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As discussed in previous chapters of this book, virtualization is the ability to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single computer system. There are a number of ways to implement virtualization on Fedora. Options include (but are not limited to) VMWare, Xen, VirtualBox and KVM. In the preceding chapters we looked in detail at configuring and maintaining Xen based virtualization. In this and subsequent chapters we will look at KVM based virtualization hosted on a Fedora system.
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The main virt-manager screen lists the current virtual machines running on the system. At this point there should only be one, the host system. By default the manager should be connected to the host. If it is not, connect to the host system by right clicking on the entry in the list and selecting ''Connect'' from the popup menu. The ''Status'' field for this VM should now change to ''Active'', and the ''New'' button at the bottom of the dialog should be enabled.
Clicking ''Forward'' once more will display a screen seeking additional information about the installation process. The screen displayed and information required will depend on selection made in the preceding screen. For example, if a CD, DVD or ISO was selected, this screen will ask for the specific location of the ISO file or physical devidevice.
== Configuring the KVM Virtual System ==
The last item to configure before creating the virtual machine is the storage space for the guest operating system and corresponding user data. This takes the form of a virtual disk drive. A virtual disk drive is essentially an image file hosted on the file system of the host computer which is seen by the virtual machine as a physical disk drive.
Options are available to create an image disk of a specified size, select a pre-existing volume or to create a storage volume of a specified format (raw, vmdk, iso etc). Unless you have a specific need to use a particular format (for example you might need to use vmdk to migrate to a VMware based virtualization environment at a later date) or need to use a dedicatted dedicated disk or partition, it is generally safe to simply specify a size on this screen. The option is also available to pre-allocate the space now. If you choose not to pre-allocate the space, space will be allocated up to the specified maximum only as it is needed by the guest operating system. This has the advantage that space on the host file system is not used until it is needed. Downsides are that performance may degrade as space is allocated in real-time and allocation will fail if another process uses up the free space on the host file system before it can be assigned to the virtual machine:
For information on administering a virtual system read [[Managing and Monitoring Fedora based KVM Guest Systems]].
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