In the first part (available here), we saw how to create a VM in ESXi and how to perform the basic installation of the operating system.
In this part, we'll see how to enable virtualization modules in an Oracle Linux environment.
First, we log in to the Oracle Linux server via SSH as shown below and check which x86-64 microarchitecture feature levels your CPU supports, according to the GNU C Library (glibc) dynamic linker, by running the following command:
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help | grep x86-64-v
When you run this command on a modern Linux system, you will see output that looks something like this:
x86-64-v4 (searched)
x86-64-v3 (supported, searched)
x86-64-v2 (supported, searched)
● (supported, searched): Your CPU supports the instruction sets required for this level. The dynamic linker will look for and use libraries optimized for this level if they exist.
● (searched): Your CPU does not support this level. The linker knows about it, but will safely ignore any libraries optimized for it.
What version level means?
| Level | Era / Architecture | Key Instructions Required |
|---|---|---|
| x86-64-v1 | Baseline (2003) | CMOV, CX8, FPU, FXSR, MMX, OSFXSR, SCE, SSE, SSE2 |
| x86-64-v2 | Nehalem / Silvermont (2008) | CMPXCHG16B, LAHF-SAHF, POPCNT, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSSE3 |
| x86-64-v3 | Haswell / Excavator (2013) | AVX, AVX2, BMI1, BMI2, F16C, FMA, LZCNT, MOVBE, OSXSAVE |
| x86-64-v4 | Skylake-X / Zen 4 (2017+) | AVX512F, AVX512BW, AVX512CD, AVX512DQ, AVX512VL |
1. Update packages
Post-installation, before proceeding with any software/package installation, we perform a check to verify if there are packages to update with the following command:ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo dnf update -y
2. Install open-vm-tools (optional)
Once the package update is complete, we proceed with installing the VM tools.If we have installed Oracle Linux in bare metal mode (on physical hardware), next three steps (until reboot of the OS) can be absolutely skipped.
a. Install open-vm-tools
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo dnf install open-vm-tools
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo dnf install open-vm-tools-desktop
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo reboot
3. Installing virtualization modules
Let's proceed with installing the packages, however instead of using the `dnf module install virt` command, use the following commands to install the virtualization packages.a. Install the Virtualization Host Group:
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo dnf groupinstall "Virtualization Host"
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo dnf install qemu-kvm libvirt virt-install virt-viewer
4. Enable and Start Services
After installation, you need to enable and start the virtualization services.Start the libvirtd service with full virtualization:
ol10user@olvm1:~$ for drv in qemu network nodedev nwfilter secret storage interface; do
sudo systemctl enable virt${drv}d.service
sudo systemctl enable virt${drv}d{,-ro,-admin}.socket
sudo systemctl start virt${drv}d{,-ro,-admin}.socket
done
5. Validate Setup and Troubleshooting QEMU
Validate setup ...ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo virt-host-validate qemu
6. Enables, starts, and verifies the libvirtd daemon.
We run the following commands to enable, start, and verify the libvirtd daemon, which is the main service used in Linux systems for managing virtual machines (usually KVM/QEMU-based).ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd.service
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo systemctl status libvirtd.service
ol10user@olvm1:~$ sudo systemctl list-units --type=socket virt*
This concludes the second part; where we saw the installation and enabling of the main modules for virtualization in an Oracle Linux environment (KVM/QEMU, libvirt).
Useful links:
– Installing Oracle Linux:
https://docs.oracle.com/en/operating-systems/oracle-linux/10/install/install-PreparingToInstall.html
– Create VMs with KVM on Oracle Linux:
https://docs.oracle.com/en/learn/ol-kvm/index.html#introduction
– KVM Nested Virtualization in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: A Hands-on Guide with Virtual Machines and Oracle Linux 9.5:
https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/kvm-nested-virtualization-in-oci
That's it.
