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6.2. Installing Xen packages on an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux system
The section describes the steps necessary to install the virtualization packages on a working Red Hat Enterprise Linux system.
Registering your system with the subscription-manager command
Your machines must be registered on your Red Hat account to receive packages and updates. To register an unregistered installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, run the subscription-manager register command and follow the prompts.
If you do not have a valid Red Hat subscription, visit the Red Hat online store.
Installing the Xen hypervisor with
yum
To use virtualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux you need the xen and kernel-xen packages. The xen package contains the hypervisor and basic virtualization tools. The kernel-xen package contains a modified Linux kernel which runs as a virtual machine guest on the hypervisor.
To install the
xen and kernel-xen packages, run:
# yum install xen kernel-xen
Additional virtualization packages are available for management and configuration.
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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