Install Ravada in Debian

Upgrade Ravada

Follow this guide if you are only upgrading Ravada from a previous version already installed.

Debian

This is the guide to install Ravada in Debian 10 (Bullseye), Debian 11 (Buster) and Debian 12 (Bookworm).

We provide deb packages on the UPC ETSETB repository.

Install the ravada package. It is called debian-11 but works fine in debian-12 also.

  • ravada_2.2.1_debian-11_all.deb

When you run dpkg now it may show some errors, it is ok, keep reading.

wget http://infoteleco.upc.edu/img/debian/ravada_2.2.1_debian-11_all.deb
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ./ravada_2.2.1_debian-11_all.deb

Debian KVM

You must enable spice KVM manually:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/kvm /usr/bin/kvm-spice

Mysql/MariaDB Database

MariaDB server

It is required a MySQL or MariaDB server, it can be installed in another host or in the same one as the ravada package.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server

MariaDB database and user

It is required a database for internal use. In this examples we call it ravada. We also need an user and a password to connect to the database. It is customary to call it rvd_user. In this stage the system wants you to set a password for the sql connection.

sudo mysqladmin -u root -p create ravada

Grant all permissions on this database to the rvd_user:

sudo mysql -u root -p ravada -e "create user 'rvd_user'@'localhost' identified by 'Pword12345*'"
sudo mysql -u root -p ravada -e "grant all on ravada.* to rvd_user@'localhost'"

The password chosen must fulfill the following characteristics:

  • At least 8 characters.

  • At least 1 number.

  • At least 1 special character.

Config file

Create a config file at /etc/ravada.conf with the username and password you just declared at the previous step. Please note that you need to edit the user and password via an editor. Here, we present Vi as an example.

 sudo vi /etc/ravada.conf
db:
  user: rvd_user
  password: Pword12345*

Ravada web user

Add a new user for the ravada web. Use rvd_back to create it. It will perform some initialization duties in the database the very first time this script is executed.

When asked if this user is admin answer yes.

sudo /usr/sbin/rvd_back --add-user admin

Client

The client must have a spice viewer such as virt-viewer. There is a package for linux and it can also be downloaded for windows.

Run

The Ravada server is now installed, learn how to run and use it.

Help

Struggling with the installation procedure ? We tried to make it easy but let us know if you need assistance.

There is also a troubleshooting page with common problems that admins may face.