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I' trying to setup an Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS install to host a number of KVM virtual machines to do web development. I tried to install a VM with virt-installer from the CLI but I have to connect to it to launch the install process I only have a Windows 7 Netbook to ssh into it.

Can I redirect the X Server to my Netbook?

If that wasn't possible I would like to setup a minimal GUI without having to install the full ubuntu-desktop package. Any suggestions?

Do you recommend some guide to Virtualization in Ubuntu with KVM? I would also like if you could point me in the direction of any kind of documentation relating to the network setup, I have a vague idea of virtual networking. Thanks!

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I think there is some X11 ports to Windows, why don't you just install one of them? Then you can use also virt-manager which is very convenient control panel for your libvirt managed virtual machines. – snap Sep 9 '11 at 18:20
@snap Yes, I have install X11 (XMing) on windows, and i can forward the x-server. The problem is, i had to install the ubuntu-desktop package in the server and from what I read it opens up the server to a lot of unnecessary risks so I would like to avoid that – Xokas11 Sep 12 '11 at 8:47
Yes, I agree that is a problem. This is how I do it myself: On the virtualization server I install only libvirt-bin. To manage it I have a Ubuntu Linux desktop computer where I run virt-manager locally. It can connect to the remote server over SSH and I do not need to install any desktop stuff on the virtualization server. – snap Sep 12 '11 at 9:47
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You can set up the machine using virsh with your ssh connection, there are some reasonable docs for this at http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.2/Virtualization/sect-Virtualization-Commands_for_Red_Hat_Virtualization-virsh_the_command_line_interface_tool_for_virtualization.html

Have a look at the vncdisplay command for virsh - this will let you connect via vnc to do your installs (otherwise you could try booting a linux livecd on the netbook and using network-manager to configure things, this will also use vnc to display the guest screen though)

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Alternately, you can use VMBuilder. It's a supported tool in Ubuntu.

https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/jeos-and-vmbuilder.html

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