Installation guide

Using KVM para-virtualized drivers for existing devices

Press Enter to continue the installation.

b. Windows Server 2008

Install the guest as described by Section 9.1, “Using virt-install to create a guest”

When the installer prompts you for the driver, click on Load Driver, point the installer to

Drive A: and pick the driver that suits your guest operating system and architecture.

11.3. Using KVM para-virtualized drivers for existing

devices

You can modify an existing hard disk device attached to the guest to use the virtio driver instead of

the virtualized IDE driver. This example edits libvirt configuration files. Alternatively, virt-manager,

virsh attach-disk or virsh attach-interface can add a new device using the para-

virtualized drivers Section 11.4, “Using KVM para-virtualized drivers for new devices”. Note that the

guest does not need to be shut down to perform these steps, however the change will not be applied

until the guest is completely shut down and rebooted.

1. Run the virsh edit <guestname> command to edit the XML configuration file for your device.

For example, virsh edit guest1. The configuration files are located in /etc/libvirt/

qemu.

2. Below is a file-based block device using the virtualized IDE driver. This is a typical entry for a

virtualized guest not using the para-virtualized drivers.

</disk>

3. Change the entry to use the para-virtualized device by modifying the bus= entry to virtio. Note

that if the disk was previously IDE it will have a target similar to hda, hdb, or hdc and so on. When

changing to bus=virtio the target needs to be changed to vda, vdb, or vdc accordingly.