RE: installing virtual guest via ssh on console based remote host

[Nelson Green <nelsongreen84@hotmail.com>]

----------------------------------------
> From: chris-usenet@roaima.co.uk
> Subject: Re: installing virtual guest via ssh on console based remote host
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 20:54:28 +0100
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>
> Nelson Green <nelsongreen84@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Installing qemu-kvm and a guest on a remote system is turning into an
> > absolute nightmare, so I'm once again turning to this list for help.
>
> > The host OS is a Centos 6.3 server, without X installed.
>
> If it was Debian I could advise you to install the libvirt-bin,
> bridge-utils, and qemu-kvm packages on the server, with virt-manager as
> a GUI for the client.
>
> Chris

Thanks Chris, and you have no idea how much I wish I was on Debian as I've been a long time (12+ years) user. In fact my local machine is Debian Wheezy, which is why I started this thread here.

I've got some more progress to report if you'll bear with me. First of all, I did install the libvirt-bin and qemu-kvm packages. A bit of history as to why I say this has been a nightmare is because the basic problem has been a lack of straight-forward documentation, but that could be my inability to find it. That being said, every step in this process has involved an error, followed by much time troubleshooting. I don't necessarily mind because finding an answer to a problem involves a learning process, and that is never bad. But in this case I have people depending on me to get them some development boxes.

The first error I got was "Failed to connect socket to '/var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock': No such file or directory" which was accompanied by "error : virNetServerMDNSStart:460 : internal error Failed to create mDNS client: Daemon not running" in the log file. A bit of searching led me to the need to install the avahi package. That then led to an inability to create VMs because of no virtual network. I eventually figured out that I needed to define a network, and to start it. That led to the empty screen problem. I know that the empty screen is the installer output not mapping to the console properly (if that is the correct terminology). I have now solved that issue as well, but not quite the way I thought needed to be done. I was figuring that I could correct the output on the console I started, but apparently I needed to install the virt-viewer package, which creates a window on my local machine and redirects the console to that.

So, I am now installing an OS on my VM. That leaves one final item, but this is really low on the priority list. How do I clean up after those failed initial attempts? I bet I now know enough to restart them, connect to them, and continue the installs there as well, so I will take it from here.

Regards,
Nelson