Alpine KVM

☰ Table of Content

Setup libvirt/KVM on a remote Alpine Linux server and connect virsh/virt-manager from remote.

Alpine server is assumed to have no GUI capability. All steps are done through remote connection.

Install KVM

Note:
This part is a streamline version of Alpine KVM wiki page.
No virt-manager on remote Alpine server. You only need it on your local machine.
Assume VMs bridge-mode using macvtap. bridge package not required.
Use root or sudo for all commands in this section.

Add KVM packages:

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apk add libvirt-daemon qemu-img qemu-system-x86_64 polkit
rc-update add libvirtd

Add user to group libvirt:

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addgroup <user> libvirt

Allow libvirt group to access /var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock:

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mkdir -p /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d

Create /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/50-libvirt-ssh-remote-access-policy.pkla with following content:

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[Remote libvirt SSH access]
 Identity=unix-group:libvirt
 Action=org.libvirt.unix.manage
 ResultAny=yes
 ResultInactive=yes
 ResultActive=yes

At this point virt-manager and virsh can connect from remote and takeover completely.

Remote Management

virsh and virt-manager can be used to manage KVM remotely.

virsh is the command line tool that can manage libvirt/KVM directly on the host or from remote.

virt-manager is the GUI interface.

Local connection (on Alpine server)

From libvirt group user:

Interactive mode:

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virsh -c qemu:///system

Command line / batch mode

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virsh -c qemu:///system net-list --all

Remote connection

NOTE: user@hostname will be the same string for ssh to the libvirt group user on Alpine host. SSH key should be setup already.

Linux

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virt-manager -c qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system

virsh -c qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system

virsh -c qemu+ssh://user@hostname/system net-list --all