Hi I’m having problems using KVM and Spice on a OpenSUSE 15.2, on a new installed host. I have had a HP DL380 server for quite a while and updated it trough OpenSUSE generations. On it my VM’s is setup to run VNC or Spice randomly - they are mostly text mode servers not using graphics anyway so I did not take care on what was selected.
Anyway I connect to the VM’s trough ssh from my remote workstation using virt-manager (also running OpenSUSE 15.2 and KDE) so I am pretty sure that Spice generally works on my workstation. Although a few times I have experienced that the VM got stuck with a black screen on boot.
Now I got myself another DL380 and made a text mode install, supplemented with KVM setup from Yast. On this ‘new’ machine It seem impossible to boot a VM install, if Spice is selected as display. Booting a OpenSUSE-15.2-netinstall the remote console shows a black screen and the VM cpu load goes high.
Anyone has any idea on what I am missing on my new install?
Unless you have an issue with the increased attack surface, I generally recommend installing and configuring access using minimal graphics… and run a window manager only at the least.
After extensive testing, I determined that the resource usage is nil compared to running a text only server… Under a variety of loads and running apps, I didn’t detect any increased resource usage.
And, it gives you extra options when troubleshooting while also guaranteeing you’ve installed the necessary graphical components for both local and remote access (which you don’t appear to be doing).
Your choice to run a remote graphical interface accessing a text-only system is interesting… In your case it seems you’re doing that only to use vm manager.
If you choose not to install a minimal graphics system in your virtual machines, have you considered managing your virtual machines by command line (virsh) instead of vm manager?
and then you would ssh into your machines instead of viewing in vm manager.
Agreed,
But, yo u may need to do more.
The following KVM documentation describes how to set up on Fedora,
Should be similar on openSUSE except of course we use zypper instead of yum for package management
Thanks for you answers - I had to attend to other matters for a while. And as VNC do work, this it is not a showstopper. But returning to this I dont see how your answers relate to my problem, so I guess I was not clear in my description. I will try to describe more precisely below:
Well at the point of install I have not even considered if I want to run a graphical or text console after the install. The installed VM may be for a enduser not as comfortable with a terminal. I myself find it convenient to manage remote KVM hypervisors from my KDE workstation, using the graphical virt-manager which gives me a nice overview on load and it is easy to configure the gazillion of virtualization options. But like most - when the install is done - I hardly ever use the console, only if I need to investigate some network connection problem.
I am trying to install a new VM so when I boot the install image I have no say on what is installed on the VM. As a matter of fact I am not even sure if Spice is active at all. The hypervisor may kick in some kind of fallback driver, until the spice driver is loaded on the client.
I have searched logfiles and do not see any log lines differ when using VNC or Spice. But investigating further it seems that VM’s do work with the Spice selected, it is only the remote console screen I am not receiving. I revised the title accordingly on this post, but I cant find a way to edit the original tread title. (I jumped to the conclusion that the VM could not run at all, due to the default timeout on the install CD falls back to boot from HD. And with a never installed disk this wont work.)
So what remains is that Libvirt on OpenSUSE 15.2 comes with default settings (Spice) that does seem not work out of the box. At least not on my hardware. As previously described I have 2 quite equal hypervisor machines, an old one where it works - and a new one where it is not possible to access the vm console if Spice is selected. I suspect that sometime during my old machines lifetime, some rpm or some adjustment came in to place and made VM’s configured for Spice work - and this magic is now missing on the fresh installed machine.
Nailed it! By comparing the RPM list from the old machine rpm I found that qemu-kvm was not installed. After adding this package I can now install, also if Spice is selected. Yaii!
Keep in mind,
When provisioning a new machine as a KVM virtualization HostOS,
Use the YaST virtualization install module to install KVM with libvirt,
You should then be assured of installing all necessary components and start with a known working configuration.