Checklist

Before diving into the installation, let’s go through a pre-installation checklist to ensure your system is ready:

1. Verify that your CPU supports hardware virtualization. For KVM to run, a processor that supports hardware virtualization is needed. Both Intel and AMD have developed such extensions for their processors: Intel VT-x (code name Vanderpool) and AMD-V (code name Pacifica), respectively. To check if your processor supports one of these, you can execute the following commands:

   For an Intel CPU:

   egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

   For an AMD CPU:

   grep --color svm /proc/cpuinfo

   Alternatively, you can use the following command for a more detailed output:

   egrep -wo 'vmx|lm|aes' /proc/cpuinfo | sort | uniq\ | sed -e 's/aes/Hardware encryption=Yes (&)/g' \ -e 's/lm/64 bit cpu=Yes (&)/g' -e 's/vmx/Intel hardware virtualization=Yes (&)/g'

   The output should look something like this:

   • Hardware encryption=Yes (aes)
   • 64 bit cpu=Yes (lm)
   • Intel hardware virtualization=Yes (vmx)

2. Ensure that virtualization support is enabled in your system’s BIOS.

By following these steps, you can prepare your system for KVM Libvirt installation.

Alternatively, you can use the ‘cpu-checker’ package to verify your CPU’s compatibility. Here’s how to install it and check:

1. Install the package with the following command:

apt install cpu-checker

2. Then, execute the following command:

kvm-ok

This should produce an output similar to the one below, confirming that your system can utilize KVM acceleration:

INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used

Before installing KVM Libvirt, you should update your system, set up your environment, and make some necessary configuration changes. Here are the steps:

First, update and upgrade your system packages with the following command:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

For Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, remove the ’needrestart’ package:

apt -y remove needrestart

Ensure your system is using the UTF-8 locale:

dpkg-reconfigure locales

Specify your system’s hostname, replacing “{ID}” with your unique identifier:

hostnamectl set-hostname {ID}.cloudresource.io

Adjust the system time zone to your preferred setting. For instance, to set it to Europe/Riga:

timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Riga

Rotate and manage journal logs using these commands:

journalctl --rotate
journalctl --vacuum-time=2days
journalctl --vacuum-size=10M
journalctl --vacuum-files=5

Update the Systemd configuration to limit journal storage:

sed -i 's/#SystemMaxUse=/SystemMaxUse=10M/' /etc/systemd/journald.conf

Lastly, reload the Systemd daemon for the changes to take effect:

systemctl daemon-reload