How to add a KVM template

ISO images are required to create KVM virtual machines. They can be placed or downloaded at run time.

Placing your own ISO image

Copy the .iso file to the KVM storage, it is /var/lib/libvirt/images by default. Make sure everybody can read it

chmod 755 file.iso

Get the md5 for the ISO file, you will need it for the next step:

md5sum file.iso

Add an entry to the SQL table:

mysql -u rvd_user -p ravada
mysql> INSERT INTO iso_images (name, description, arch, xml, xml_volume, md5, sha256, device)
        VALUES ('name','the description', 'i386', 'name.xml' ,'name-vol.xml','bbblamd5sumjustgenerated','mysha256sum','/var/lib/libvirt/images/file.iso');

XML file

A XML template file is required if you want to create machines from this ISO. In the directory /var/lib/ravada/xml there are examples. You can make new ones creating a new machine from another tool like virt-manager. Once it is down dump the xml with

virsh dumpxml machine > name.xml

XML Volume file

Create a new xml volume file based in another one from /var/lib/ravada/xml.

URL based ISO (simplified)

For most Linux based distributions, you won’t need to manually download the ISO. Here we’re assuming that there are a valid VM definition XML and a volume XML files (based on Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus).

mysql -u rvd_user -p ravada
mysql> INSERT INTO iso_images (name, description, arch, xml, xml_volume, url, sha256_url)
        VALUES ('Mint 18.2 BETA Mate 64 bits','Mint Serena 18.2 BETA with Mate Desktop based on Ubuntu Xenial 64 bits', 'amd64', 'xenial64-amd64.xml' ,'xenial64-volume.xml','http://ftp.cixug.es/mint/linuxmint.com/testing/linuxmint-18.2-cinnamon-64bit-beta.iso', 'https://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/linuxmint.com/testing/sha256sum.txt');

Windows specifics

For Windows you will need the virtio ISO that can be downloaded from https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

Save it to /var/lib/libvirt/images and change the owner as you did for the Windows ISO.

chmod 755 /var/lib/libvirt/images/virtio-win-0.1.126.iso

Then edit your Windows xml file and point the second CD drive to that ISO. For the current stable virtio version, it looks like this: virsh edit machinename

<disk type='file' device='cdrom'>
    <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
    <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/virtio-win-0.1.126.iso'/>
    <target dev='hdc' bus='ide'/>
    <readonly/>
    <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='1' target='0' unit='0'/>
</disk>

You should also ensure that the system disk cache is set to ‘directsync’:

<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2' cache='directsync' io='native' />

If you’re using the NEC xhci USB controller (the default one in our environment), you’ll need to obtain a suitable driver for the µPD720200 chipset. Plugable.com has it here http://plugable.com/drivers/renesas (2nd entry).