======================================================== Use virt-install and connect by using a local VNC client ======================================================== If you do not wish to use virt-manager (for example, you do not want to install the dependencies on your server, you don't have an X server running locally, the X11 forwarding over SSH isn't working), you can use the :command:`virt-install` tool to boot the virtual machine through libvirt and connect to the graphical console from a VNC client installed on your local machine. Because VNC is a standard protocol, there are multiple clients available that implement the VNC spec, including `TigerVNC `_ (multiple platforms), `TightVNC `_ (multiple platforms), `RealVNC `_ (multiple platforms), `Chicken `_ (Mac OS X), `Krde `_ (KDE), `Vinagre `_ (GNOME). The following example shows how to use the :command:`qemu-img` command to create an empty image file, and :command:`virt-install` command to start up a virtual machine using that image file. As root: .. code-block:: console # qemu-img create -f qcow2 /data/centos-6.4.qcow2 10G # virt-install --virt-type kvm --name centos-6.4 --ram 1024 \ --cdrom=/data/CentOS-6.4-x86_64-netinstall.iso \ --disk path=/data/centos-6.4.qcow2,size=10,format=qcow2 \ --network network=default \ --graphics vnc,listen=0.0.0.0 --noautoconsole \ --os-type=linux --os-variant=rhel6 Starting install... Creating domain... | 0 B 00:00 Domain installation still in progress. You can reconnect to the console to complete the installation process. The KVM hypervisor starts the virtual machine with the libvirt name, ``centos-6.4``, with 1024 MB of RAM. The virtual machine also has a virtual CD-ROM drive associated with the ``/data/CentOS-6.4-x86_64-netinstall.iso`` file and a local 10 GB hard disk in qcow2 format that is stored in the host at ``/data/centos-6.4.qcow2``. It configures networking to use libvirt default network. There is a VNC server that is listening on all interfaces, and libvirt will not attempt to launch a VNC client automatically nor try to display the text console (``--no-autoconsole``). Finally, libvirt will attempt to optimize the configuration for a Linux guest running a RHEL 6.x distribution. .. note:: When using the libvirt ``default`` network, libvirt will connect the virtual machine's interface to a bridge called ``virbr0``. There is a dnsmasq process managed by libvirt that will hand out an IP address on the 192.168.122.0/24 subnet, and libvirt has iptables rules for doing NAT for IP addresses on this subnet. Run the :command:`virt-install --os-variant list` command to see a range of allowed ``--os-variant`` options. Use the :command:`virsh vncdisplay vm-name` command to get the VNC port number. .. code-block:: console # virsh vncdisplay centos-6.4 :1 In the example above, the guest ``centos-6.4`` uses VNC display ``:1``, which corresponds to TCP port ``5901``. You should be able to connect a VNC client running on your local machine to display ``:1`` on the remote machine and step through the installation process.