Virtual Machines Inside Linux - Virt-Manager

[@SB-qm5wg]

The Virt-Manager install has really been streamlined. That's great 👍

[@Jims-Garage]

It really has, so easy now.

[@chrisumali9841]

Thanks for the demo and info. This is awesome. Have a great day Jim

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks for watching!

[@awesomearizona-dino]

Hi Jim, good video, didnt realize before that this package was a full VM setup.

[@Jims-Garage]

Yeah, they've really streamlined the process.

[@maxdiamond55]

Thanks Jim great content. Spinning up a VM now to play with some PCI pass though tests

[@Jims-Garage]

@@maxdiamond55 nice, I might do a video on it

[@MrAmbrosse]

This is literally perfect timing for me. I needed a cheap way to virtualise windows server on a cloud hosted Linode VM, and was considering using Virt-Manager to do this.

[@Jims-Garage]

Great, let me know how it works out.

[@john__johnson]

Another excellent video. Thanks Jim.

[@Jims-Garage]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@NFvidoJagg2]

Libvirt is the library that provides the API for interacting with KVM, QEMU handles hardware emulation.

[@PaulMetalhero]

Great video, Jim! Don't forget to install the virtio drivers for better performance!

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks, yes, that's a good tip!

[@JonBrookes]

excellent, thank you. I like libvirt and qemu its so good to see how much it is improved over time. I'd say its a contender for other commercial options right now. Good you covered windows as that could be the way to contain it as the AI and recall start to take over. Lets hope.

[@Jims-Garage]

Totally agree!

[@acc3366]

Thank you for your videos.

[@Jims-Garage]

You're welcome

[@victornavorskie]

Thank you very much, I would love to see a video about wazuh in the docker if it is possible. Much love.

[@Jims-Garage]

@@victornavorskie thanks, yes will do. It's been on the list for a long time

[@Chris-rm1pn]

One thing I'd add to the setup is installation of all the virtio and spice drivers, it takes only a little extra effort to setup during installation and makes VM more responsive and nicer to use

[@Jims-Garage]

Good point. I'm going to cover remote desktops soon, I quite like remmina so far.

[@robfahey7363]

Love Virt-Manager, you can add different network types that Virt-Manager can use for different network needs. You can also setup the guest to support dynamic resolution like in Virtualbox.

[@Jims-Garage]

@@robfahey7363 yes, thanks for that. I should have mentioned virt-io drivers (like I have done previously).

[@Duurzaamheid]

Good info, Thanks 👍

[@Jims-Garage]

Glad it was helpful!

[@AT-hh4db]

Incredible timing! Great video, thanks! I am ditching VMware Pro after being a loyal client since 7.0 versión and definitely since 17.5 is hurting my productivity because all the issues that it has, slownesses and the poor driver performance/stability with the recent Linux kernels (6.5+). My last working version was 16.2.5 but unfortunately I couldn’t make it to compile with kernel 6.8. So I am going with QEMU/VirtManager for desktop (I already use Proxmox) and it is awesome.

[@gswhite]

Great Overview Jim, how did you get over the Windows 11 TPU Issue?

[@Jims-Garage]

It just works by default thankfully. Virt manager sorts out the key enrollment for virtual TPM (a bit like Proxmox does).

[@gert9537]

Hi Jim Great video I already have a virtman installed on arch. It works fine, except it will NOT connect to my (wired) network. I have found out that it is the (G)ufw firewall that prevents it I have checked the net and many people suggest to skip ufw and use firewalld instead I would prefer not to change my ufw if possible Are you using ufw or firewalld or something else ? Kind regards from Denmark GG

[@Jims-Garage]

I will check but I believe it uses ufw same as Ubuntu.

[@ewenchan1239]

Great video. Stupid question -- in your opinion -- why would someone use virt-manager rather than Proxmox? Both are running Linux underneath, and both -- you can set up a VM with a GUI. (I am trying to think of a use case for this vs. running Linux Mint as an LXC/VM inside of Proxmox.)

[@Jims-Garage]

@@ewenchan1239 typically it's due to hardware passthrough. Native Linux will work pretty much out of the gate, virtual Linux on Proxmox with passthrough is more complex. I'm not proposing people replace Proxmox with this setup, it's a completely different use case. This is more for testing and convenience. Server is for permanence.

[@ewenchan1239]

@@Jims-Garage "virtual Linux on Proxmox with passthrough is more complex." Can you expand, a little bit further, on what you mean by "virtual Linux"? I thought that Debian 11/12 runs under Proxmox (i.e. Proxmox is middleware much like how TrueNAS Scale is also, likewise, middleware that also runs on top of Debian 11/12). Furthermore, pursuant to the statements that you made in your video where if you want to get PCIe passthrough working with virt-manager, to get the host set up for that, the instructions are similar to that of Proxmox. So, I am not 100% sure what you mean by this statement. "I'm not proposing people replace Proxmox with this setup" I understand that. That's why I am, in my head, trying to map out the pros/cons of each solution, and where it might be potentially deployed, based on a certain need. "it's a completely different use case. This is more for testing and convenience. Server is for permanence." I would imagine though, that with Debian 11/12 running underneath Proxmox, (and I think that Linux Mint is also a Debian-derivative), that there are a LOT of similarities between this method (via virt-manager) and Proxmox. (e.g. for my own use case, the one that I am thinking about is actually deploying this in Rocky Linux 9/9.3 because Rocky Linux, being a RHEL derivative, supports NFSoRDMA for my 100 Gbps Infiniband system interconnect network, and also, the opensm for it might also support virtualisation, which can mean that I might be able to enable SRIOV on my Mellanox ConnectX-4 dual port 100 Gbps IB NICs, so that I can pass virtual 100 Gbps IB NICs into my VMs. This is why I am trying to figure out which solution works for which case.)

[@dimitristsoutsouras2712]

How come and there are no options during configuration of the win11 VM for TPM and version of it and bios type ... etc like in proxmox since they are based on the same underline services in order to work.

[@Jims-Garage]

It's all taken care of by default in the wizard as it detects that it's a Windows install. For fine grain control you can create via wizard, then hit the 'i' button - that shows all options.

[@dimitristsoutsouras2712]

@@Jims-Garage Oh ok. Thank you for your quick response.

[@awesomearizona-dino]

I would like to see how these new VMs can handle a physical disk, namely an NTFS disk on Windows VM.

[@ivanmaglica264]

NAT is quite slower, since it incurs quite a lot of CPU overhead. Also I suggest downloading VirtIO ISO and install guest tools, which installs virtio net and storage drivers, spice video drivers and guest tools for dynamic resolution change and clipboard.

[@ewenchan1239]

I don't suppose you would happen to know of a way to be able for a VM to communicate with the host WITHOUT going through some kind of virtual network bridge, would you? (i.e. right now, in Proxmox, I can get at least some of my VMs talking directly to the host that it is running on, via virtio-fs. I am wondering if virt-manager has anything similar to that.) The reason why I am asking is because I am thinking of a very specific potential use case for this, but I figure that I would at least ask this question first. Thank you.

[@Jims-Garage]

@@ewenchan1239 you could pass a NIC to the VM and communicate over a traditional switch and router.

[@ewenchan1239]

@@Jims-Garage "you could pass a NIC to the VM and communicate over a traditional switch and router." I'm trying to bypass the network stack entirely, if at all possible.

[@nocillis]

This is something along the lines of doing so that i can finally change to Linux because the ONLY thing keeping me on windows is the game Destiny 2 because Bungo doesn't allow linux support.

[@Jims-Garage]

Unfortunately it will likely detect that it's a Windows VM and still not work due to anti-cheat. Let me know if it does though, that would be cool.

[@hardcorehardware361]

Wont work sadly Bro I tried it, Jims right the anti cheat...

[@nocillis]

@ I just really hate the idea of sticking to windows and running linux through VM's. I guess the only compromise for now would be to somehow get a dual boot going. Maybe have 2 NVME's: 1 with Linux and 2nd with Win 10.

[@hardcorehardware361]

@ I was a thousands of hour D2 player, I just dropped the game. I've Been getting myself used to not playing Live service games that require an anti cheat. I highly doubt it will ever change so I'm changing my gaming habbits. Only other option is to just build a PC dedicated to Windows AC games? You probs wont miss much in D2 Bro its always the same crap lol.

[@nocillis]

@ Yeah Bungo really ballzed up D2 this season with lots of bugs and cheaters in trials pvp. Bungo should have named it Season of the glitch.

[@panthonyy]

Nice, I was talking with a friend about the fact that I need to jump into Virt-Manager really soon and poof! A couple days later, this video pops up in my feed. TY again!

[@Jims-Garage]

Hope it helps you out.

[@andrelutz2733]

is copy and paste from linux to windows available with wayland?

[@dfgdfg_]

You don't need to restart. Just start the service using systemctl

[@Jims-Garage]

Thanks, I should probably have done that (I'm used to it on Proxmox).

[@Duurzaamheid]

First !

[@papamidnight32]

Why this instead of Docker?

[@panthonyy]

Can you run Windows in a docker container? If so, I wasn't aware 👀

[@georgec2932]

I would have said this wasn’t possible but it appears people have done it (well, kind of). Their approach still uses KVM under the hood and generally it seems inferior to the approach in this video. From a very quick look, id have some security concerns with the docker approach.

[@papamidnight32]

@panthonyy dockur/windows its in the docker hub

[@Jims-Garage]

In a nutshell, because it's proven to work and it's portable. Sure, you can get it to work in Docker (kind of), but it's a headache waiting to happen.

[@twiggy749]

In my opinion windows vms hosted in Linux is the correct way. Stability, and privacy without renouncing to windows apps.

[@georgebals5170]

I'd agree, unless you want online gaming that require anticheats (LoL, Valorant etc). This is the only thing still keeping me dual-booting.

[@Jims-Garage]

That's a fair point and unfortunately there's no avoiding it at the moment.

[@peterjackson6228]

Hey James, great video! I find that installing the virtio-win-xx.xx.xx.iso for Windows based OS's fixes some laggy performance issues and allows for better/smoother hardware passthrough, as well as adding more VM details back to Virt-Manager; just like Proxmox 🙂

[@Jims-Garage]

@@peterjackson6228 thanks, I normally use that. I probably should have been smarter when recording. It was a demonstration of virt-manager as opposed to windows specifically (but that would have made sense to use).