virt-install option

virt-install

The virt-install command-line tool creates paravirtualized guests and hardware virtualized guests. virt-install can be used as an interactive shell, or all parameters can be given at the same time. Enter multiple parameters to the virt-install command-line tool in the format:

virt-install [option ...]

This section contains a brief explanation of some of the more common virt-install options. For full documentation, use the virt-install -h command.

Chapter 4, "Creating a Guest Virtual Machine" discusses using the virt-install tool.

Options

[-h | --help]

Displays the virt-install command parameters and their purpose.

# virt-install -h

[-nname | --name=name]

Sets the name of the guest instance.

# virt-install -nMyGuest

[-rRAM | --ram=RAM]

Sets the memory to allocate for a guest instance in Megabytes.

# virt-install --ram=256

[-uUUID | --uuid=UUID]

Sets the UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) for the guest. If none is given, a random UUID is generated.

# virt-install -u

[--vcpus=number]

Sets the number of virtual CPUs to configure for the guest.

# virt-install --vcpus=2

[-fdiskfile | --file=diskfile]

Sets the file to use as the disk image.

# virt-install --file=/home/myhome/myimage

[-sfilesize | --file-size=filesize]

Sets the size of the disk image (if it does not exist) in Gigabytes.

# virt-install -s2

[-nonsparse]

Do not use sparse files for disks. This option may be significantly slower when creating guests.

[-mvalue | --mac=value]

Sets the fixed MAC address for the guest; if none or RANDOM is given, a random address is used.

# virt-install --mac=RANDOM

[-bvalue | --bridge=value]

Sets the bridge to connect guest NIC to. If none is given, attempts to determine the default.

[--vnc]

Use VNC (Virtual Network Computing) for graphics support.

# virt-install --vnc

[--vncport=port]

Sets the port to use for VNC connections.

# virt-install --vncport=5900

[--sdl]

Use SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for graphics support.

# virt-install --sdl

[--nographics]

Do not use a graphical console for the guest.

# virt-install --nographics

[--noautoconsole]

Do not automatically connect to the guest console.

# virt-install --noautoconsole

[-kvalue | --keymap=value]

Set up keyboard mapping for the graphical console. If none is given, the keymap is automatically set to the local keymap.

# virt-install --de

[--accelerate]

Use kernel acceleration capabilities.

# virt-install --accelerate

[--connect=URI]

Connect to hypervisor with URI.

# virt-install --connect=test:///default

[-v | --hvm]

Sets the guest as being a fully virtualized guest.

# virt-install -v

[-cCD-ROM | --CD-ROM=CD-ROM]

Sets the file to use a virtual CD-ROM device for fully a virtualized guest.

[--os-type=type]

Sets the operating system type for a fully virtualized guest. Possible values are windows, unix, other, and linux.

# virt-install --os-type=windows

[--os-variant=variant]

Sets the operating system variant for a fully virtualized guest, for example, rhel5, win2k, or vista. This parameter should be used with the os-type parameter.

The following table lists the possible values available for os-variant for each os-type option.

Possible values for os-type=windows	Possible values for os-type=unix	Possible values for os-type=other	Possible values for os-type=linux
win2k3	solaris9	netware6	generic24
win2k	solaris10	generic	generic26
vista	freebsd6	netware4	rhel2.1
winxp	openbsd4	msdos	fedora7_64
		netware5	el5_64
			fedora6
			fedora7
			fedora5
			centos5_64
			generic26_64
			centos5
			sles10
			sles10_64
			el4_64
			rhel4
			rhel5
			rhel4_64
			rhel3
			fedora6_64
			rhel5_64
			fedora5_64
			el4
			el5

Note:

Not all operating system variants are supported by Oracle for use with Oracle products, but are made available for your convenience.

# virt-install --os-type=windows --os-variant=winxp

[--noapic]

Disables APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) for a fully virtualized guest. Overrides the value set in --os-type and --os-variant.

[--arch=arch]

Sets the CPU architecture to simulate.

# virt-install --arch=x86

[-p | --paravirt]

Sets the guest as being a paravirtualized guest.

[-llocation | --location=location]

Sets the installation source for a paravirtualized guest, for example, nfs:host:/path, http://host/path, or ftp://host/path.

# virt-install -lhttp://example.com/path

[--vif-type=type]

Sets the virtual network interface type for hardware virtualized guests. The netfront driver is a paravirtualized driver which can be used with a paravirtualized guest, or with a hardware virtualized guest with the proper paravirtualized drivers installed. The ioemu driver is a hardware virtualized driver, and can only be used with a hardware virtualized guest. Both drivers contain the device emulation code to support hardware virtualized guests.

For hardware virtualized guests, type can be either ioemu or netfront. The default is ioemu.

You cannot use this parameter for paravirtualized guests. For paravirtualized guests, the default is netfront and cannot be changed.

# virt-install --vif-type=ioemu

[[-xargs | --extra-args=args] ...]

Any additional arguments to pass to the installer with a paravirtualized guest.

[-d | --debug]

Prints debugging information.