Best Cross-platform KVM Management Tool

[gtdaqua]

Our Virtualization infrastructure was running on VMWare Server 2.0.1 but I've always wanted to use KVM because its integrated with Kernel and lightweight. But simply put, KVM was a pain to configure 2 years ago and even today its not as easy as installing VMware Server 2.x/1.x.

And getting a management tool is another pain-in-the-a!!. Right now, am using virt-manager on my Ubuntu Lucid desktop. I've to manually edit the XML files to enable VirtIO for HDD and network and that is all fine. But i've to use root login to see the console of the VM or even connect to it via virt-manager.

KVM is great in performance compared to VMware Server. But management tools available are very poor. This is one of the reasons why KVM is not a buzz word.

Here is a nice link on Management tools available for KVM.
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Management_Tools

Most don't work or work after super-heavy troubleshooting. That is the state today. The only thing that actually works is Virtual Machine Manager and if you are using older distros (< 10.04), then that won't work properly either.

There are so many limitations in embracing KVM. Can any KVM experts suggest a practical application that can manage KVM environments for both Windows and Linux and also that doesn't require us to put root passwords everytime we want to see the console.

Thanks.

[naelq]

since i'm in the same boat, i'm interested too.. subscribed!


nael

[sh1ny]

adduser myuser libvirtd
adduser myuser kvm

( on the server )

Connect with your user from virt-manager to the machine and voila !

I have around 50 virtual machines spread on 20'ish or so nodes in different deployments and i'm not the only one managing them AND we do not use root password. If you use qemu+ssh to connect with ssh keys you won't even have to type your password at all.

[gtdaqua]

adduser myuser libvirtd
adduser myuser kvm

( on the server )

Connect with your user from virt-manager to the machine and voila !

I have around 50 virtual machines spread on 20'ish or so nodes in different deployments and i'm not the only one managing them AND we do not use root password. If you use qemu+ssh to connect with ssh keys you won't even have to type your password at all.

I figured there is something like this. Great! Now, off to "cross-platform". Some of my guys use Windows. How do they work with KVM hosts?

[gtdaqua]

adduser myuser libvirtd
adduser myuser kvm

( on the server )

Connect with your user from virt-manager to the machine and voila !

How do we exactly "Connect with your user from virt-manager"? virt-manager by default uses the root username and prompts for the root's password.

Update:
Got it. Specify new connections as username@ip.address.of.kvm-host instead of just ip address.

If you use qemu+ssh to connect with ssh keys you won't even have to type your password at all.

Can this be achieved via GUI? or is it via using cli?

[sh1ny]

How do we exactly "Connect with your user from virt-manager"? virt-manager by default uses the root username and prompts for the root's password.

Update:
Got it. Specify new connections as username@ip.address.of.kvm-host instead of just ip address.



Can this be achieved via GUI? or is it via using cli?

[gtdaqua]

Thanks, shiny. I got that.

Still left with the great question:

How do Windows Admins administer KVM hosts?

[sh1ny]

Thanks, shiny. I got that.

Still left with the great question:

How do Windows Admins administer KVM hosts?

Putty -> ssh -> virsh
Or you can try compiling virt-manager/libvirt for windows

[gtdaqua]

Putty -> ssh -> virsh

That's not gui. Am talking about Windows admins. virsh is for linux admins.

Or you can try compiling virt-manager/libvirt for windows

So there is no ready way to administer kvm hosts from windows.

[senor_smile]

This may be out of the scope of what you're looking for, but I recently tried out proxmox as a way of managing my vm's. I had looked into enomaly, convirt and simply having x sessions on windows machines via putty to manage kvm virtual machines with virt-manager.

I tried out proxmox and couldn't be happier. Install is very quick and everything needed to manage my vm's is all available from a cross platform gui. They even have a built in cluster mode to make one proxmox server the master to administer all other proxmox servers. This combined with drbd between two proxmox servers is a beautiful thing. You may still have to customize your vm's to get them exactly how you want.

FYI it runs on debian 5 base with no gui (headless server install).