README.md

virtup

Virtup was initially developed to become a partial Vagrant replacement for KVM.

Virtup provides simple command line interface to operate with virtual machines. It can easily import virtual machine from image into hypervisor, start it and provide you with it's ip address to connect via SSH or other preferred method.

Requirements

Python >= 3

libvirt Python API bindings

Quick start

To deploy virtual machines on local host, you should install libvirtd and requirements. Also ensure that your host is KVM capable.
If you would like to use external host as hypervisor, then install only requirements.
You can have running guest in six steps.

1. Install requirements
Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients python-libvirt

CentOS/Fedora
sudo yum install qemu-kvm libvirt libvirt-python

2. Download one of prebuild boxes. You can download them from here

wget -O debian.xz http://goo.gl/queYqC
unxz debian.xz

Or create basic ubuntu installation from kickstart file:

# Set ubuntu release to create
release="trusty"
# Create vm drive for installation
qemu-img create -f qcow2 ./${release}.qcow2 8G
# Start installation
virt-install --name base-${release} --ram 1024 --disk path=./${release}.qcow2,size=8 \
  --vcpus 1 --os-type linux --os-variant generic --network bridge=virbr0 \
  --graphics none --console pty,target_type=serial --noreboot \
  --location "http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/${release}/main/installer-amd64/" \
  --extra-args "console=ttyS0,115200n8 ks=http://pastebin.com/raw/eY5ybGfc"

Or to create desired debian/centos image run

sudo ./kickstarts/install.sh <jessie|wheezy|stretch|centos-7|...>

Alternatively you can use centos7 kickstart

4. Import it with preferred name, optionally memory, cpu, net and storage pool can be specified

./virtup.py import -i ./${release}.qcow2 ubuntu-${release}
Uploading template into volume ubuntu-trusty
done 100.00%
Temporary template written in /tmp/ubuntu-trusty.xml
ubuntu-trusty created, you can start it now

5. Start it

./virtup.py up ubuntu-trusty
ubuntu-trusty started

6. Open console of virtual machine.
Image produced from this example has ubuntu user with password ubuntu.

./virtup.py console ubuntu-trusty

Templates creation

Create virtual machine with create command or with virsh or using kickstart installation described above.
Install operating system on it, booting it from iso, pxe or your preferred method.
Start it, install necessary soft. Configure ssh.
Remove /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file.
This is required for network interface name to be eth0 on first boot of newly created machine.
To enable console access please follow this manual.
Shut it down and use it's disk image as template.