Installing Virtual Machine Manager

Here we are installing Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) on Linux Mint 18.1 to provide easier remote administration of our KVM server.

The example KVM server used here is named ubuntu-mockup and our desktop is named mint-mockup. All of the shell commands given in this guide are executed on mint-vm unless indicated otherwise.

First, login to the Linux Mint GUI desktop, open a terminal session, and use apt-get to install the virt-manager package. Make sure the user you are logged in with has sudo privileges to run apt-get

SSH key-based authentication

To make connections to the KVM server easier, it is best to setup SSH access through keys. If needed, here is an example of how to do that. Make sure the username user already exists on the remote server.

If you already have a keypair in your user/.ssh directory, you do not need to run the ssh-keygen command.

You might need to access your Ubuntu Server by IP address instead of host name.

You will also need to give user permissions to manage the remote KVM server. This assumes user has sudo rights. If not, run this command on the remote server with a user that does.

Run this command on ubuntu-mockup

Starting VMM

You can start VMM from within the Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop menu under “Administration”

You can also add it to the desktop panel by right-clicking on the “Virtual Machine Manager” menu item and choosing “Add to panel”

Now we have a super duper awesome panel button to start VMM.

A default instance of VMM with no local KVM capability will show this unnecessarily long error message. Disregard. Since we are running VMM on a client desktop, this is expected.

If you have a local KVM instance correctly configured, then VMM will be able to manage it right away and will not show this error message.

There are some default preferences that should be changed. These will make easier in the future to setup and use VMs created with VMM.

The defaults are reasonable for the users not yet schooled by CoolGeeks.

But changing to these settings will help by connecting to VM consoles in a more compatible manner and providing the best compromise on CPU capabilities.

There you go. Now you can manage your remote KVM server from the safety of your own desktop OS.

Maybe now you would like to make a connection to your remote KVM server

RESOURCES

Homepage for the development of Virtual Machine Manager

CoolGeeks thinks Linux Mint is the Best Desktop Linux Ever

OpenSSH makes the world a better place

Public key authentication is not really that complicated