Virtualization (Xen) with RHEL Workstation subscription
I have a RHEL Workstation subscription, currently running RHEL5.10. I have been using Parallels Workstation Extreme to run a Win7 Virtual Machine, but since Parallels has stopped offering/supporting it, have been looking into other VM options. It looks like Xen might be a good option to replace Parallels, but I have been having trouble figuring out whether I can use Xen that RHEL provides with my Workstation subscription. Can anyone help? If it is available with the Workstation subscription, what do I need to do? I've checked yum and can't find the Xen packages. Thanks!
Responses
Hi Lee,
Try the free version of virtualization called "KVM", aka "kernel virtualization machine"
- KVM comes with your RHEL Operating System, but you must add some rpms through 'yum'
- I believe KVM is 64-bit and XEN is 32-bit.
- I've seen on some systems where virtualization must be enabled within a system's BIOS. Typically not hard to find.
- I leave SELinux on with KVM (and as much as possible). See this source for general install (more sources next paragraph) and SElinux relabling if you use a separate drive for the images.
Here's some initial documentation
- Red Hat documentation on kvm, pdf format.
- (this is a pdf from Dell) on using KVM virtualization on an existing system.
- Also see this source
I've loaded many current operating systems, Linux, UNIX and including m-soft under KVM.
Try this set of rpms (from the guide above).
yum groupinstall "Virtualization*"
or if needed... (the bit below is long, scroll to right)
yum install kvm python-virtinst libvirt libvirt-pyton virt-manager virt-viewer libguestfs-tools qemu qemu-kvm qemu-img
I use KVM (not in production), but on a couple of workstations and I place the kvm images on a separate drive so the primary OS drive is not nagged by the running virtualized images.
Kind Regards,
Hi Lee, yes those rpms come with standard RHEL.
- have you registered your system to Red Hat?
- Also verify your network connection works (pings work, or you can reach google with a web browser).
- If for some reason you really can't have a network, you can create a local yum repository, however, it would be better to register the system to Red Hat and then your yum repositories should be available for the rpms you need.
- Try this Red Hat article on registering your system
Lee,
I posted instructions for rhel 6 and kvm. Sorry, I thought you were using rhel 6 and I should have addressed your initial description...
You can use KVM with rhel 5, see this link.
Lee, check in the middle of the replies above for the rhel 5 kvm instructions also here. Sorry, I missed that you are using rhel 5.10. kvm works fine under rhel 5.10. Check the registration info link I posted
RHN Classic should be fine - make sure you're subscribed to the correct channels and yum install the appropriate KVM packages. You're running Windows VM so you'll also want the latest virtio-win package with all the paravirtualized drivers for NIC and storage. Don't mess around with Xen. Xen went away after RHEL 5. For what it's worth, I have more than one site running production Windows servers in a RHEL/KVM environment. So the stuff works.
Also, if feasible, go to the latest RHEL 6 if you can.
- Greg
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