windows_vm_in_kvm_on_headless_ubuntu_server

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Windows VM in KVM/QEMU on headless Ubuntu server

without using libvirt

install kvm

apt-get install kvm qemu

now create a disk image

qemu-img create -f raw /vm/windows.img 100G

(note: creating a raw image has severale advantages: if your filesystem supports sparse files, it only uses the actually used space of your virtual disk on your physical disk.. all journalling filesystems that use inodes support that, so ext4 for example works fine. second you can easily mount it using mount -o loop <imgfile> <mountpoint> at any time. however, it does not support snapshots, use qcow2 if you need snapsots or if your filesystem does not support sparse files)

in my case i had a windows 7 cd that i installed from.. if your server dos not have a cd rom you can also us an iso image instead.

run qemu and install windows. access the display via VNC

qemu -k de-ch -name windows -vnc :1 
  • windows_vm_in_kvm_on_headless_ubuntu_server.1453551159.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 23.01.2016 13:12
  • by Pascal Suter