[CentOS-virt] Can KVM be run "headless"?
Scott Dowdle
dowdle at montanalinux.org
Wed Nov 10 22:23:57 EST 2010
Greetings,
----- Original Message -----
> On 11/10/2010 06:46 PM, compdoc wrote:
> If I am running a windows client, I would run something like
> Ultra VNC server. And on my host, communicate with something
> like krdc. Am I correct?
There are a few ways to do it.
If I'm on a Linux box (which I am 99.9% of the time), I ssh -X into the host running the KVM virtual machines, and run "virt-viewer {vm-name}" and a graphical display of the machine pops up. If I just want text access, I ssh into the VM directly. If I want to run just one graphical app, I might ssh -X into the VM.
If you are on a Windows client then you can use an ssh client (PuTTY for example) or if you want the GUI stuff, you can install an Xserver app on Windows and tunnel the X traffic over ssh. A nice free Xserver for Windows is Xming.
If you would prefer to run a remote display protocol server inside of the VM and connect with that you can install vnc-server or No Machine's NX server. NX is a ton faster but the free version (not open source but free of charge) limits you to two user connections which is plenty for most people on a server. Then you install the vnc-client or NX client on your Windows box and use that to connect to the remote display server in the VM.
> How do you start and stop your headless machines?
You can use virt-manager if you have GUI access to the host or you can use the command line tool virsh. For example:
virsh list --all (Shows all VMs on the host and shows their status)
virsh start {vm-name} (Starts a VM)
virsh shutdown {vm-name} (Shuts down your VM)
You really should check out Red Hat's Virtualizaiton Guide. They have a book quality guide that explains KVM, virt-manager and virsh.
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Virtualization/index.html
RHEL6 just came out today and they have greatly enhanced virt-manager and KVM... and you can expect a CentOS 6 release in 1 - 2 months... or so goes the pattern. If you want to see what KVM is like in RHEL6 you can check out their updated Virtualization Guide:
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Virtualization/index.html
TYL,
--
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406)388-0827 [home]
(406)994-3931 [work]
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