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 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

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

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

Automatic installation with nwminstall

The steps needed to successfully install Grub in the automatic installation procedure include:

set host name
hostname gentiane
find out your ip with ifconfig:
ifconfig eth0
grant ssh access to that host and IP on one of our servers. As root, type the following:
allow -s gentiane 207
copy the file nvminstall from server in /tmp:
cd /tmp ; scp bareil:/usr/local/bat/nvminstall .
execute the script with the hostname as argument:
./nvminstall gentiane

These steps are described in the slideshow below.

You can use the mousewheel to navigate in the slideshow

After install

You can now shutdown (rather than reboot) the virtual machine with halt , switch the boot devices order in virt-manager and disconnect the netinstall iso image from the CDROM. When you restart the virtual machine you will see the Grub menu and be able to start ArchLinux.

Examples

install of a 32 bit virtual machine called "gentiane" - with 1 x 8 GB disk, 512 MB RAM, bridge, sound support and virtio - to a remote host called "bareil":

You can use the mousewheel to navigate in the slideshow