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Prepare a Host for KVM Virtualization

In order to start creating virtual machines with KVM, it is important to properly set up the host machine. In this lab, you will need to install KVM and the related packages, configure a network bridge, and then create a virtual disk image for use with a KVM virtual machine.

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 1h 0m
Last updated
Clock icon Aug 28, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Install KVM, libvirt (including virt-install and virt-viewer), and bridge utility packages

    yum -y install qemu-kvm libvirt virt-install virt-viewer bridge-utils

  2. Challenge

    Create a network bridge name `kvmbr0`

    cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

    vi ifcfg-ens5

    Take note of the current HWADDR value (your EC2 Instance's mac address) and update the file to:

    DEVICE=ens5
HWADDR=<<Your HWADDR>>
TYPE=Ethernet
ONBOOT=yes
BRIDGE=kvmbr0
NM_CONTROLLED=no

    -Use MAC address provided

    vi ifcfg-kvmbr0

    Update to:

    DEVICE=kvmbr0
TYPE=Bridge
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
DELAY=0
NM_CONTROLLED=no

    systemctl restart network

  3. Challenge

    Using the QEMU disk image utility, create an 8 GB virtual disk named disk1.img in `/var/lib/libvirt/images` using qcow2 format

    qemu-img create -f qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/disk1.img 8G

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