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I have created a virtual machine with virt-manager that runs on kvm/qemu. The machine works well when started through virt-manager. However, I would like to be able to start and stop the VM through a script in init.d, so that it comes up and down along with the host. I need to have virt-manager show that the machine is running, and to be able to connect to its console through there.

When I use the command line that is produced by running ps -eaf | grep kvm after starting the vm through virt-manager, I get some console messages about redirected character devices, but the machine does start and runs properly. However, I do not get any indication from virt-manager that it has started. How can I modify the command line to get virt-manager to pick up the running VM? Is there anything else about the command line that should change when starting outside of virt-manager?

Command line is (slightly reformatted for readability):

/usr/bin/kvm -S -M pc-0.12 -enable-kvm -m 512 -smp 1 -name BORON \
-uuid fa7e5fbd-7d8e-43c4-ebd9-1504a4383eb1 \
-chardev socket,id=monitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/BORON.monitor,server,nowait \
-monitor chardev:monitor -localtime -boot c \
-drive file=/dev/FS1/BORON,if=ide,index=0,boot=on,format=raw \
-net nic,macaddr=52:54:00:20:0b:fd,vlan=0,name=nic.0 \
-net tap,fd=41,vlan=0,name=tap.0 -chardev pty,id=serial0 -serial chardev:serial0 \
-parallel none -usb -usbdevice tablet -vnc 127.0.0.1:1 -k en-us -vga cirrus
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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
31

As far as automatically starting/stopping and you're using virsh you can do that like this (as a privileged user)

virsh autostart Domain

I'm not sure why virt manager isn't giving you any output. It does have a connection to the machine hosting machine right? It should show a list of domains if it's connected.

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Open the VM display, click View->Details

enter image description here

Select Boot Options, and tick Start virtual machine on host boot up

enter image description here

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12

The answer by Tim is the way to go, and virsh allows you to do many useful things besides that.

To set a virtual machine to be automatically started, you use:

# virsh autostart <domain-id>

The <domain-id> is either the virtual machine's number, UUID or a "friendly name" like "debian1", which you entered in virt-manager.

To get a list of virtual machines (numbers and names), use:

# virsh list --all

In my case I get:

 Id Name                 State
----------------------------------
  1 other                running
  2 other-clone          running

So I've used:

# virsh autostart other
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9

install virsh then 

virsh list                    (this will print list of your VMs)
virsh dominfo your_vm_name    (get info about selected VM)
virsh autostart your_vm_name  (set autostart of selected VM)
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  • if VM stuck at grub, virt-viewer your_vm_name, and boot up. After that, change /etc/default/grub, make sure that GRUB_TIMEOUT=0. then update-grub
    – HVNSweeting
    Jan 25, 2013 at 6:56
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You can also place a symlink to the guest domxml in /etc/libvirt/qemu/autostart:

Will look like this for a VM named "test":
test.xml -> /etc/libvirt/qemu/test.xml

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You can also use KVM_AutoBoot ( https://github.com/eduardolucioac/kvm_autoboot ) to start one or several virtual machines at server boot using KVM (libvirt). It is also possible to define an interval between the start of a virtual machine and the next one.

Thanks! =D

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  • FWIW the link says "Currently KVM_AutoBoot is only compatible with CentOS 7, however adjusting it to work with other distros will be simple."
    – Sparhawk
    Apr 12 at 16:54

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