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Installing a AlmaLinux 9 hypervisor

This installer is experimental. Please report any bugs or issues you find via the support system. 
curl https://install.virtfusion.net/install-hypervisor-kvm-rhel-9.sh | sh -s -- --verbose
If the curl command is missing, install it using:dnf install curl -y

Once the installer has completed, you may add it to the control server.

installer

Network setup

Currently, VirtFusion supports standard bridge networking and Libvirt routed networking.

You should choose one or the other. If your network doesn't impose restrictions on MAC addresses, `standard bridge networking` is the preferred choice. If you are with a provider like OVH or Hetzner then you should use `Libvirt routed networking`.

Standard bridge networking

On RHEL a standard /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file will look similar to this.

TYPE="Ethernet"
BOOTPROTO="none"
DEFROUTE="yes"
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL="no"
IPV6INIT="yes"
IPV6_AUTOCONF="yes"
IPV6_DEFROUTE="yes"
IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL="no"
IPV6_ADDR_GEN_MODE="stable-privacy"
NAME="eth0"
DEVICE="eth0"
ONBOOT="yes"
IPADDR="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
GATEWAY="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
NETMASK="255.255.255.0"
DNS1="8.8.8.8"
IPV6_PRIVACY="no"

Make a copy of the original file.

cp /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 /root/ifcfg-eth0

Create a new file for the bridge.

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0

And copy the networking parts from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-br0.

DEVICE=br0
TYPE=Bridge
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
IPV6_AUTOCONF=yes
IPV6_DEFROUTE=yes
IPV6_PEERDNS=yes
IPV6_PEERROUTES=yes
IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL=no
IPADDR=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Next, remove the networking parts from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.

BRIDGE=br0
TYPE="Ethernet"
DEFROUTE="yes"
IPV4_FAILURE_FATAL="no"
IPV6INIT="yes"
IPV6_AUTOCONF="yes"
IPV6_DEFROUTE="yes"
IPV6_FAILURE_FATAL="no"
IPV6_ADDR_GEN_MODE="stable-privacy"
NAME="eth0"
DEVICE="eth0"
ONBOOT="yes"
DNS1="8.8.8.8"
IPV6_PRIVACY="no"

Once the bridge is set up, networking will need to be restarted.

systemctl restart NetworkManager.service

Libvirt routed networking

No modification of the main networking configuration is required.

Network configuration

Defining a Libvirt network is reasonably straightforward and should be low maintenance.

Create a file named network.xml with the following contents.

<network>
    <name>br0</name>
    <forward mode='route' dev="eth0"/>
    <bridge name='br0' stp='on' delay='0'/>
    <ip address='10.0.0.1' netmask='255.255.255.0'/>
    <ip family="ipv6" address="2001:db8:aa::1" prefix="64"/>
</network>
  • If you don't require IPv6 you may remove the family="ipv6" line.
  • Replace eth0 with the device name of the main network.
  • Replace 10.0.0.1 with your own subnet that is to be assigned to the server and the corresponding netmask.
  • If you require IPv6, replace the address with your own subnet and the corresponding prefix.
You may need to install dnsmasq if it's not installed already. You can do so by running dnf -y install dnsmasq.

Define the network, set it to autostart and start it.

virsh net-define --file network.xml
virsh net-autostart br0
virsh net-start br0

Network setup is now complete. You should use the main IP of the hypervisor as the gateway for the defined subnet.

Notes

Although it's not advised, you may install a hypervisor directly on the control server. This allows for a single server setup.

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