Index of /log/Hardware/going-virtual

I got the replacement for my slow, old 1U server this week. It has loads of disk space (about 960GB), 4GB of RAM, and a Core 2 Duo CPU with the Intel virtualisation extensions. So I installed Ubuntu 7.04 (server edition), and started playing around with kvm.

Ubuntu 7.04 has all the bits you need for virtualization available. Just load the kernel modules, install the 'kvm' package, and you can start installing your virtual machines. As the VNC server inside kvm still likes to crash at unexpected moments, and I wasn't going to forward my X display just to give kvm a place to show VGA output, I had to convince the Ubuntu installer to use the serial console. This isn't as easy as I had hoped it to be (the boot menu on the installation CD requires using the 'normal' console—something I was trying to avoid).

After looking around for a while, I found the Ubuntu network installation files. These contain a special 'serial console' version, which meant I could finally install the guests using PXE. I now have two virtual machines running Ubuntu 6.06.1 on my Ubuntu 7.04 installation, and I still have room for more.

The only problem I have left is starting the kvm instances when the host system starts. I currently use screen and a few shell scripts and start them manually, but I'm thinking of creating an /etc/event.d entry. Does anyone have a better idea?