.4
|32, 64
|Debian Lenny, kvm-60
|Intel, AMD
|32, 64
|Works, use NIC model=e2k_pci or model=e1000 (prefered)
|No issues in several weeks of testing. Tested with 1 and 2 virtual CPUs. Freddie;
installed from full DVD or Network Install
by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

|FreeBSD 7.2
|64
|kvm-86-3
|Intel
|64
|Works, need to install from the DVD or CD image
|Damon Chesser, Jadase Staff
|-

| FreeBSD 7.1
| 64
| kvm-84
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| sdl graphics mess up if using kvm, setup with -nokvm then use ssh or -nographics and serial console
|-

| FreeBSD 7.0
| 64
| OpenSUSE 10.3 kvm-63
| AMD
| 64
| crashes after boot loader
|-

| FreeBSD 6.3 (EOL)
| 32, 64
| Fedora 8 - kvm-37-7.fc8, qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| works
| No issues in several weeks of testing. Freddie
by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| FreeBSD 6.2 (EOL)
| 32, 64
| kvm-12, qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| FreeBSD 6.1 (EOL)
| 32, 64
| kvm-17/18, qemu-kvm 0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Thomas Schweikle [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

|FreeBSD 6.0 (EOL), FreeBSD 6.2, FreeBSD 7.2
|32, 64
|debian squeeze, kvm-0.12.5, libvirt
|Intel Xeon
|64
|works
|freeze with "ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (1 retry left) LBA=XXXXXXX". fix with 'hw.ata.ata_dma=0' in /boot/loader.conf
|}

=== Debian GNU/kFreeBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| GNU/kFreeBSD CURRENT
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, but significant more CPU needed compared to regular Debian GNU/Linux and FreeBSD CURRENT
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| GNU/kFreeBSD 9.0
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, but significant more CPU needed compared to regular Debian GNU/Linux and FreeBSD 9.0
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| GNU/kFreeBSD 8.3
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works, but significant more CPU needed compared to regular Debian GNU/Linux and FreeBSD 8.3
| by Thomas Schweikle / [http://www.xompu.de/ Xompu]
|-

| GNU/kFreeBSD
| 32
| kvm-16 + CVS
| AMD
| 64
| Works
|
|}

=== NetBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| NetBSD 3.1
| 32
| kvm-17/18
| Intel
| 32
| Works
|
|-

| NetBSD 3.1
| 32
| kvm-21
| AMD
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| NetBSD 4.0
| 32
| kvm-60
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| avoid hangup on boot with --no-acpi and network card timeout by trying out a different card, e.g. -net nic,model=ne2k_pci
|-

| NetBSD 5.0
| 64
| kvm-88
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes/hangs
| Install CD image will crash or hang, depending on if ACPI is enabled or not. NetBSD 4.0 workarounds ineffective.
|-

| NetBSD 5.0.2
| 32
| kvm from 2.6.32-2-amd64 debian kernel on debian sid
| both Intel and Amd
| 64
| Works
| avoid slow down/ hangs with --no-acpi and network timeout by using -net nic,model=ne2k_pci, disable both SMP and ACPI in /boot.cfg inside guest
|}

=== MirBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| MirBSD 2009/10
| 32
| kvm_1:84+dfsg-0ubuntu12.4~hardy1
| Intel
| Works
| Use of nic,model=e1000 is strongly recommended, ne2k variants work too, emulated Realtek are crappier than metal ones and do not work.
|}

=== PC-BSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| PC-BSD 1.4
| 32
| kvm-56
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| By Alexey.E.
|}

=== Darwin ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Darwin 8.0.1
| 32
| kvm-29
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes
| by Alexey.E.
|}

=== DragonflyBSD ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| DragonflyBSD 1.10.1
| 32
| kvm-58
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| avoid kvm-[64-67] which require -no-kvm-pit to work; use -net nic,model=e1000 to avoid network timeouts
|-

| DragonflyBSD 2.2.1
| 32
| kvm-85
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| not tried X
|}

== UNIX Family: Solaris/OpenSolaris ==
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Solaris 10 U1
| 32
| kvm-12
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| later releases will detect the CPU is 64 bit capable and try to default to run a 64 bit kernel and fail, for those you have to override Solaris autodetection by adding "kernel/unix" to the kernel multiboot entry in GRUB
|-

| Solaris 10 U3
| 64
| kvm-58 + patch
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| needs additional patch to kvm for [http://tapir.sajinet.com.pe/gentoo/portage/app-emulation/kvm/files/kvm-57-kernel-longmode.patch kvm kernel longmode]
|-

| Nexenta Core 1.0
| 64
| kvm-61
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| needs additional patch to kvm for [http://tapir.sajinet.com.pe/gentoo/portage/app-emulation/kvm/files/kvm-57-kernel-longmode.patch kvm kernel longmode]. Use -m 512 -net nic,model=e1000
|-

| Nexenta Core 2.0 b104 rc3
| 32 / 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Might need additional patch to kvm for [http://tapir.sajinet.com.pe/gentoo/portage/app-emulation/kvm/files/kvm-57-kernel-longmode.patch kvm kernel longmode]. My qemu-kvm was already patched. Had to switch of 'acpi', 'apic' and 'pae' features in guest configuration. Guest machine-type set to pc-0.10. Use -m 512 -net nic,model=e1000.
|-

| OpenSolaris 2008.05
| 64
| kvm-69
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Use -m 512 -net nic,model=e1000
|-

| Milax 0.3.2
| 32
| kvm-62
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Use the kvm option -net nic,model=rtl8139 and add atapi-cd-dma-enabled=0,atapi-other-dma-enabled=0 to the kernel line in the grub menu for older releases of Milax http://www.milax.org/ in version 0.3.2 choose the Qemu grub menu entry ; tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 by BerndSchemmer
|-

| Belenix 0.7.1
| 64
| kvm-62
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Note: older releases of Belenix only work in text mode; tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 by BerndSchemmer
|-

| Solaris 10 U6
| 32 & 64
| kvm-62
| Intel
| 64
| Mostly Works (see note)
| Note: the grub menu entry for Solaris 10 created by the installer is wrong, to make it work add kernel/unix to the line beginning with kernel ; tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 by BerndSchemmer
|-

| OpenSolaris 2008.11
| 64
| kvm-62
| Intel
| 64
|Works
| tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 by BerndSchemmer
|-

| OpenSolaris 2009.06
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0-0ubuntu6.3
| Intel
| 64
|Works
| Used "-vga std" but don't recall why.
|-

| Solaris 11 Express 2010.11
| 32, 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.113.el6_0.8
| Intel
| 64
|Works but without USB support
| During boot the system prints the following warning: "No SOF interrupts have been received. This USB EHCI controller is unusable." As a result, no keyboard and mouse functionality from the console. Must install with automatic networking enabled, and login via the network to use it. Also warns at boot "rtls0: Failure resetting PHY" but networking seems to still work.
|-

| OpenIndiana Build 151a (Desktop)
| 64
| qemu-kvm-0.12.5+dfsg-5+squeeze
| Intel Core i7
| 64
|Works
| During boot the system prints the following warning: "No SOF interrupts have been received. This USB EHCI controller is unusable." However, the mouse and keyboard work fine via the VNC console. Also warns at boot "rtls0: Failure resetting PHY" but networking works fine. Installed using "Solaris -> OpenSolaris" settings in virt-manager.
|}

== Other UNIX systems ==

=== Minix ===

{| border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| MINIX 3.1.6
| 32
| qemu-0.12.3, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Crashes
| Only boots without -enable-kvm
|-

| MINIX 3.1.2a
| 32
| kvm-71, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
|
|}

=== Debian GNU/Hurd ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| GNU hurd live CD (20051117)
| 32
| kvm-28, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| Seems to have networking problems.
|-

| GNU/Hurd (Debian K16)
| 32
| kvm-69, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| avoid kvm-[64-67] which require -no-kvm-pit to work
|-

| GNU/Hurd (Debian K14)
| 32
| kvm-33
| Intel, AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| [http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/Guest_Support_Status?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=hurd-k14.png screenshot]
|}

=== QNX ===
{|border=1
|'''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| QNX 6.4.1
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.11.0, 2.6.31.5; qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
|-

| QNX 6.4.0
| 32
| kvm-83, qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
| by Arno-Can Uestuensoez / [http://www.UnifiedSessionsManager.org UnifiedSessionsManager]
|-

| QNX 6.3.2
| 32
| qemu-kvm 88, host kernel: 2.6.30; qemu-kvm-0.14.1+noroms-0ubuntu6.2
| Intel
| 32, 64
| Works
| Use "-net nic,model=ne2k_pci" for network. See also [http://community.qnx.com/sf/wiki/do/viewPage/projects.qemu/wiki/NeutrinoAsGuestInQEMU;jsessionid=82CAC3EC7E4C62A6DC51A1E021618862]
|-

| QNX 4.25
| 32
| qemu-kvm-0.12.3, kernel 2.6.32-24
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Use "-net nic,model=ne2k_pci" for network.
|}

== Others ==
{|border=1
| '''Guest'''
| '''Guest bitness'''
| '''Host version'''
| '''Host cpu'''
| '''Host bitness'''
| '''Status'''
| '''Comments'''
|-

| Haiku OS
| 32
| kvm-12
| AMD
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| Amiga Research OS (AROS)
| 32
| kvm-12
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| LiveCD tested.
|-

| Amiga Research OS (AROS)
| 32
| kvm-58
| Intel
| 32
| Works
| LiveCD tested.
|-

| ReactOS 0.3.0
| 32
| kvm-14
| AMD
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| FreeDOS 1.0
| 32
| kvm-71
| Intel
| 64
| Works
|
|-

| MS DOS 6.22
| 32
| kvm-88
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Works with "-cpu qemu32". Do not load emm386.exe inside config.sys [http://twitpic.com/dce6g screenshot]
|-

| MS DOS 5.0
| 32
| kvm-62
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| Installs and boots. Tested by Alan J.
|-

| Syllable 0.61
| 32
| kvm-29
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Visopsys 0.62
| 32
| kvm-29
| Intel
| 64
| Crashes
| by Alexey.E.
|-

| Plan 9
| 32
| kvm-68
| Intel
| 64
| Works
| needs -no-kvm-irqchip
|-

| FreeDOS 7 + Novell Netware 4.1
| 32
| kvm-83
| AMD
| 64
| Works
| tested by Ruediger G. Biernat / [http://flickr.com/photos/rgbiernat/3261075882/ screenshot]
|-

| clonezilla-live-1.2.* - iso
| 32
| kvm-1.12.5
| AMD
| 32, 64
| Works
| tested by hiekjoha
|}

Bugs

2010-05-21T16:24:57Z

Iggy: cleanup links

=Bugs=

Kernel side KVM bugs should be file to the [https://bugzilla.kernel.org/ kernel's bug tracker].

Userspace bugs should be filed to [https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu Qemu's launchpad tracker]. If you think they are qemu-kvm specific (i.e. upstream qemu is not affected), you should mark them clearly as being qemu-kvm specific.

If in doubt, email (kvm@vger.kernel.org) the mailing list first (no need to register) and you will be directed where to file the bug if necessary.

Historical bug reports can be found in the sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=893831&group_id=180599&func=browse bug tracker].

== Submitting a bug report ==

When submitting a bug report, make sure to provide the following information:

* What cpu model (examples: Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Opteron 2210). See /proc/cpuinfo if you're not sure.
* What kvm version you are using. If you're using git directly, provide the output of 'git describe'.

* The host kernel version

* What host kernel arch you are using (i386 or x86_64)

* What guest you are using, including OS type (Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.), bitness (32 or 64), kernel version

* The qemu command line you are using to start the guest

* Whether the problem goes away if using the <code>-no-kvm-irqchip</code> or <code>-no-kvm-pit</code> switch.

* Whether the problem also appears with the <code>-no-kvm</code> switch.

Please use the latest release version of kvm at the time you submit the bug. Even if you use kvm from a distribution (Ubuntu starting from Feisty or Fedora starting from 7), it is important to use the latest sources.

In case qemu-kvm exits with SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) or SIGBUS (Bus error), please make sure ulimit is configured so that a core file can be generated (ulimit -a to report, ulimit -c unlimited to allow unlimited size core files). Then get a backtrace of the error with

(gdb) info threads

And for every thread present do:

(gdb) thread n

(gdb) bt

Attach the output to the bug report.

== Getting a serial console from the guest ==

If a guest crashes on boot, it is sometimes useful to have its console output. This can be done using
qemu's -serial option to emulate a serial port:
qemu-system-x86_64 -serial file:serial.log

Depending on the guest OS you will need to do some additional changes to instruct it to use the serial port as a console as shown below :

=== Linux ===

Change the guest kernel's command line (in the GRUB or LILO menu) to include the string
console=ttyS0,115200

If after a crash, there is still no output in the serial.log file and the guest kernel was configured touse a serial console; chances are that the crash was too early in the process to have the console initialized and then the following kernel command line should be used additionally (only to be used as a last resort as it interacts badly with the console boot parameter)
earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200

=== OpenSolaris ===

Change the guest kernel's entry in the GRUB menu to include the string
-B console=ttya

if there is already a -B option just add the console parameter to it after a comma "," and beware that since this will redirect the console to the file you'll need to tail the serial.log file to see it boot asthere will be no output in the SDL console and you won't be able to interact with it through the keyboard.

Bugs

2010-05-21T16:23:40Z

Iggy: remove extra brackets around tracker links

=Bugs=

Kernel side KVM bugs should be file to the [https://bugzilla.kernel.org/|kernel's bug tracker].

Userspace bugs should be filed to [https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu|Qemu's launchpad tracker]. If you think they are qemu-kvm specific (i.e. upstream qemu is not affected), you should mark them clearly as being qemu-kvm specific.

If in doubt, email (kvm@vger.kernel.org) the mailing list first (no need to register) and you will be directed where to file the bug if necessary.

Historical bug reports can be found in the sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=893831&group_id=180599&func=browse bug tracker].

== Submitting a bug report ==

When submitting a bug report, make sure to provide the following information:

* What cpu model (examples: Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Opteron 2210). See /proc/cpuinfo if you're not sure.
* What kvm version you are using. If you're using git directly, provide the output of 'git describe'.

* The host kernel version

* What host kernel arch you are using (i386 or x86_64)

* What guest you are using, including OS type (Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.), bitness (32 or 64), kernel version

* The qemu command line you are using to start the guest

* Whether the problem goes away if using the <code>-no-kvm-irqchip</code> or <code>-no-kvm-pit</code> switch.

* Whether the problem also appears with the <code>-no-kvm</code> switch.

Please use the latest release version of kvm at the time you submit the bug. Even if you use kvm from a distribution (Ubuntu starting from Feisty or Fedora starting from 7), it is important to use the latest sources.

In case qemu-kvm exits with SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) or SIGBUS (Bus error), please make sure ulimit is configured so that a core file can be generated (ulimit -a to report, ulimit -c unlimited to allow unlimited size core files). Then get a backtrace of the error with

(gdb) info threads

And for every thread present do:

(gdb) thread n

(gdb) bt

Attach the output to the bug report.

== Getting a serial console from the guest ==

If a guest crashes on boot, it is sometimes useful to have its console output. This can be done using
qemu's -serial option to emulate a serial port:
qemu-system-x86_64 -serial file:serial.log

Depending on the guest OS you will need to do some additional changes to instruct it to use the serial port as a console as shown below :

=== Linux ===

Change the guest kernel's command line (in the GRUB or LILO menu) to include the string
console=ttyS0,115200

If after a crash, there is still no output in the serial.log file and the guest kernel was configured touse a serial console; chances are that the crash was too early in the process to have the console initialized and then the following kernel command line should be used additionally (only to be used as a last resort as it interacts badly with the console boot parameter)
earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200

=== OpenSolaris ===

Change the guest kernel's entry in the GRUB menu to include the string
-B console=ttya

if there is already a -B option just add the console parameter to it after a comma "," and beware that since this will redirect the console to the file you'll need to tail the serial.log file to see it boot asthere will be no output in the SDL console and you won't be able to interact with it through the keyboard.

Bugs

2010-05-21T16:22:14Z

Iggy: Change to using Qemu and the kernel's trackers instead of the sourceforge one... also some white space cleanups

=Bugs=

Kernel side KVM bugs should be file to the [[https://bugzilla.kernel.org/|kernel's bug tracker]].

Userspace bugs should be filed to [[https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu|Qemu's launchpad tracker]]. If you think they are qemu-kvm specific (i.e. upstream qemu is not affected), you should mark them clearly as being qemu-kvm specific.

If in doubt, email (kvm@vger.kernel.org) the mailing list first (no need to register) and you will be directed where to file the bug if necessary.

Historical bug reports can be found in the sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=893831&group_id=180599&func=browse bug tracker].

== Submitting a bug report ==

When submitting a bug report, make sure to provide the following information:

* What cpu model (examples: Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Opteron 2210). See /proc/cpuinfo if you're not sure.
* What kvm version you are using. If you're using git directly, provide the output of 'git describe'.

* The host kernel version

* What host kernel arch you are using (i386 or x86_64)

* What guest you are using, including OS type (Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.), bitness (32 or 64), kernel version

* The qemu command line you are using to start the guest

* Whether the problem goes away if using the <code>-no-kvm-irqchip</code> or <code>-no-kvm-pit</code> switch.

* Whether the problem also appears with the <code>-no-kvm</code> switch.

Please use the latest release version of kvm at the time you submit the bug. Even if you use kvm from a distribution (Ubuntu starting from Feisty or Fedora starting from 7), it is important to use the latest sources.

In case qemu-kvm exits with SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) or SIGBUS (Bus error), please make sure ulimit is configured so that a core file can be generated (ulimit -a to report, ulimit -c unlimited to allow unlimited size core files). Then get a backtrace of the error with

(gdb) info threads

And for every thread present do:

(gdb) thread n

(gdb) bt

Attach the output to the bug report.

== Getting a serial console from the guest ==

If a guest crashes on boot, it is sometimes useful to have its console output. This can be done using
qemu's -serial option to emulate a serial port:
qemu-system-x86_64 -serial file:serial.log

Depending on the guest OS you will need to do some additional changes to instruct it to use the serial port as a console as shown below :

=== Linux ===

Change the guest kernel's command line (in the GRUB or LILO menu) to include the string
console=ttyS0,115200

If after a crash, there is still no output in the serial.log file and the guest kernel was configured touse a serial console; chances are that the crash was too early in the process to have the console initialized and then the following kernel command line should be used additionally (only to be used as a last resort as it interacts badly with the console boot parameter)
earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200

=== OpenSolaris ===

Change the guest kernel's entry in the GRUB menu to include the string
-B console=ttya

if there is already a -B option just add the console parameter to it after a comma "," and beware that since this will redirect the console to the file you'll need to tail the serial.log file to see it boot asthere will be no output in the SDL console and you won't be able to interact with it through the keyboard.

FAQ

2009-10-29T17:11:16Z

Iggy: Update the dynamic memory mgmt FAQ

=FAQ=

== Preparing to use KVM ==
=== What do I need to use KVM? ===
You will need an x86 machine running a recent Linux kernel on an Intel processor with VT (virtualization technology) extensions, or an AMD processor with SVM extensions (also called AMD-V). Xen has a [http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors complete list] of compatible processors. For Intel processors, see also [http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx the Intel® Virtualization Technology List].

----------
=== Are 64bits processors supported under KVM? ===
Yes they are supported and will allow you to run 32bits and 64 bits guests.

See also '''Can KVM run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE?''' below.

----------

=== What is Intel VT / AMD-V / hvm? ===
[http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2006/v10i3/1-hardware/6-vt-x-vt-i-solutions.htm Intel VT] and [http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8826_14287,00.html AMD's AMD-V] are instruction set extensions that provide hardware assistance to virtual machine monitors. They enable running fully isolated virtual machines at native hardware speeds, for some workloads.

HVM (for Hardware Virtual Machine) is a vendor-neutral term often used to designate the x86 instruction set extensions.

----------

=== Where do I get my kvm kernel modules from? ===

See the [[Getting the kvm kernel modules]] page.

----------

=== How can I tell if I have Intel VT or AMD-V? ===
With a recent enough Linux kernel, run the command:

. egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If something shows up, you have VT. You can also check the processor model name (in `/proc/cpuinfo`) in the vendor's web site.

Note:

* Some manufacturers disable VT in the machine's BIOS, in such a way that it cannot be re-enabled.
* `/proc/cpuinfo` only shows virtualization capabilities starting with Linux 2.6.15 (Intel) and Linux 2.6.16 (AMD). Use the `uname -r` command to query your kernel version.
In case of doubt, contact your hardware vendor.

----------

=== "KVM: disabled by BIOS" error ===
Check if there is an option to enable it in the BIOS. If not, look for a more recent BIOS on the vendor's web site.

Note:

* On some hardware (e-g HP nx6320), you need to power-off/power-on the machine after enabling virtualization in the BIOS.
* Enabling some BIOS features may break VT support on some hardware (e-g Enabling Intel AMT on a Thinkpad T500 will prevent kvm-intel from loading with "disabled by bios")

----------

=== How can I use AMD-V extension? ===
modprobe kvm-amd

----------

=== What user space tools does KVM use? ===
KVM uses a slightly modified [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu QEMU] program to instantiate the virtual machine. Once running, a virtual machine is just a regular process. You can use `top(1), kill(1), taskset(1)` and similar tools to manage virtual machines.

----------

=== What virtual disk formats can KVM use? ===
KVM inherits a wealth of disk formats support from QEMU; it supports raw images, the native QEMU format (qcow2), VMware format, and many more.

----------

=== Are there management tools available to help me manage my virtual machines? ===
Yes. Please see the [[Management Tools]] page for some links.

----------

== Using KVM ==
=== How can I use KVM with a non-privileged user? ===
The cleanest way is probably to create a group, say ''kvm'', and add the user(s) to that group. Then you will need change /dev/kvm to owned by group ''kvm''.

On a system that runs udev, you will probably need to add the following line somewhere in your udev configuration so it will automatically give the right group to the newly created device (i-e for ubuntu add a line to ''/etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules'').

KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm"

----------

=== How can I get the most performance out of KVM? ===

See the [[Tuning KVM]] page.

----------

=== Is KVM stable? ===
KVM is stable and used in production. As with most open source projects, development snapshots are less stable than the stable release series.

----------

=== That's alright, but can I really use it for my daily use? ===
Sure. We continuously run the most often-used OSes and configurations and if anything breaks for the developers, it's fixed as soon as it was broken. See the [[Guest Support Status]] and [[Host Support Status]] pages to find out more. Please update them with success stories so that new users would benefit from the experience of the community.

----------

=== How about production use? ===
For production use, it's recommended you use the KVM modules shipped by the distribution you're using to ensure stability. As mentioned above, it's tempting to use new features, but you never know of (unwanted) surprises hidden away. It'll be best if you can run the development snapshots with non-critical production load, so that the latest releases are stable for you when you decide to deploy them.

----------

=== What happens if I kill -9 a VM process? ===
From the guest's perspective, it is as if you yanked the power cord out. From the host's perspective, the process is killed and all resources it uses are reclaimed.

----------

=== I need help to setup the network for my guest ===
You can have a look to the [[Networking]] page of this wiki for informations on the most classical networking setup for the guests. You can also refer to the QEMU documentation.

----------

=== Where can I find more documention... ===
Most usability issues are covered in the QEMU [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/user-doc.html documentation]. There is also an extensive [http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions FAQ].

----------

== Troubleshooting ==
=== How can I check that I'm not falling back to QEMU with no hardware acceleration? ===

If you think that you might no be using the hardware acceleration provided by the KVM module, here are a few steps to help you check this.

First of all, check that you don't have messages such as:

qemu-system-x86_64 -hda myvm.qcow2
open /dev/kvm: No such file or directory
Could not initialize KVM, will disable KVM support

In that case, you can check that:
* the modules are correctly loaded <code>lsmod|grep kvm
* you don't have a "KVM: disabled by BIOS" line in the output of dmesg
* /dev/kvm exists and you have the correct rights to use it

Other ways to do the diagnostic:
* if you have access to the QEMU monitor (Ctrl-Alt-2, use Ctrl-Alt-1 to get back to the VM display), enter the "info kvm" command and it should respond with "KVM support: enabled"
* the right-end columns of the output from <code>lsmod|grep kvm</code> on the host system, once the VM is started should show only non zero values. The value on the line corresponding to the architecture specific module (e-g kvm_intel, kvm_amd) show the number of VM using the module. For instance, if I have 2 VM running using the KVM module on a machine with vt, it will report:

lsmod|grep kvm
kvm_intel 44896 2
kvm 159656 1 kvm_intel

=== "rect too big" Message when using VNC Display ===
When connection to a VNC Terminal, a "rect too big" message appears, and the VNC Session disconnects.

This happens because of a VNC protocol flaw on the way on-the-fly pixel format changes are handled (more info at [http://www.mail-archive.com/qemu-devel@nongnu.org/msg04879.html this thread]). If you are using TigerVNC, you can avoid this problem by disabling on-the-fly selection of pixel encoding, using the <tt>-AutoSelect=0</tt> command-line option of vncviewer. You may also want to check the encoding options on the vncviewer man page, as this will disable automatic selection of encoding based on connection speed.

----------
'''How do I set up the network such that my guest is accessible from other machines?''' or

=== My guest network is stuck what should I do? ===
KVM uses QEMU for its device emulation. Consult the [http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/QemuNetwork QEMU network wiki page] for detailed network setup instructions.

One would probably be interested in the Root Networking Mode page and the Network Bridge page.

----------

=== I get an "Exception 13" or "Exception 12" message while booting a guest OS on my Intel host ===
See the [[Intel Real Mode Emulation Problems]] page.

----------
=== I get "rtc interrupts lost" messages, and the guest is very slow? ===
Try setting <code>CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y</code> in your host <code>.config</code>.

----------

=== I have VMware/Parallels/VirtualBox installed and when I modprobe KVM, my system deadlocks. ===
Neither Intel VT nor AMD-V provide a mechanism to determine whether software is currently using the hardware virtualization extensions. This means that if you have two kernel modules loaded attempting to use hardware virtualization extensions, very bad things will happen. If you are using another type of virtualization software and experience any sort of weirdness with KVM, make sure you can reproduce the problem without the kernel modules for that software loaded before you report a bug in KVM.

----------

=== There's nothing on QEMU/KVM screen, but it's not hanged! I'm trying to install Kubuntu. ===
Try to run kvm with -std-vga option. It helps if guest operating system uses framebuffer mode like Kubuntu/Ubuntu.

----------

=== When I click the guest operating system window, mouse is grabbed. How can I get mouse to not to do that? OR Mouse doesn't show up / doesn't work in the guest. What do I do? ===
From #qemu wiki, try to run kvm/qemu with

-usb -usbdevice tablet
If that doesn't work, try this:

$ export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0
(from http://wiki.clug.org.za/wiki/QEMU_mouse_not_working )

----------

== General KVM information ==
=== What is the difference between KVM and Xen? ===
Xen is an external hypervisor; it assumes control of the machine and divides resources among guests. On the other hand, KVM is part of Linux and uses the regular Linux scheduler and memory management. This means that KVM is much smaller and simpler to use; it is also more featureful; for example KVM can swap guests to disk in order to free RAM.

KVM only run on processors that supports x86 hvm (vt/svm instructions set) whereas Xen also allows running modified operating systems on non-hvm x86 processors using a technique called paravirtualization. KVM does not support paravirtualization for CPU but may support paravirtualization for device drivers to improve I/O performance.

----------

=== What is the difference between KVM and VMware? ===
VMware is a proprietary product. KVM is Free Software released under the GPL.

----------

=== What is the difference between KVM and QEMU? ===
QEMU uses emulation; KVM uses processor extensions (HVM) for virtualization.

----------

=== Do you have a port of KVM for Windows? ===
No.

----------

=== What kernel version does it work with? ===
It depends on what version of KVM you are using. The last release of KVM should work with any recent kernel (2.6.17 and above), older releases even older kernels.

----------

=== How much RAM do I need? ===
You will need enough memory to let the guest run comfortably while keeping enough for the host. 1GB is probably a minimum configuration for the host OS.

----------

=== Is dynamic memory management for guests supported? ===
This is a broad topic covering a few areas.

A. KVM only allocates memory as the guest tries to use it. Once it's allocated, KVM keeps it. Some guests (namely Microsoft guests) zero all memory at boot time. So they will use all memory.

B. Certain guests (only Linux at the moment) have a balloon driver, so the host can have the guest allocate a certain amount of memory which the guest won't be able to use anymore and it can then be freed on the host. Ballooning is controlled in the host via the [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/qemu-doc.html#SEC12 balloon monitor command].

----------

=== What OSs can I run inside KVM VM? ===
Several. See the [[Guest Support Status]] page for details. Note that several Linux flavors are known to hang on Intel processors during startup. Workaround is to disable splash screens in grub.

----------

=== Does KVM support a live migration feature to move virtual machines from one host to another without downtime? ===
Yes. See the [[Migration]] page for details.

----------

=== Does KVM support live migration from an AMD host to an Intel host and back? ===
Yes. There may be issues on 32-bit Intel hosts which don't support NX (or XD), but for 64-bit hosts back and forth migration should work well. Migration of 32-bit guests should work between 32-bit hosts and 64-bit hosts.
If one of your hosts does not support NX, you may consider disabling NX when starting the guest on a NX-capable system. You can do it by passing "-cpu qemu64,-nx" parameter to the guest.

----------

=== Can KVM run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE? ===
KVM supports 32-bit guests on 64-bit hosts, and any combination of PAE and non-PAE guests and hosts. The only unsupported combination is a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host.

If you are running a Windows Virtual Machine and have problems enabling PAE in your guest see the [[Windows PAE Workaround]] page.

----------

=== Is it possible to use USB devices with a guest OS? ===
Yes, look up how to do it with QEMU, it's the same way.

----------

=== Can I have higher or widescreen resolutions (eg 1680 x 1050) in KVM? ===
Use the -vga std parameter while starting the VM to allow high resolution and widescreen displays.

If the resolution you want to use is not available, you can patch the corresponding source files (see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.kvm.devel/13557 as a reference), or send a mail to the KVM mailing list if you are not able to patch the source yourself.

When using Windows as guest OS you might want to use the driver from the VBEMP x86 project (http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/vbemp.htm).

----------

=== Does KVM support SMP hosts? ===
Yes.

----------

=== Does KVM support SMP guests? ===
Yes. Up to 16 CPUs can be specified using the -smp option.

----------

=== Is the name 'KVM' trademarked? ===
No.

----------

Documents

2009-10-05T20:21:36Z

Iggy: add tuning page to user/admin docs

= Documents =

== User/Admin documentation ==
* [[HOWTO]]
* [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/qemu-doc.html QEMU user manual]
* [[Tuning_KVM]]
== Presentations ==
* Presentations on many aspects of KVM were made at [[KvmForum2007]] (Aug 2007).
* Presentations from the [[KvmForum2008]] (June 2008)
* Avi Kivity's presentation from the [http://ols.108.redhat.com/2007/Reprints/kivity-Reprint.pdf Ottawa Linux Symposium 2007] (Jun 2007).
* TPR patching [attachment:kvm-tpr-patching.odp overview] (Avi Kivity, Oct 2008)
* [http://markmc.fedorapeople.org/virtio-code-review/VirtioCodeReview.pdf Virtio code walkthrough], [http://markmc.fedorapeople.org/virtio-code-review/virtio-talk.txt notes], [http://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2008/05/28/checksums-scatter-gather-io-and-segmentation-offload/ GSO background] (Mark McLoughlin, Oct 2008), and [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1400097.1400108 ACM pdf about virtio by Rusty Russell]
== White papers: ==
* Qumranet's [http://www.qumranet.com/files/white_papers/KVM_Whitepaper.pdf KVM Whitepaper]
== Books ==
* [http://qemu-buch.de/english/order.php Book "QEMU & KVM", ISBN 978-3-8370-0876-0]
== Magazine Articles ==
* [http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2008/86/DEEP-VIRTUE Linux Magazine]
* [http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6490/4/ KVM for Embedded] at Linux Planet
* [http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6503/1/ Linux as a hypervisor] at Lunux Planet
== Benchmarks ==
* [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_virt_benchmarks&num=1 Phoronix - Ubuntu 8.04 KVM Benchmarks]
* [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_corei7_virt&num=1 Phoronix - Intel Core i7 Virtualization Performance]
== Documentation ==
* [[small_look_inside|small look inside(kvm-54)]]
* [[buildup|qemu kvm buildup]]
* [[vl_runthrough|qemu-system-x86_64 startup (kvm-57)]]
* [[initialization|initialization (kvm-57)]]
* [[file_layout_in_kernel|file layout in kernel (~kvm-58)]]
* [http://qemu-buch.de/ Wikibook "QEMU & KVM"]
== KVM Doxygen Documentation ==
* [http://doxygen.org/ kvm doxygen documentation tool]
== Tools ==
* [[tools|Tools]]
== Supported cpus ==
* [[processor_support|cpus]]

Management Tools

2009-08-04T23:37:49Z

Iggy: Added Enomaly

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:

{|
|-
!Name/URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
|-
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org Plain old qemu/kvm]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|cli
|active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64 or kvm or qemu-kvm) for more info
|-
|[http://virt-manager.org Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)]
|A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines
|desktop
|active
|uses libvirt
|-
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM]
|a gnome user interface for KVM
|desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/aqemu/ AQemu]
|a Qt4 user interface for KVM
|desktop
|active
|
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|cli
|2007-09-25
|
|-
|[http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page Proxmox VE]
|an easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines
|web
|active
|
|-
|[http://www.convirture.com/community.html ConVirt]
|an intuitive, graphical management console providing comprehensive life cycle management for Virtual Machines and virtualization infrastructures
|web?
|active
|basic support for kvm added in 0.9.1; formerly known as xenman
|-
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php OpenNebula]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|cli & xml-rpc
|active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/ Ganeti]
|Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies
|cli
|active
|KVM support added in Ganeti 2.0
|-
|[http://src.enomaly.com/ Enomaly]
|a programmable virtual cloud infrastructure for small, medium and large businesses
|web & REST API
|active
|they have commercial and open source editions
|}

HowToConfigScript

2009-07-29T14:14:31Z

Iggy: add note about tarball being gone

'''NOTE: kvmctl is long gone. Ignore this page unless you already have a copy of kvmctl

= Intro =
I have written a utility called '''kvmctl''' to manage KVM-based VMs, along with a configuration file format, and other associated utilities. Feel free to use it, or to expand on it. While not strictly required by the license, I would appreciate knowing if you use it, and would appreciate being credited if you expand upon it.

A couple of assumptions are made for this work:

* all the VMs have unique host names.
* all the VMs have config files in /etc/kvm that are named <host>.kvm. These are shell script fragments that initialise variabless related to the VM.
* all the VMs are given unique numeric identifiers between 00 and 99. This is used for the VNC port number and the last 2 digits of the virtual MAC address.
* there is a single bridge configured for all VMs to use, and all VMs will use bridged networking
I don't proclaim to be a great shell programmer, so there are undoubtedly better ways to do a lot of things in this script. However, this works well enough for us, covers all the things we need to do, and has been running without issues for a couple of weeks now. I have made a bunch of changes to the script, and have released is as 2.0.2. :)

There's a simple init.d/ script included that can be used to auto-start VMs when the host system boots. Just symlink config files into /etc/kvm/auto/ and then add the script to whichever runlevel you want. Just be sure to set it to start after networking is up.

= Download =

== Version 2.0.2 ==
Stable and working. Auto-shutdown doesn't work yet, as I haven't found a way to send a "powerdown" event to the guest OS to tell it to initiate a clean shutdown.
* Download the tarball here: [[Media:HowToConfigScript$kvmctl-2.0.2.tbz|kvmctl-2.0.2.tbz]]
* [[HowToConfigScriptSource202|Source Version 2.0.2]]

== Version 2.1.0 ==
I've added a possibility to start a monitor port as telnet server and added a shutdown. Since debian has removed bash tcp support i need netcat (nc) to send a power-button-press to the monitor of virtual machine. So if you like to test the shutdown, start the machine with a monitor and install "nc". This Version includes some other changes and is not roughly tested.
* Download the tarball here: [[Media:kvmctl-2.1.0.tar.gz|kvmctl-2.1.0.tar.gz]]

'''NOTE: The tarball is gone, nobody has a copy, don't report this issue. This page is here strictly for people who already have kvmctl and historic purposes.

= Usage =
The script can be run as a normal user. It uses sudo internally for the start/stop commands (all the rest are run as the normal user). Currently, all kvm processes are run as root, as this was developed on Debian Lenny which (for whatever reason) decided to include kernel capabilities which prevents non-root users from accessing tun devices.

To see a blurb that describe all the options:

# kvmctl help
kvmctl 2.0.2
Licensed under BSDL Copyright: 2008
kvmctl is a management and control script for KVM-based virtual machines.
Usage: kvmctl start host - start the named VM
kvmctl startvnc host - start the named VM, and then connect to console via VNC
kvmctl stop host - stop the named VM (only use if the guest is hung)
kvmctl restart host - stop and then start the named VM (only use if the guest is hung)
kvmctl vnc host - connect via VNC to the console of the named VM
kvmctl whichvnc host - show which VNC display port is assigned to the named VM
kvmctl killvnc host - kills any running vncviewer processes attached to the named VM
kvmctl edit host - open config file for host using $EDITOR, or create a new config file based on a template
kvmctl status - show the names of all running VMs
kvmctl status kvm - show full details for all running kvm processes
kvmctl status host - show full details for the named kvm process
kvmctl help - show this usage blurb
** Using stop is the same as pulling the power cord on a physical system. Use with caution.

To start a VM named webmail:

# kvmctl start webmail
Starting webmail.
The VNC port for webmail is :05

To start a VM named webmail, and then immediately attach to the console via VNC:

# kvmctl startvnc webmail
Starting webmail.
The VNC port for webmail is :05
<vncviewer is started>

To check the status of all running VMs (just outputs the name of the running VMs):

# kvmctl status
The following VMs are running:
fcsync
webmail

To see the process info for all the running VMs:

# kvmctl status kvm
The following VMs are running:
3792 /usr/bin/kvm -name fcsync -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice tablet -smp 1 -m 1048 -vnc :02 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/fcsync.pid -net nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:02,model=rtl8139 -net tap,ifname=tap02 -boot c -drive index=0,media=disk,if=ide,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-fcsync
5123 /usr/bin/kvm -name webmail -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice tablet -smp 2 -m 2048 -vnc :05 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/webmail.pid -net nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:05,model=e1000 -net tap,ifname=tap05 -boot c -drive index=1,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail--storage -drive index=0,media=disk,if=ide,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail

To see the process info for a specific VM:

# kvmctl status webmail
VM for host webmail is running with:
5123 /usr/bin/kvm -name webmail -daemonize -localtime -usb -usbdevice tablet -smp 2 -m 2048 -vnc :05 -pidfile /var/run/kvm/webmail.pid -net nic,macaddr=00:16:3e:00:00:05,model=e1000 -net tap,ifname=tap05 -boot c -drive index=1,media=disk,if=scsi,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail--storage -drive index=0,media=disk,if=ide,file=/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail

To "pull the power cord" of a running VM:

# kvmctl stop webmail
Attempting to stop VM for webmail
VM for webmail has stopped

To "powercycle" a running VM:

# kvmctl restart webmail
Attempting to stop VM for webmail
VM for webmail has stopped
Starting webmail.
The VNC port for webmail is :05

To see which VNC port has been assigned to a VM:

# kvmctl whichvnc webmail
The VNC port for webmail is :05

To connect to the VNC port of a VM (requires vncviewer installed on the host):

# kvmctl vnc webmail
<vncviewer is started>

To create a new config file for a VM:

# kvmctl edit newvm
/etc/kvm/test.kvm does not exist. Would you like to create one from the template? (y/n)
<if yes, $EDITOR is opened with the template loaded>

To edit an existing config file:

# kvmctl edit webmail
<$EDITOR is opened with /etc/kvm/webmail.kvm loaded.>

= kvmctl 2.0 config file format =

# kvmctl Version: 2.0.0
# The name of the VM must be unique across all VMs running on this server
host="webmail"
# An ID number for the VM.
# This is used to generate the MAC address of the virtual NIC, the tap device in the host, and
# the VNC port for the VM's console.
id="12"
# How much RAM to associate with the VM.
# This is the max amount of RAM that it will use.
mem="2048"
# Whether to enable ACPI support in the virtual BIOS
# Default is to enable ACPI
# noacpi cannot be set if cpus > 1.
noacpi=""
# The number of virtual CPUs to assign to the VM.
# Stable values are 1-4.
# cpus must be set to 1 if noacpi is set.
cpus="2"
# Which mouse device to use
# Values: mouse, tablet
# Default: tablet
mouse="tablet"
# The network chipset to use in the VM.
# Values: rtl1389, e1000
# Default: rtl8139
nic="e1000"
# Which virtual block device to boot from
# Values: a=floppy0, b=floppy1, c=disk0, d=disk1
# Default: c
boot="c"
# If the VM is set to boot from "d" and "d" is a CD-ROM, an extra '-no-reboot'
# option is added to the kvm commandline. This will cause the VM to treat a
# "reboot" command as if it were a "shutdown" command.
# Values for disktype: ide, scsi, virtio
# Default for disktype: ide
# If the value for disktyp0 is scsi or virtio, an extra ',boot=on' option will
# be added to the kvm commandline. This is needed in order to boot from SCSI
# and paravirtualised block devices.
# Values for media: disk, cdrom
# Default for disktype: disk
# Values for disk: a path to either a disk image file, or an LVM logical volume
# Default for disk: /dev/mapper/vol0-${host}
# The first virtual block device
# For IDE devices, this is primary master.
disktype0="ide"
media0="disk"
disk0="/dev/mapper/vol0-webmail"
# The second virtual block device
# For IDE devices, this is primary slave.
disktype1=""
media1=""
disk1=""
# The third virtual block device
# For IDE devices, this is secondary master
# USE THIS FOR CD-ROMS OR PERFORMANCE WILL SUFFER GREATLY!!
disktype2="ide"
media2="cdrom"
disk2="/home/iso/debian-40r3-amd64-netinst.iso"
# The fourth virtual block device
# For IDE devices, this is secondary slave
disktype3=""
media3=""
disk3=""

Management Tools

2009-07-07T22:57:52Z

Iggy: Add info about Ganeti

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:

{|
|-
!Name/URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
|-
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org Plain old qemu/kvm]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|cli
|active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64|kvm|qemu-kvm) for more info
|-
|[http://virt-manager.org Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)]
|A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines
|desktop
|active
|uses libvirt
|-
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM]
|a gnome user interface for KVM
|desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/aqemu/ AQemu]
|a Qt4 user interface for KVM
|desktop
|active
|
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|cli
|2007-09-25
|
|-
|[http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page Proxmox VE]
|an easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines
|web
|active
|
|-
|[http://www.convirture.com/community.html ConVirt]
|an intuitive, graphical management console providing comprehensive life cycle management for Virtual Machines and virtualization infrastructures
|web?
|active
|basic support for kvm added in 0.9.1; formerly known as xenman
|-
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php OpenNebula]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|cli & xml-rpc
|active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/ Ganeti]
|Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies
|cli
|active
|KVM support added in Ganeti 2.0
|}

Management Tools

2009-07-04T03:04:37Z

Iggy: merged name and url columns

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:

{|
|-
!Name/URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
|-
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org Plain old qemu/kvm]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|cli
|active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64|kvm|qemu-kvm) for more info
|-
|[http://virt-manager.org Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)]
|A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines
|desktop
|active
|uses libvirt
|-
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM]
|a gnome user interface for KVM
|desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|-
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/aqemu/ AQemu]
|a Qt4 user interface for KVM
|desktop
|active
|
|-
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|cli
|2007-09-25
|
|-
|[http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page Proxmox VE]
|an easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines
|web
|active
|
|-
|[http://www.convirture.com/community.html ConVirt]
|an intuitive, graphical management console providing comprehensive life cycle management for Virtual Machines and virtualization infrastructures
|web?
|active
|basic support for kvm added in 0.9.1; formerly known as xenman
|-
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php OpenNebula]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|cli & xml-rpc
|active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|}

FAQ

2009-06-12T22:39:55Z

Iggy: Fixed some url's

=FAQ=

== Preparing to use kvm ==
=== What do I need to use kvm? ===
You will need an x86 machine running a recent Linux kernel on an Intel processor with VT (virtualization technology) extensions, or an AMD processor with SVM extensions (also called AMD-V). Xen has a [http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors complete list] of compatible processors. For Intel processors, see also [http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx the Intel® Virtualization Technology List].

----------
=== Are 64bits processors supported under kvm? ===
Yes they are supported and will allow you to run 32bits and 64 bits clients.

See also '''Can kvm run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE?''' below.

----------

=== What is Intel VT / AMD-V / hvm? ===
[http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2006/v10i3/1-hardware/6-vt-x-vt-i-solutions.htm Intel VT] and [http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8826_14287,00.html AMD's AMD-V] are instruction set extensions that provide hardware assistance to virtual machine monitors. They enable running fully isolated virtual machines at native hardware speeds, for some workloads.

HVM (for Hardware Virtual Machine) is a vendor-neutral term often used to designate the x86 instruction set extensions.

----------

=== How can I tell if I have Intel VT or AMD-V? ===
With a recent enough Linux kernel, run the command:

. egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If something shows up, you have VT. You can also check the processor model name (in `/proc/cpuinfo`) in the vendor's web site.

Note:

* Some manufacturers disable VT in the machine's BIOS, in such a way that it cannot be re-enabled.
* `/proc/cpuinfo` only shows virtualization capabilities starting with Linux 2.6.15 (Intel) and Linux 2.6.16 (AMD). Use the `uname -r` command to query your kernel version.
In case of doubt, contact your hardware vendor.

----------

=== "KVM: disabled by BIOS" error ===
Check if there is an option to enable it in the BIOS. If not, look for a more recent BIOS on the vendor's web site.

Note:

* On some hardware (e-g HP nx6320), you need to power-off/power-on the machine after enabling virtualisation in the BIOS.
* Enabling some BIOS features may break VT support on some hardware (e-g Enabling Intel AMT on a Thinkpad T500 will prevent kvm-intel from loading with "disabled by bios")

----------

=== How can I use AMD-V extension? ===
modprobe kvm-amd

----------

=== What user space tools does kvm use? ===
kvm uses a slightly modified [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu qemu] program to instantiate the virtual machine. Once running, a virtual machine is just a regular process. You can use `top(1), kill(1), taskset(1)` and similar tools to manage virtual machines.

----------

=== What virtual disk formats can kvm use? ===
kvm inherits a wealth of disk formats support from qemu; it supports raw images, the native qemu format (qcow), VMware format, and many more.

----------

=== Are there management tools available to help me manage my virtual machines? ===
Yes. Please see the [[Management Tools]] page for some links.

----------

== Using kvm ==
=== How can I use kvm with a non-privileged user? ===
The cleanest way is probably to create a group, say ''kvm'', and add the user(s) to that group. Then you will need change /dev/kvm to owned by group ''kvm''.

On a system that runs udev, you will probably need to add the following line somewhere in your udev configuration so it will automatically give the right group to the newly created device (i-e for ubuntu add a line to ''/etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules'').

KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm"

----------

=== Is KVM stable? ===
The good news is that more and more developers and testers use KVM each passing day and for the most part, it works. KVM is a very young project and constantly evolving to add new features and more hardware support. Given the fervent pace of development, it's very likely that we're introducing new bugs at a fast pace as well, however small they might be. We would encourage our users to report any bug(s) they encounter so that we can continue making KVM better and stabler with each commit.

----------

=== That's alright, but can I really use it for my daily use? ===
Sure. We continuously run the most often-used OSes and configurations and if anything breaks for the developers, it's fixed as soon as it was broken. See the [[Guest Support Status]] and [[Host Support Status]] pages to find out more. Please update them with success stories so that new users would benefit from the experience of the community.

----------

=== How about production use? ===
For production use, it's recommended you use the kvm modules shipped by the distribution you're using to ensure stability. As mentioned above, it's tempting to use new features, but you never know of (unwanted) surprises hidden away. It'll be best if you can run the development snapshots with non-critical production load, so that the latest releases are stable for you when you decide to deploy them.

----------

=== What happens if I kill -9 a VM process? ===
From the guest's perspective, it is as if you yanked the power cord out. From the host's perspective, the process is killed and all resources it uses are reclaimed.

----------

=== I need help to setup the network for my guest ===
You can have a look to the [[Networking]] page of this wiki for informations on the most classical networking setup for the guests. You can also refer to the Qemu documentation.

----------

=== Where can I find more documention... ===
Most usability issues are covered in the QEMU [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/user-doc.html documentation]. There is also an extensive [http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrequentlyAskedQuestions FAQ].

----------

== Troubleshooting ==
=== How can I check that I'm not falling back to qemu with no hardware acceleration? ===

If you think that you might no be using the hardware acceleration provided by the kvm module, here are a few steps to help you check this.

First of all, check that you don't have messages such as:

qemu-system-x86_64 -hda myvm.qcow2
open /dev/kvm: No such file or directory
Could not initialize KVM, will disable KVM support

In that case, you can check that:
* the modules are correctly loaded <code>lsmod|grep kvm
* you don't have a "KVM: disabled by BIOS" line in the output of dmesg
* /dev/kvm exists and you have the correct rights to use it

Other ways to do the diagnostic:
* if you have access to the qemu monitor (Ctrl-Alt-2, use Ctrl-Alt-1 to get back to the VM display), enter the "info kvm" command and it should respond with "KVM support: enabled"
* the right-end columns of the output from <code>lsmod|grep kvm</code> on the host system, once the VM is started should show only non zero values. The value on the line corresponding to the architecture specific module (e-g kvm_intel, kvm_amd) show the number of VM using the module. For instance, if I have 2 VM running using the kvm module on a machine with vt, it will report:

lsmod|grep kvm
kvm_intel 44896 2
kvm 159656 1 kvm_intel

=== "rect too big" Message when using VNC Display ===
When connection to a VNC Terminal, a "rect too big" message appears, and the VNC Session disconnects.

This might happen, when a VNC Client (for example RealVNC / xvnc4viewer) chooses ZRLE Encoding. Simple choose Hextile Encoding in the options of your VNC Client, and the Problem should be resolved.

----------
'''How do I set up the network such that my guest is accessible from other machines?''' or

=== My guest network is stuck what should I do? ===
kvm uses qemu for its device emulation. Consult the [http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/QemuNetwork qemu network wiki page] for detailed network setup instructions.

One would probably be interested in the Root Networking Mode page and the Network Bridge page.

----------

=== I get an "Exception 13" or "Exception 12" message while booting a guest OS on my Intel host ===
See the [[Intel Real Mode Emulation Problems]] page.

----------
=== I get "rtc interrupts lost" messages, and the guest is very slow? ===
Try setting <code>CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y</code> in your host <code>.config</code>.

----------

=== I have VMware/Parallels/VirtualBox installed and when I modprobe KVM, my system deadlocks. ===
Neither Intel VT nor AMD-V provide a mechanism to determine whether software is currently using the hardware virtualization extensions. This means that if you have two kernel modules loaded attempting to use hardware virtualization extensions, very bad things will happen. If you are using another type of virtualization software and experience any sort of weirdness with KVM, make sure you can reproduce the problem without the kernel modules for that software loaded before you report a bug in KVM.

----------

=== There's nothing on QEMU/kvm screen, but it's not hanged! I'm trying to install Kubuntu. ===
Try to run kvm with -std-vga option. It helps if guest operating system uses framebuffer mode like Kubuntu/Ubuntu.

----------

=== When I click the guest operating system window, mouse is grabbed. How can I get mouse to not to do that? OR Mouse doesn't show up / doesn't work in the guest. What do I do? ===
From #qemu wiki, try to run kvm/qemu with

-usb -usbdevice tablet
If that doesn't work, try this:

$ export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0
(from http://wiki.clug.org.za/wiki/QEMU_mouse_not_working )

----------

== General kvm information ==
=== What is the difference between kvm and Xen? ===
Xen is an external hypervisor; it assumes control of the machine and divides resources among guests. On the other hand, kvm is part of Linux and uses the regular Linux scheduler and memory management. This means that kvm is much smaller and simpler to use.

kvm only run on processors that supports x86 hvm (vt/svm instructions set) whereas Xen also allows running modified operating systems on non-hvm x86 processors using a technique called paravirtualisation. kvm does not support paravirtualization for cpu but may support paravirtualization for device drivers to improve I/O performances.

----------

=== What is the difference between kvm and VMWare? ===
VMware is a proprietary product. kvm is Free Software released under the GPL.

----------

=== What is the difference between kvm and QEMU? ===
Qemu uses emulation; kvm uses processor extensions (HVM) for virtualization.

----------

=== Do you have a port of kvm for Windows? ===
Not in this release.

----------

=== What kernel version does it work with? ===
It depends on what version of kvm you are using. The last release of kvm should work with any recent kernel (2.6.17 and above), older releases even older kernels.

----------

=== How much RAM do I need? ===
You will need enough memory to let the guest run comfortably while keeping enough for the host. 1GB is probably a minimum configuration for the host OS.

----------

=== Is dynamic use of RAM for guest operating system supported? ===
Yes. If you set -m 6144, guest can get a maximum of 6GB of RAM, but doesn't necessarily uses all. PLease note however that the usual platform limits will apply so you won't be able to see more than 4GB of RAM on a 32 bits guest unless you use PAE.

----------

=== What OSs can I run inside kvm VM? ===
Several. See the [[Guest Support Status]] page for details. Note that several Linux flavors are known to hang on Intel processors during startup. Workaround is to disable splashscreens in grub.

----------

=== Does kvm support a live migration feature to move virtual machines from one host to another without downtime? ===
Yes. See the [[Migration]] page for details.

----------

=== Does kvm support live migration from an AMD host to an Intel host and back? ===
Yes. There may be issues on 32-bit Intel hosts which don't support NX (or XD), but for 64-bit hosts back and forth migration should work well. Migration of 32-bit guests should work between 32-bit hosts and 64-bit hosts.
If one of your hosts does not support NX, you may consider disabling NX when starting the guest on a NX-capable system. You can do it by passing "-cpu qemu64,-nx" parameter to the guest.

----------

=== Can kvm run a 32-bit guest on a 64-bit host? What about PAE? ===
kvm supports 32-bit guests on 64-bit hosts, and any combination of PAE and non-PAE guests and hosts. The only unsupported combination is a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host.

If you are running a Windows Virtual Machine and have problems enabling PAE in your guest see the [[Windows PAE Workaround]] page.

----------

=== Is it possible to use USB devices with a guest OS? ===
Yes, look up how to do it with qemu, it's the same way.

----------

=== Can I have higher or widescreen resolutions (eg 1680 x 1050) in kvm? ===
Support for higher resolutions was added in kvm-59, but some bugs were left until the release of kvm-62. Use the -std-vga parameter while starting the VM.

If the resolution you want to use is not available, you can patch the corresponding source files (see http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.kvm.devel/13557 as a reference), or send a mail to the kvm mailing list if you are not able to patch the source yourself.

When using Windows as guest OS you might want to use the driver from the VBEMP x86 project (http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/vbemp.htm).

----------

=== Does kvm support SMP hosts? ===
Yes.

----------

=== Does kvm support SMP guests? ===
Yes. Up to 16 CPUs can be specified using the -smp option.

----------

=== Is the name 'kvm' trademarked? ===
No.

----------

Main Page

2009-06-12T22:33:20Z

Iggy: Add some links to the bottom of the main page to assist new users

== Kernel Based Virtual Machine ==

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko. KVM also requires a modified QEMU although work is underway to get the required changes upstream.

Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, as of 2.6.20.

KVM is open source software.

== Common Pages ==
{| style="border:none"
|style="width:50%;border:none;"|
* [[KVM Forum]]
* [[TODO]]
* [[KVM-Autotest]]
|style="width:50%;border:none;"|
* [[Management Tools]]
* [[Documents]]
|}

== Common External Pages ==
{|style="border:none"
|style="width:50%;border:none;"|
* [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu QEMU]
* [http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/HVM_Compatible_Processors Xen's HVM Compatible Processors List]
|style="width:50%;border:none;"|
* [http://calamari.reverse-dns.net:980/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/FrontPage QEMU Wiki]
|}

Management Tools

2009-06-12T20:09:17Z

Iggy: table-ified info

There are a several options available to manage kvm virtual machines:
* First of all, you can manage kvm simply by running the binary file qemu-system_x86_64 (or just "kvm" depending on distribution). Check the man page for arguments (man qemu-system-x86_64).
* The "[http://virt-manager.org Virtual Machine Manager]" application (virt-manager for short package name) is a desktop user interface for managing virtual machines.
* [http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/ GKVM] is a lightweight management tool that can manage kvm virtual machines.
* Any management tool built on [http://libvirt.org/ libvirt] can manage kvm virtual machines.
* [http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/ kvmadm] is a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM.
* [http://pve.proxmox.com/ Proxmox VE] is an easy to use virtualization platform for running virtual appliances and virtual machines: including bare-metal installer and web-based management interface.
* [http://xenman.sourceforge.net ConVirt] is an intuitive, graphical management console providing comprehensive life cycle management for Virtual Machines and virtualization infrastructures. As of version 0.9.1, Convirt has basic support for KVM.
* [http://www.opennebula.org OpenNebula] is an open source virtual infrastructure engine that enables the dynamic deployment and re-allocation of virtual machines on a pool of physical resources.

{|
|-
!Name
!URL
!Description
!UI Type
!Active|Last Updated
!Notes
|-
|Plain old qemu/kvm
|[http://www.linux-kvm.org]
|You can run qemu/kvm straight from the command line
|cli
|active
|See man (qemu-system-x86_64|kvm|qemu-kvm) for more info
|-
|Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)
|[http://virt-manager.org]
|A desktop user interface for managing virtual machines
|desktop
|active
|uses libvirt
|-
|GKVM
|[http://gkvm.sourceforge.net/]
|a gnome user interface for KVM
|desktop
|2007-08-01
|
|-
|kvmadm
|[http://code.google.com/p/kvmadm/]
|a minimalistic set of command-line tools to control multi-user utilization of KVM
|cli
|2007-09-25
|
|-
|Proxmox VE
|[http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page]
|an easy to use Open Source virtualization platform for running Virtual Appliances and Virtual Machines
|web
|active
|
|-
|ConVirt
|[http://www.convirture.com/community.html]
|an intuitive, graphical management console providing comprehensive life cycle management for Virtual Machines and virtualization infrastructures
|web?
|active
|basic support for kvm added in 0.9.1; formerly known as xenman
|-
|OpenNebula
|[http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php]
|an open source virtual infrastructure engine
|cli & xml-rpc
|active
|cloud computing managment; uses libvirt
|}

Code

2009-06-12T18:58:10Z

Iggy: add info about stable release tags and debian binary packages

=Code=

[[Category:Architechture]]

== kernel git tree ==

The kvm kernel code is available through a git tree (like the kernel itself). To create a repository using git, type

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/avi/kvm.git

Alternatively, it is also accessible through the kernel.org gitweb interface:
[http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/avi/kvm.git;a=summary]

For subsequent upgrades use the command

git-pull
in the git working dir.

== userspace git tree ==

The kvm userspace code (libkvm and qemu) is available through a git tree. To create a repository using git, type

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/qemu-kvm.git

Alternatively, it is also accessible through the kernel.org gitweb interface:
[http://git.kernel.org/?p=virt/kvm/qemu-kvm.git;a=summary]

== building an external module with older kernels ==

'''This only works for the x86 architecture.'''

1. If you wish to use a distribution kernel (or just some random kernel you like) with kvm,
you can use the external module kit. You will need the kvm-kmod repository:

git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/virt/kvm/kvm-kmod.git
cd kvm-kmod
git submodule update --init
./configure [--kerneldir=/path/to/kernel/dir]
make sync
make

=== Tip about building against Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernels ===

<code>kvm-userspace/kernel</code> has some compat code to allow it to compile against older kernels, and also some code specific to features that are normally not present on older kernels but are present on RHEL kernels.

So, when building against a RHEL kernel tree, check if the <code>RHEL_*</code> macros at <code>${kerneldir}/include/linux/version.h</code> are defined correctly, corresponding to the RHEL version where the kernel source comes from. If those macros aren't defined correctly, the compat code that allows compilation against RHEL kernels will break and you will get build errors.

== release tags ==

kvm stable releases (based off of Qemu's stable branch) are tagged with <code>kvm-qemu-0.NN.N</code> where ''N'' equates to the upstream Qemu branch versions. Note that kvm has them tagged not branched.

kvm development releases are tagged with <code>kvm-nn</code> where ''nn'' is the release number.

== Binary Packages ==

=== CentOS / RHEL ===

Unofficial packages of latest releases can be found at:
<code>http://www.lfarkas.org/linux/packages/centos/5/</code>

=== Debian Lenny ===

There are some updated packages for debian lenny available at:
<code>http://www.corpit.ru/debian/tls/kvm/</code>

== nightly snapshots ==

Nightly snapshots, for those who are uncomfortable with git, are [http://people.qumranet.com/avi/snapshots available]. When reporting a problem with a snapshot, please quote the snapshot name (which includes the date) and the contents of the SOURCES file in the snapshot tarball.

RunningKVM

2009-05-15T23:00:38Z

Iggy: remove note about using -no-acpi with windows as it hasn't been the case for a while

== Prerequisites ==

You will need (see download section):

* kvm-''release''.tar.gz
* A VT capable Intel processor, or an SVM capable AMD processor
* qemu prerequisites:
** `zlib` libraries and headers
** `SDL` libraries and headers
** `alsa` libraries and headers (optional alsa support: disabled by default but can be enabled with --enable-alsa)
** `gnutls` libraries and headers (optional VNC TLS support: enabled by default but can be disabled with --disable-vnc-tls)
** kernel headers (on Fedora, the kernel-devel package)

On a debian etch system you can install the prerequisites with:
apt-get install gcc libsdl1.2-dev zlib1g-dev libasound2-dev linux-kernel-headers pkg-config libgnutls-dev

'''Note:''' When building from git, you also need gawk.

Please report problems (and successes) to the [[Lists,_IRC| mailing list]].

== Unpacking and configuring kvm components ==

You may wish to take a look at the ["Kernel-optimizations"] page.
There exists a [attachment:kvm-26-alt-grab.diff.gz patch] which will change the SDL keygrab combination from ctrl-alt to ctrl-alt-shift. It was written primarily to deal with the heavy use of ctrl-alt-delete in NT-based VMs.

If you are using a patched kernel (e.g. a recent -mm kernel or the kvm git tree), configure the kernel normally, boot into it, and:

tar xzf kvm-release.tar.gz
cd kvm-release
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/kvm --with-patched-kernel
make
sudo make install
sudo /sbin/modprobe kvm-intel
# or: sudo /sbin/modprobe kvm-amd

If you're ''not'' running a patched kernel:

tar xzf kvm-release.tar.gz
cd kvm-release
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/kvm
make
sudo make install
sudo /sbin/modprobe kvm-intel
# or: sudo /sbin/modprobe kvm-amd

'''Note:''' if sound doesn't play in the guest vm you can add --audio-drv-list="alsa oss" to ./configure as explained in http://www.linux-kvm.com/content/sound-problem-solved

== Creating a disk image for the guest ==
/usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-img create -f qcow vdisk.img 10G

== Installing a guest operating system ==

sudo /usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -hda vdisk.img -cdrom /path/to/boot-media.iso \
-boot d -m 384

(kvm doesn't make a distinction between i386 and x86_64 so even in i386 you should use `qemu-system-x86_64`)[[BR]]

If you have less than 1GB of memory don't use the -m 384 flag (which allocates 384 MB of RAM for the guest). For computers with 512MB of RAM it's safe to use -m 192, or even -m 128 (the default)

== Running the newly-installed guest ==
sudo /usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 vdisk.img -m 384

or a slightly more complicated example, where it is assumed that bridged networking is available on tap0; see ["Kernel-optimizations"] for some setup hints:

/usr/local/kvm/bin/qemu-system-x86_64 -hda xp-curr.img -m 512 -soundhw es1370 -no-acpi -snapshot -localtime -boot c -usb -usbdevice tablet -net nic,vlan=0,macaddr=00:00:10:52:37:48 -net tap,vlan=0,ifname=tap0,script=no

(kvm doesn't make a distinction between i386 and x86_64 so even in i386 you should use `qemu-system-x86_64`)

If you're on Debian Etch, substitute `kvm` for `qemu-system-x86_64` (thanks to fromport, soren and mael_). See also the entries under the label "Ubuntu" on the [[HOWTO]] page.
qemu-system-x86_64`

If you're on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS (and installed a kvm package and not built kvm yourself from source) then substitute '''qemu-kvm''' for '''qemu-system-x86_64'''

Documents

2009-04-07T17:59:35Z

Iggy: add acm virtio article link

= Documents =

== User/Admin documentation ==
* [[HOWTO]]
* [http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/qemu-doc.html QEMU user manual]
== Presentations ==
* Presentations on many aspects of KVM were made at KvmForum2007 (Aug 2007).
* Presentations from the KvmForum2008 (June 2008)
* Avi Kivity's presentation from the [http://ols.108.redhat.com/2007/Reprints/kivity-Reprint.pdf Ottawa Linux Symposium 2007] (Jun 2007).
* TPR patching [attachment:kvm-tpr-patching.odp overview] (Avi Kivity, Oct 2008)
* [http://markmc.fedorapeople.org/virtio-code-review/VirtioCodeReview.pdf Virtio code walkthrough], [http://markmc.fedorapeople.org/virtio-code-review/virtio-talk.txt notes], [http://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2008/05/28/checksums-scatter-gather-io-and-segmentation-offload/ GSO background] (Mark !McLoughlin, Oct 2008), and [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1400097.1400108 ACM pdf about virtio by Rusty Russell]
== White papers: ==
* Qumranet's [http://www.qumranet.com/files/white_papers/KVM_Whitepaper.pdf KVM Whitepaper]
== Magazine Articles ==
* [http://www.linux-magazine.com/issues/2008/86/kernel_tricks Linux Magazine]
* [http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6490/4/ KVM for Embedded] at Linux Planet
== Benchmarks ==
* http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_virt_benchmarks&num=1
== Documentation ==
* [[small_look_inside|small look inside(kvm-54)]]
* [[buildup|qemu kvm buildup]]
* [[vl_runthrough|qemu-system-x86_64 startup (kvm-57)]]
* [[initialization|initialization (kvm-57)]]
* [[file_layout_in_kernel|file layout in kernel (~kvm-58)]]
== KVM Doxygen Documentation ==
* [http://kvmapi.ath.cx kvm doxygen documentation]
== Tools ==
* [[tools|Tools]]
== Supported cpus ==
* [[processor_support|cpus]]