[CentOS] kvm and virto on Centos 5.4

--- On Tue, 1/5/10, Christopher Chan <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk> wrote:

> From: Christopher Chan <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk>
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] kvm and virto on Centos 5.4
> To: centos at centos.org
> Date: Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 10:03 PM
> Hello Steve,
> 
> S.Tindall wrote:
> > On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 10:48 +0800, Christopher Chan
> wrote:
> >> I have not tried kvm on Centos 5.4 yet...does
> anyone know if it has 
> >> support for virtio?
> > 
> > Yes, it does.
> > 
> 
> Thanks for the confirmation. Now I can feel free to stick a
> Windows 2008 
> server on a Centos 5.4 box.
> 

Ideally you want bridged networking for KVM, especially with a guest
like Win2k8.

KVM by itself will not install a supporting br0 device. However Xen will. Unless you want to spend anywhere from 20min-2hours cooking up a DIY br0 install, install Xen no matter if you never intend to use it.

KVM is meant to be used with Virt-manager although you can run qemu-kvm in its own console.

Your success with KVM has a lot to do with your hardware. Intel (vmx) far and away has more bugs than AMD (svx) for some new guests like Win7 and Win2k8. Google around for kvm or Xen crashes (in Win2k8) for your intended CPU if it is an Intel vmx type. 

KVM is faster than qemu with kqemu-kernel and I've only come across one bug : the -usbdevice feature will not work in KVM but it works with qemu/kqemu.

-- 
Mark