How to install the Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)

The Virtual Machine Manager, also known as virt-manager or VMM, is a graphical man­age­ment tool for virtual machines that runs on Linux systems and sim­pli­fies the use of various hy­per­visors such as KVM, QEMU or Xen.

What is the Virtual Machine Manager?

The Virtual Machine Manager offers a user-friendly and above all stand­ard­ised interface for managing various virtual machines (VMs). With virt-manager, you can create, configure and monitor VMs without having to deal with complex command line tools. It’s based on libvirt and therefore supports all vir­tu­al­isa­tion solutions that are also supported by libvirt. The VMM offers features such as snapshots, live mi­gra­tions and network man­age­ment. This makes it a powerful tool for managing both small and large vir­tu­al­isa­tion en­vir­on­ments.

What are the pre­requis­ites for using the Virtual Machine Manager?

Before you can install and use the Virtual Machine Manager, you should ensure that your system meets the following re­quire­ments:

• Operating system: virt-manager is mainly developed for Linux-based operating systems like Ubuntu, Fedora or Debian. Make sure that your system uses one of these dis­tri­bu­tions or another supported Linux variant.
• Hy­per­visor: You need an installed hy­per­visor. KVM is probably the most commonly used hy­per­visor on Linux systems and is available in most Linux dis­tri­bu­tions.
• RAM and disk space: The amount of available RAM and hard disk space should be suf­fi­cient to run the host operating system and all planned virtual machines. At least 4 GB of RAM is re­com­men­ded, but more is required for better per­form­ance.
• Network con­nec­tion: An active network con­nec­tion is required if you want to manage the VMs via networks or the internet. A network con­nec­tion is also required to download in­stall­a­tion files and updates.

How to install VMM

Step 1: Update the system

Before in­stall­a­tion, you should ensure that your system is up to date. Open a terminal and execute the following commands to update your system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install VMM

The next step is to install the Virtual Machine Manager. To do this, execute the following command. If you use a package man­age­ment system other than APT in your Linux dis­tri­bu­tion, you must use this for the in­stall­a­tion.

sudo apt install virt-manager

Step 3: Check the in­stall­a­tion

You can then check whether the in­stall­a­tion was suc­cess­ful by starting the Virtual Machine Manager via the ap­plic­a­tion menu or by entering virt-manager in the terminal.

How to install a new virtual machine

After in­stall­a­tion, you can create a new virtual machine with the Virtual Machine Manager. This also requires only a few steps.

Step 1: Start VMM

Start virt-manager first. To do this, open the Virtual Machine Manager via the ap­plic­a­tion menu or the terminal with the command virt-manager.

Step 2: Establish a con­nec­tion with a hy­per­visor

When you start virt-manager, you’ll see a window that prompts you to connect to a hy­per­visor. Select QEMU/KVM and then click on Connect.

Step 3: Create a new VM

In the next step, you can create a new virtual machine. To do this, click on the New button in the top left-hand corner of the window. Al­tern­at­ively, you can create a new machine via the File > New virtual machine menu.

Step 4: Select the in­stall­a­tion method

Select the method you want to use to install the operating system on the VM. You can install from an ISO file, a physical CD/DVD or a network in­stall­a­tion. Then click on Next.

Step 5: Select ISO file or in­stall­a­tion medium

If you’re using an ISO file, select the file from your file system. Otherwise, enter the path to another in­stall­a­tion medium. Click on Next again.

Step 6: Select the operating system type and version

Select the operating system and version you wish to install. This helps the VMM to suggest the optimum settings for the VM. Click on Next to confirm.

Step 7: Assign RAM and CPU

Assign the desired amount of RAM and the number of CPU cores to the VM. Please note that more resources enable better per­form­ance, but also consume more of the host system. Click Next again to continue with the con­fig­ur­a­tion.

Step 8: Configure hard disk storage

Specify the size of the virtual hard disk that’s assigned to the VM. You can create a new virtual hard disk or select an existing one. The storage location does not have to be on the local machine — external storage locations also work. Click the Next button one last time.

Step 9: Check and create VM

Check the settings and then click on Finish to create the virtual machine and start the in­stall­a­tion process.

Tips for managing the Virtual Machine Manager

Once the virtual machine has been created, you can manage it via the Virtual Machine Manager:

• Starting and stopping the VM: Select the desired VM from the list in the main window of virt-manager and use the Start or Stop buttons to start or stop the VM.
• Change con­fig­ur­a­tion: To change the con­fig­ur­a­tion of a VM, right-click on the VM and select Show details. Here you can adjust settings such as CPU, RAM, network and storage.
• Create snapshots: Snapshots allow you to back up the current state of a virtual machine and access it later. It’s par­tic­u­larly useful to have a secure restore point in the event of changes or software in­stall­a­tions.