[Libguestfs] debian binaries using qemu

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 07:41:45AM -0500, Igor Serebryany wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> 	I am using the libguestfs-1.11.0-1 binaries posted here:
> 	http://libguestfs.org/download/binaries/debian-packages/
> 
> 	on a Sid system. When I use libguestfs, I can see that an instance
> 	of QEMU is starting up using the binary @ /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
> 
> 	I have KVM installed on the system at /usr/bin/kvm -- how do I
> 	ensure that KVM gets used by libguestfs instead of qemu? I guess I
> 	can always replace the qemu binary with a symlink to the kvm binary,
> 	but that seems like a hack...

You don't need to hack it :-)

Just set LIBGUESTFS_QEMU environment variable to point to your
installed KVM binary, eg:

  export LIBGUESTFS_QEMU=/usr/bin/kvm
  guestfish

If that doesn't work, send us the complete output of
libguestfs-test-tool.

Note that KVM must have support for virtio-serial.  It depends on
which version of KVM that is; all recent versions of KVM should
support it, but not older versions.  You can find out by doing:

  $ kvm -device \? 2>&1 | grep virtio-serial
  name "virtserialport", bus virtio-serial-bus
  name "virtconsole", bus virtio-serial-bus
  name "virtio-serial-pci", bus PCI, alias "virtio-serial"

As an aside, if you want to compile your own qemu or KVM from source
then you need to use a qemu wrapper, which is slightly different and
more complicated but is explained here:

  http://libguestfs.org/guestfs.3.html#qemu_wrappers

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
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