Installation guide
Chapter 3. KVM guest virtual machine compatibility
To verify whether your processor supports the virtualization extensions and for information on
enabling the virtualization extensions if they are disabled, refer to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Virtualization Administration Guide.
3.1. Red Hat Ent erprise Linux 6 support limit s
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 servers have certain support limits.
The following URLs explain the processor and memory amount limitations for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux:
For host systems: http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/articles-red-hat-enterprise-linux-
6-technology-capabilities-and-limits
For hypervisors: http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/virtualization-limits-rhel-
hypervisors
Note
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 now supports 4TiB of memory per KVM guest.
The following URL is a complete reference showing supported operating systems and host and guest
combinations:
http://www.redhat.com/resourcelibrary/articles/enterprise-linux-virtualization-support
3.2. Support ed CPU Models
Every hypervisor has its own policy for which CPU features the guest will see by default. The set of
CPU features presented to the guest by QEMU/KVM depends on the CPU model chosen in the guest
virtual machine configuration. qemu32 and qemu64 are basic CPU models but there are other
models (with additional features) available.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 supports the use of the following QEMU CPU model definitions:
<!-- This is only a partial file, only containing the CPU models. The XML
file has more information (including supported features per model) which
you can see when you open the file yourself -->
<cpus>
<arch name='x86'>
...
<!-- Intel-based QEMU generic CPU models -->
<model name='pentium'>
<model name='486'/>
</model>
<model name='pentium2'>
Red Hat Ent erp rise Linux 6 Virt ualiz at ion Host Configurat ion and G uest Inst allat ion G uide
12