Virtualisation is the act of creating a virtualised computer (guest), inside another computer (the host) by sharing the hardware. This allows a single host the ability to run all your services, whilst keeping a level of SoC.
Enable in the BIOS
To run virtual machines, certain flags in the bios need to be set. If you don't want to bring down an existing server to check, then check the next section first.
- Reboot your PC
- At the BIOS splashscreen, press your motherboard's prefered key (typically ESC, F3, or F12).
- Find and enable the virtualisation setting(s).
- One of VT-x, AMD-V, SVM, or Vanderpool.
- One of Intel VT-d, or AMD IOMMU (if available)
Check Virtualisation is enabled
Double check to make sure your server can be used for virtualisation, if you've enabled it in the BIOS it should be good. Just run one of the following command
lscpu | grep 'Virtualization'grep -E --color '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfoInstall the packages
The easiest part, just copy and paste the below to install the required packages.
sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon libvirt-daemon-system virtinstSessions
There are two different session types for VMs, user, and system sessions. If you are using a desktop, and intend to virtualise other desktop OSs I recommend user sessions. If you're setting up a server hypervisor, then use System sessions.
User Session
A user session VM is what I recommend for personal PCs, laptops, etc. as it's the best option for desktop virtualisation (e.g. a Kali install for l33t hackers).
Add user to group
sudo adduser $USER libvirtEnable default network
Check the name of your default network (typically just 'default').
sudo virsh net-list --allEnable the network.
sudo virsh net-start default(Optionally) Set it to turn on with system boot.
sudo virsh net-autostart defaultSystem Session
For now all that's needed to know is that you run sudo before any virsh commands, and that the VMs will launch with root permissions.