Installation guide

Installing KVM packages on an existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux system

5.2. Installing KVM packages on an existing Red Hat

Enterprise Linux system

The section describes the steps for installing the KVM hypervisor on a working Red Hat Enterprise

Linux 6 or newer system.

Adding packages to your list of Red Hat Network entitlements

This section describes how to enable Red Hat Network (RHN) entitlements for the virtualization

packages. You need these entitlements enabled to install and update the virtualization packages on

Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You require a valid Red Hat Network account in order to install virtualization

packages on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In addition, your machines must be registered with RHN. To register an unregistered installation of

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, run the rhn_register command and follow the prompts.

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Procedure 5.1. Adding the Virtualization entitlement with RHN

1. Log in to RHN

using your RHN username and password.

2. Select the systems you want to install virtualization on.

3. In the System Properties section the present systems entitlements are listed next to the

Entitlements header. Use the (Edit These Properties) link to change your entitlements.

4. Select the Virtualization checkbox.

Your system is now entitled to receive the virtualization packages. The next section covers installing

these packages.

Installing the KVM hypervisor with yum

To use virtualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux you require the kvm package. The kvm package

contains the KVM kernel module providing the KVM hypervisor on the default Red Hat Enterprise

Linux kernel.

To install the kvm package, run:

# yum install kvm

Now, install additional virtualization management packages.

Recommended virtualization packages:

python-virtinst

Provides the virt-install command for creating virtual machines.

libvirt

The libvirt package provides the server and host side libraries for interacting with hypervisors and

host systems. The libvirt package provides the libvirtd daemon that handles the library calls,

manages virtualizes guests and controls the hypervisor.

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