Blog: 2024-01-30

After much fussing with homebrew dependencies including a 6hr llvm 17 install, I got the source of virt-manager and it's installing alpine linux:

virt-manager $ ./virt-install --name='alpine1' --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 --disk size=8 --cdrom $HOME/Downloads/alpine-virt-3.19.1-x86_64.iso --os-variant alpinelinux3.19
WARNING  KVM acceleration not available, using 'qemu'
WARNING  Unable to connect to graphical console: virt-viewer not installed. Please install the 'virt-viewer' package.
WARNING  No console to launch for the guest, defaulting to --wait -1

Starting install...
Allocating 'alpine1.qcow2'                                                     | 8.0 GB  00:00:00     
Creating domain...                                                             |         00:00:00     

Domain is still running. Installation may be in progress.
Waiting for the installation to complete.

Well that's been going for half an hour but no output. Might see if there's a verbose mode. Meanwhile HN is hyping up https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu - seems like kinda what I'm trying to do with ronin, huh.

The virtualization tutorial I've been following is here: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/virtualization_deployment_and_administration_guide/sect-guest_virtual_machine_installation_overview-creating_guests_with_virt_install

Weirdly that approach doesn't seem to show progress. Ok the warning is that I'm missing virt-viewer, which I guess is a gui app... hope there's a console option. Installing virt-viewer from here: https://github.com/jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager

Finally finally after reading https://www.golinuxcloud.com/virt-install-examples-kvm-virt-commands-linux/ and brew install xorriso, I am getting console output on virt-install

$ ./virt-install --name guest4-rhel7 --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 --disk size=8 --location ~/Downloads/composer-api-e7bc5d14-af20-4a19-b4a8-e98486f575f9-installer.iso --os-variant rhel9.3 --autoconsole text --graphics=none --extra-args console=ttyS0

That ended with some sort of panic, whatever I'd rather boot alpine

$ ./virt-install --name alpine-2 --memory 2048 --vcpus 2 --disk size=8 --location ~/Downloads/alpine-virt-3.19.1-x86_64.iso --os-variant alpinelinux3.19 --autoconsole text --graphics=none --extra-args console=ttyS0

Logged in as root.

 * Starting firstboot ... [ ok ]

Welcome to Alpine Linux 3.19
Kernel 6.6.14-0-virt on an x86_64 (/dev/ttyS0)

localhost login: root
Welcome to Alpine!

The Alpine Wiki contains a large amount of how-to guides and general
information about administrating Alpine systems.
See <https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/>.

You can setup the system with the command: setup-alpine

You may change this message by editing /etc/motd.

localhost:~# 

Shut down gracefully.

$ virsh shutdown alpine-2 
Domain 'alpine-2' is being shutdown