Installation guide

Chapter 2. System requirements
This chapter lists system requirements for successfully running virtual machines, referred to as VMs
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Virtualization is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 on the Intel
64 and AMD 64 architecture.
The KVM hypervisor is provided with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
For information on installing the virtualization packages, see Chapter 5, Installing the virtualization
packages.
Minimum syst em req u iremen t s
6 GB free disk space.
2 GB of RAM.
Reco mmen d ed syst em req u irement s
One processor core or hyper-thread for the maximum number of virtualized CPUs in a guest
virtual machine and one for the host.
2 GB of RAM plus additional RAM for virtual machines.
6 GB disk space for the host, plus the required disk space for each virtual machine.
Most guest operating systems will require at least 6GB of disk space, but the additional storage
space required for each guest depends on its image format.
For guest virtual machines using raw images, the guest's total required space (to tal fo r raw
fo rmat) is equal to or greater than the sum of the space required by the guest's raw image files
(i mag es), the 6GB space required by the host operating system (ho st), and the swap space
that guest will require (swap).
Eq u at io n 2.1. Calcu lat in g requ ired sp ace f o r g u est virt ual mach in es u sin g raw
images
total for raw format = images + host + swap
For qcow images, you must also calculate the expected maximum storage requirements of the
guest (to tal fo r q co w fo rmat), as qcow and qcow2 images grow as required. To allow for
this expansion, first multiply the expected maximum storage requirements of the guest (expected
maxi mum g uest sto rag e) by 1.01, and add to this the space required by the host (ho st),
and the necessary swap space (swap).
Eq u at io n 2.2. Calcu lat in g requ ired sp ace f o r g u est virt ual mach in es u sin g q co w
images
total for qcow format = (expected maximum guest storage * 1.01) + host + swap
Red Hat Ent erp rise Linux 6 Virt ualiz at ion Host Configurat ion and G uest Inst allat ion G uide
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