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6.4. Installing KVM packages on an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux system
The section describes the steps for installing the KVM hypervisor on a working Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 system.
Adding packages to your list of Red Hat account entitlements
This section describes how to enable entitlements in your Red Hat account for the virtualization packages. You need these entitlements enabled to install and update the virtualization packages on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You require a valid Red Hat account in order to install virtualization packages on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
If you do not have a valid Red Hat subscription, visit the Red Hat online store.
Installing the KVM hypervisor with
yum
To use virtualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux you require the kvm package. The kvm package contains the KVM kernel module providing the KVM hypervisor on the default Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel.
To install the
kvm package, run:
# yum install kvm
Now, install additional virtualization management packages.
Recommended virtualization packages:
python-virtinst- Provides the
virt-installcommand for creating virtual machines. libvirtlibvirtis an API library for interacting with hypervisors.libvirtuses thexmvirtualization framework and thevirshcommand line tool to manage and control virtual machines.libvirt-python- The libvirt-python package contains a module that permits applications written in the Python programming language to use the interface supplied by the
libvirtAPI. virt-managervirt-manager, also known as Virtual Machine Manager, provides a graphical tool for administering virtual machines. It useslibvirtlibrary as the management API.
Install the other recommended virtualization packages:
# yum install virt-manager libvirt libvirt-python python-virtinst
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