Gentoo 10.1 - vm installation guide

Preliminary

you need the script vm-create in your path and its system config file /etc/vm-create.conf.

To perform a net install of Gentoo in a virtual machine called "gentiane" - with 8 GB disk, bridge, sound support and virtio - to a remote host called "bareil", use the following syntax:

# vm-create -c bareil -s 8 -S -b br0 -V -u gentoo gentiane

Pool install refreshed

Starting install...
Allocating 'gentiane.img'                           | 8.0 GB     00:00     
Creating domain...                                  |   0  B     00:00

You can use the option -t to print the whole command to be passed to virt-install to standard output before executing it:

# vm-create -t -c bareil -s 8 -S -b br0 -V -u gentoo gentiane

virt-install 
--connect=qemu+ssh://bareil/system 
--ram=512 
--arch=i386 
--vcpus=1 
--video=vga 
--soundhw=default 
--description="gentiane (gentoo) - vm guest on host bareil" 
--os-variant=virtio26 
--disk vol=install/install-x86-minimal-20110222.iso,device=cdrom 
--boot=cdrom,hd,network 
--disk pool=default,size=8 
--network bridge=br0 
--vnc 
--vnclisten=0.0.0.0 
--name=gentiane

iso URL: ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/gentoo/releases/x86/current-iso/install-x86
-minimal-20110308.iso

A detailled description of the vm-create script has been posted in the openSUSE forum: vm-create : create kvm virtual machines.

* Notice that the option --boot=cdrom,hd,network is not available on virt-install version prior to 5003.

Booting Gentoo

At the boot prompt, type gentoo. We just added the option vga=771 to take 'smaller' screenshots for the purpose of this tutorial (800x600), but the default frambebuffer resolution (1024x768) should be fine.

You can use the mousewheel to navigate in the slideshow

Installing Gentoo

Normally the vm should have got an IP already, which you can check with ifconfig. Otherwise you can run net-setup eth0 or configure the network manually.

You can use the mousewheel to navigate in the slideshow