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VIRT-INSTALL(1) Virtualization Support VIRT-INSTALL(1)

NAME
virt-install - provision new virtual machines

SYNOPSIS
virt-install [OPTION]...

DESCRIPTION
virt-install is a command line tool for creating new KVM, Xen, or Linux
container guests using the libvirt hypervisor management library. See the
EXAMPLES section at the end of this document to quickly get started.

virt-install tool supports graphical installations using (for example) VNC
or SPICE, as well as text mode installs over serial console. The guest can
be configured to use one or more virtual disks, network interfaces, audio
devices, physical USB or PCI devices, among others.

The installation media can be local ISO or CDROM media, or a distro install
tree hosted remotely over HTTP, FTP, or in a local directory. In the in-
stall tree case virt-install will fetch the minimal files necessary to kick
off the installation process, allowing the guest to fetch the rest of the
OS distribution as needed. PXE booting, and importing an existing disk im-
age (thus skipping the install phase) are also supported.

Given suitable command line arguments, virt-install is capable of running
completely unattended, with the guest 'kickstarting' itself too. This al-
lows for easy automation of guest installs. This can be done manually, or
more simply with the --unattended option.

Many arguments have sub options, specified like opt1=foo,opt2=bar, etc. Try
--option=? to see a complete list of sub options associated with that argu-
ment, example: virt-install --disk=?

Most options are not required. If a suitable --osinfo value is specified or
detected, all defaults will be filled in and reported in the terminal out-
put. Otherwise, minimum required options are --memory, guest storage
(--disk or --filesystem), and an install method choice.

CONNECTING TO LIBVIRT
--connect
Syntax: --connect URI

Connect to a non-default hypervisor. If this isn't specified, libvirt will
try and choose the most suitable default.

Some valid options here are:

qemu:///system
For creating KVM and QEMU guests to be run by the system libvirtd
instance. This is the default mode that virt-manager uses, and what
most KVM users want.

qemu:///session
For creating KVM and QEMU guests for libvirtd running as the regular
user.

xen:///
For connecting to Xen.

lxc:///
For creating linux containers

GENERAL OPTIONS
General configuration parameters that apply to all types of guest installs.

-n, --name
Syntax: -n, --name NAME

Name of the new guest virtual machine instance. This must be unique amongst
all guests known to the hypervisor on the connection, including those not
currently active. To re-define an existing guest, use the virsh(1) tool to
shut it down ('virsh shutdown') & delete ('virsh undefine') it prior to
running virt-install.

--memory
Syntax: --memory OPTIONS

Memory to allocate for the guest, in MiB. This deprecates the -r/--ram op-
tion. Sub options are available, like 'memory', 'currentMemory', 'maxMem-
ory' and 'maxMemory.slots', which all map to the identically named XML val-
ues.

Back compat values 'memory' maps to the <currentMemory> element, and
maxmemory maps to the <memory> element.

To configure memory modules which can be hotunplugged see --memdev descrip-
tion.

Use --memory=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#memory-allocation>

--memorybacking
Syntax: --memorybacking OPTIONS

This option will influence how virtual memory pages are backed by host
pages.

Use --memorybacking=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete
details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#memory-backing>

--arch
Syntax: --arch ARCH

Request a non-native CPU architecture for the guest virtual machine. If
omitted, the host CPU architecture will be used in the guest.

--machine
Syntax: --machine MACHINE

The machine type to emulate. This will typically not need to be specified
for Xen or KVM, but is useful for choosing machine types of more exotic ar-
chitectures.

--metadata
Syntax: --metadata OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify metadata values for the guest. Possible options include name, uuid,
title, and description. This option deprecates -u/--uuid and --description.

Use --metadata=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#general-metadata>

--events
Syntax: --events OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify events values for the guest. Possible options include on_poweroff,
on_reboot, and on_crash.

Use --events=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#events-configuration>

--resource
Syntax: --resource OPT=VAL,[...]

Specify resource partitioning for the guest.

Use --resource=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#resource-partitioning>

--sysinfo
Syntax: --sysinfo OPT=VAL,[...]

Configure sysinfo/SMBIOS values exposed to the VM OS. Examples:

--sysinfo host
Special type that exposes the host's SMBIOS info into the VM.

--sysinfo emulate
Special type where hypervisor will generate SMBIOS info into the VM.

--sysinfo bios.vendor=custom or --sysinfo smbios,bios.vendor=custom
The default type is smbios and allows users to specify SMBIOS info
manually.

Use --sysinfo=? to see a list of all available sub options.

Complete details at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#operating-system-booting> and
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#smbios-system-information> for sm-
bios XML element.

--xml
Syntax: --xml ARGS

Make direct edits to the generated XML using XPath syntax. Take an example
like

virt-install --xml ./@foo=bar --xml ./newelement/subelement=1

This will alter the generated XML to contain:

The --xml option has 4 sub options:

--xml xpath.set=XPATH[=VALUE]
The default behavior if no explicit suboption is set. Takes the form
XPATH=VALUE unless paired with xpath.value . See below for how value
is interpreted.

--xml xpath.value=VALUE
xpath.set will be interpreted only as the XPath string, and
xpath.value will be used as the value to set. May help sidestep
problems if the string you need to set contains a '=' equals sign.

If value is empty, it's treated as unsetting that particular node.

--xml xpath.create=XPATH
Create the node as an empty element. Needed for boolean elements
like <readonly/>

--xml xpath.delete=XPATH
Delete the entire node specified by the xpath, and all its children

xpath subarguments
Similar to the --xml option, most top level options have xpath.* subop-
tions. For example, --disk xpath1.set=./@foo=bar,xpath2.create=./newelement
would generate XML alterations like

This is useful for setting XML options per device, when virt-install does
not support those options yet.

--qemu-commandline
Syntax: --qemu-commandline ARGS

Pass options directly to the qemu emulator. Only works for the libvirt qemu
driver. The option can take a string of arguments, for example:

--qemu-commandline="-display gtk,gl=on"

Environment variables are specified with 'env', for example:

--qemu-commandline=env=DISPLAY=:0.1

Complete details about the libvirt feature:
<https://libvirt.org/drvqemu.html#pass-through-of-arbitrary-qemu-commands>

--vcpus
Syntax: --vcpus OPTIONS

Number of virtual cpus to configure for the guest. If 'maxvcpus' is speci-
fied, the guest will be able to hotplug up to MAX vcpus while the guest is
running, but will startup with VCPUS.

CPU topology can additionally be specified with sockets, dies, cores, and
threads. If values are omitted, the rest will be autofilled preferring
cores over sockets over threads. Cores are preferred because this matches
the characteristics of modern real world silicon and thus a better fit for
what guest OS will be expecting to deal with.

'cpuset' sets which physical cpus the guest can use. CPUSET is a comma sep-
arated list of numbers, which can also be specified in ranges or cpus to
exclude. Example:

0,2,3,5 : Use processors 0,2,3 and 5
1-5,^3,8 : Use processors 1,2,4,5 and 8

If the value 'auto' is passed, virt-install attempts to automatically de-
termine an optimal cpu pinning using NUMA data, if available.

Use --vcpus=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#cpu-allocation>

--numatune
Syntax: --numatune OPTIONS

Tune NUMA policy for the domain process. Example invocations

--numatune 1,2,3,4-7
--numatune 1-3,5,memory.mode=preferred

Specifies the numa nodes to allocate memory from. This has the same syntax
as --vcpus cpuset= option. mode can be one of 'interleave', 'preferred', or
'strict' (the default). See 'man 8 numactl' for information about each
mode.

Use --numatune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#numa-node-tuning>

--memtune
Syntax: --memtune OPTIONS

Tune memory policy for the domain process. Example invocations

--memtune 1000
--memtune hard_limit=100,soft_limit=60,swap_hard_limit=150,min_guarantee=80

Use --memtune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#memory-tuning>

--blkiotune
Syntax: --blkiotune OPTIONS

Tune blkio policy for the domain process. Example invocations

--blkiotune 100
--blkiotune weight=100,device.path=/dev/sdc,device.weight=200

Use --blkiotune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#block-i-o-tuning>

--cpu
Syntax: --cpu MODEL[,+feature][,-feature][,match=MATCH][,vendor=VENDOR],...

Configure the CPU model and CPU features exposed to the guest. The only re-
quired value is MODEL, which is a valid CPU model as known to libvirt.

Libvirt's feature policy values force, require, optional, disable, or for-
bid, or with the shorthand '+feature' and '-feature', which equal
'force=feature' and 'disable=feature' respectively.

If exact CPU model is specified virt-install will automatically copy CPU
features available on the host to mitigate recent CPU speculative execution
side channel and Microarchitectural Store Buffer Data security vulnerabili-
ties. This however will have some impact on performance and will break mi-
gration to hosts without security patches. In order to control this behav-
ior there is a secure parameter. Possible values are on and off, with on as
the default. It is highly recommended to leave this enabled and ensure all
virtualization hosts have fully up to date microcode, kernel & virtualiza-
tion software installed.

Some examples:

--cpu core2duo,+x2apic,disable=vmx
Expose the core2duo CPU model, force enable x2apic, but do not ex-
pose vmx

--cpu host-model
Expose the host CPUs configuration to the guest. This enables the
guest to take advantage of many of the host CPUs features (better
performance), but may cause issues if migrating the guest to a host
without an identical CPU.

--cpu numa.cell0.memory=1234,numa.cell0.cpus=0-3,numa.cell1.mem-
ory=5678,numa.cell1.cpus=4-7
Example of specifying two NUMA cells. This will generate XML like:

--cpu host-passthrough,cache.mode=passthrough
Example of passing through the host cpu's cache information.

--cpu maximum
Expose the most feature-rich CPU possible. Useful when running a
foreign architecture guest, for example a riscv64 guest on an x86_64
host. Not recommended when using KVM to run a same-architecture
guest.

Use --cpu=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#cpu-model-and-topology>

--cputune
Syntax: --cputune OPTIONS

Tune CPU parameters for the guest.

Configure which of the host's physical CPUs the domain VCPU will be pinned
to. Example invocation

--cputune vcpupin0.vcpu=0,vcpupin0.cpuset=0-3,vcpupin1.vcpu=1,vcpupin1.cpuset=4-7

Use --cputune=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#cpu-tuning>

--security, --seclabel
Syntax: --security, --seclabel type=TYPE[,label=LABEL][,relabel=yes|no],...

Configure domain seclabel domain settings. Type can be either 'static' or
'dynamic'. 'static' configuration requires a security LABEL. Specifying LA-
BEL without TYPE implies static configuration.

Use --security=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#security-label>

--keywrap
Syntax: --keywrap OPTIONS

Specify domain <keywrap> XML, used for S390 cryptographic key management
operations.

Use --keywrap=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#key-wrap>

--iothreads
Syntax: --iothreads OPTIONS

Specify domain <iothreads> and/or <iothreadids> XML. For example, to con-
figure <iothreads>4</iothreads>, use --iothreads 4

Use --iothreads=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#iothreads-allocation>

--features
Syntax: --features FEAT=on|off,...

Set elements in the guests <features> XML on or off. Examples include acpi,
apic, eoi, privnet, and hyperv features. Some examples:

--features apic.eoi=on
Enable APIC PV EOI

--features hyperv.vapic.state=on,hyperv.spinlocks.state=off
Enable hyperv VAPIC, but disable spinlocks

--features kvm.hidden.state=on
Allow the KVM hypervisor signature to be hidden from the guest

--features pvspinlock=on
Notify the guest that the host supports paravirtual spinlocks for
example by exposing the pvticketlocks mechanism.

--features gic.version=2
This is relevant only for ARM architectures. Possible values are
"host" or version number.

--features smm.state=on
This enables System Management Mode of hypervisor. Some UEFI
firmwares may require this feature to be present. (QEMU supports SMM
only with q35 machine type.)

Use --features=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#hypervisor-features>

--clock
Syntax: --clock offset=OFFSET,TIMER_OPT=VAL,...

Configure the guest's <clock> XML. Some supported options:

--clock offset=OFFSET
Set the clock offset, ex. 'utc' or 'localtime'

--clock TIMER_present=no
Disable a boolean timer. TIMER here might be hpet, kvmclock, etc.

--clock TIMER_tickpolicy=VAL
Set a timer's tickpolicy value. TIMER here might be rtc, pit, etc.
VAL might be catchup, delay, etc. Refer to the libvirt docs for all
values.

Use --clock=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#time-keeping>

--pm
Syntax: --pm OPTIONS

Configure guest power management features. Example:

--pm suspend_to_memi.enabled=on,suspend_to_disk.enabled=off

Use --pm=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#power-management>

--launchSecurity
Syntax: --launchSecurity TYPE[,OPTS]

Enable launch security for the guest, e.g. AMD SEV. Example invocations:

# This will use a default policy 0x03
# No dhCert provided, so no data can be exchanged with the SEV firmware
--launchSecurity sev

# Explicit policy 0x01 - disables debugging, allows guest key sharing
--launchSecurity sev,policy=0x01

# Provide the session blob obtained from the SEV firmware
# Provide dhCert to open a secure communication channel with SEV firmware
--launchSecurity sev,session=BASE64SESSIONSTRING,dhCert=BASE64DHCERTSTRING

SEV has further implications on usage of virtio devices, so refer to EXAM-
PLES section to see a full invocation of virt-install with --launchSecu-
rity.

Use --launchSecurity=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete
details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#launch-security>

INSTALLATION OPTIONS
-c, --cdrom
Syntax: --cdrom PATH

ISO file or CDROM device to use for VM install media. After install, the
virtual CDROM device will remain attached to the VM, but with the ISO or
host path media ejected.

-l, --location
Syntax: -l, --location OPTIONS

Distribution tree installation source. virt-install can recognize certain
distribution trees and fetches a bootable kernel/initrd pair to launch the
install.

--location allows things like --extra-args for kernel arguments, and using
--initrd-inject. If you want to use those options with CDROM media, you can
pass the ISO to --location as well which works for some, but not all, CDROM
media.

The LOCATION can take one of the following forms:

<https://host/path>
An HTTP server location containing an installable distribution im-
age.

<ftp://host/path>
An FTP server location containing an installable distribution image.

ISO Extract files directly from the ISO path

DIRECTORY
Path to a local directory containing an installable distribution im-
age. Note that the directory will not be accessible by the guest
after initial boot, so the OS installer will need another way to ac-
cess the rest of the install media.

Some distro specific url samples:

Fedora/Red Hat Based
<https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/re-
leases/29/Server/x86_64/os>

Debian
<https://debian.osuosl.org/debian/dists/stable/main/in-
staller-amd64/>

Ubuntu
<https://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/wily/main/in-
staller-amd64/>

Suse
<https://download.opensuse.org/pub/opensuse/distribu-
tion/leap/42.3/repo/oss/>

Additionally, --location can take 'kernel' and 'initrd' sub options. These
paths relative to the specified location URL/ISO that allow selecting spe-
cific files for kernel/initrd within the install tree. This can be useful
if virt-install/ libosinfo doesn't know where to find the kernel in the
specified --location.

For example, if you have an ISO that libosinfo doesn't know about called
my-unknown.iso, with a kernel at 'kernel/fookernel' and initrd at 'ker-
nel/fooinitrd', you can make this work with:

--location my-unknown.iso,kernel=kernel/fookernel,initrd=kernel/fooinitrd

--pxe
Install from PXE. This just tells the VM to boot off the network for the
first boot.

--import
Skip the OS installation process, and build a guest around an existing disk
image. The device used for booting is the first device specified via --disk
or --filesystem.

-x, --extra-args
Syntax: -x, --extra-args KERNELARGS

Additional kernel command line arguments to pass to the installer when per-
forming a guest install from --location. One common usage is specifying an
anaconda kickstart file for automated installs, such as --extra-args
"ks=https://myserver/my.ks"

--initrd-inject
Syntax: --initrd-inject PATH

Add PATH to the root of the initrd fetched with --location. This can be
used to run an automated install without requiring a network hosted kick-
start file: --initrd-inject=/path/to/my.ks --extra-args "ks=file:/my.ks"

--install
This is a larger entry point for various types of install operations. The
command has multiple subarguments, similar to --disk and friends. This op-
tion is strictly for VM install operations, essentially configuring the
first boot.

The simplest usage to ex: install fedora29 is:

--install fedora29

And virt-install will fetch a --location URL from libosinfo, and populate
defaults from there.

Available suboptions:

os= This is os install option described above. The explicit way to spec-
ify that would be --install os=fedora29 . os= is the default option
if none is specified

kernel=, initrd=
Specify a kernel and initrd pair to use as install media. They are
copied into a temporary location before booting the VM, so they can
be combined with --initrd-inject and your source media will not be
altered. Media will be uploaded to a remote connection if required.

Example case using local filesystem paths: --install ker-
nel=/path/to/kernel,initrd=/path/to/initrd

Example using network paths. Kernel/initrd will be downloaded lo-
cally first, then passed to the VM as local filesystem paths: --in-
stall kernel=https://127.0.0.1/tree/kernel,ini-
trd=https://127.0.0.1/tree/initrd

Note, these are just for install time booting. If you want to set
the kernel used for permanent VM booting, use the --boot option.

kernel_args=, kernel_args_overwrite=yes|no
Specify install time kernel arguments (libvirt <cmdline> XML). These
can be combine with ex: kernel/initrd options, or --location media.
By default, kernel_args is just like --extra-args, and will _append_
to the arguments that virt-install will try to set by default for
most --location installs. If you want to override the virt-install
default, additionally specify kernel_args_overwrite=yes

bootdev=
Specify the install bootdev (hd, cdrom, floppy, network) to boot off
of for the install phase. This maps to libvirt <os><boot dev=X> XML.

If you want to install off a cdrom or network, it's probably simpler
and more backwards compatible to just use --cdrom or --pxe , but
this options gives fine grained control over the install process if
needed.

no_install=yes|no
Tell virt-install that there isn't actually any install happening,
and you just want to create the VM. --import is just an alias for
this, as is specifying --boot without any other install options. The
deprecated --live option is the same as '--cdrom $ISO --install
no_install=yes'

--reinstall DOMAIN
Reinstall an existing VM. DOMAIN can be a VM name, UUID, or ID number.
virt-install will fetch the domain XML from libvirt, apply the specified
install config changes, boot the VM for the install process, and then re-
vert to roughly the same starting XML.

Only install related options are processed, all other VM configuration op-
tions like --name, --disk, etc. are completely ignored.

If --reinstall is used with --cdrom, an existing CDROM attached to the VM
will be used if one is available, otherwise a permanent CDROM device will
be added.

--unattended
Syntax: --unattended [OPTIONS]

Perform an unattended install using libosinfo's install script support.
This is essentially a database of auto install scripts for various distros:
Red Hat kickstarts, Debian installer scripting, Windows unattended in-
stalls, and potentially others. The simplest invocation is to combine it
with --install like:

--install fedora29 --unattended

A Windows install will look like

--cdrom /path/to/my/windows.iso --unattended

Sub options are:

profile=
Choose which libosinfo unattended profile to use. Most distros have
a 'desktop' and a 'jeos' profile. virt-install will default to
'desktop' if this is unspecified.

admin-password-file=
A file used to set the VM OS admin/root password from. This option
can be used either as "admin-password-file=/path/to/password-file"
or as "admin-password-file=/dev/fd/n", being n the file descriptor
of the password-file. Note that only the first line of the file
will be considered, including any whitespace characters and exclud-
ing new-line.

user-login=
The user login name to be used in th VM. virt-install will default
to your current host username if this is unspecified. Note that
when running virt-install as "root", this option must be specified.

user-password-file=
A file used to set the VM user password. This option can be used ei-
ther as "user-password-file=/path/to/password-file" or as
"user-password-file=/dev/fd/n", being n the file descriptor of the
password-file. The username is either the user-login specified or
your current host username. Note that only the first line of the
file will be considered, including any whitespace characters and ex-
cluding new-line.

product-key=
Set a Windows product key

--cloud-init
Pass cloud-init metadata to the VM. A cloud-init NoCloud ISO file is gener-
ated, and attached to the VM as a CDROM device. The device is only attached
for the first boot. This option is particularly useful for distro cloud im-
ages, which have locked login accounts by default; --cloud-init provides
the means to initialize those login accounts, like setting a root password.

The simplest invocation is just plain --cloud-init with no suboptions; this
maps to --cloud-init root-password-generate=on,disable=on. See those subop-
tions for explanation of how they work.

Use --cloud-init=? to see a list of all available sub options.

Sub options are:

root-password-generate=on
Generate a new root password for the VM. When used, virt-install
will print the generated password to the console, and pause for 10
seconds to give the user a chance to notice it and copy it.

disable=on
Disable cloud-init in the VM for subsequent boots. Without this,
cloud-init may reset auth on each boot.

root-password-file=
A file used to set the VM root password from. This option can be
used either as "root-password-file=/path/to/password-file" or as
"root-password-file=/dev/fd/n", being n the file descriptor of the
password-file. Note that only the first line of the file will be
considered, including any whitespace characters and excluding
new-line.

meta-data=
Specify a cloud-init meta-data file to add directly to the iso. All
other meta-data configuration options on the --cloud-init command
line are ignored. Can be path to local file or URL.

user-data=
Specify a cloud-init user-data file to add directly to the iso. All
other user-data configuration options on the --cloud-init command
line are ignored. Can be path to local file or URL.

root-ssh-key=
Specify a public key to inject into the guest, providing ssh access
to the root account. Example:
root-ssh-key=/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

clouduser-ssh-key
Specify a public key to inject into the guest, providing ssh access
to the default cloud-init user account. The account name is differ-
ent per distro cloud image. Some common ones are documented here:
<https://docs.openstack.org/image-guide/obtain-images.html>

network-config=
Specify a cloud-init network-config file to add directly to the iso.
Can be path to local file or URL.

--boot
Syntax: --boot BOOTOPTS

Optionally specify the post-install VM boot configuration. This option al-
lows specifying a boot device order, permanently booting off kernel/initrd
with option kernel arguments, and enabling a BIOS boot menu (requires lib-
virt 0.8.3 or later)

--boot can be specified in addition to other install options (such as --lo-
cation, --cdrom, etc.) or can be specified on its own. In the latter case,
behavior is similar to the --import install option: there is no 'install'
phase, the guest is just created and launched as specified.

Some examples:

--boot cdrom,fd,hd,network
Set the boot device priority as first cdrom, first floppy, first
harddisk, network PXE boot. Note: s390x guests only support one
boot device, so everything except the first device type will be ig-
nored.

--boot kernel=KERNEL,initrd=INITRD,kernel_args="console=/dev/ttyS0"
Have guest permanently boot off a local kernel/initrd pair, with the
specified kernel options.

--boot kernel=KERNEL,initrd=INITRD,dtb=DTB
Have guest permanently boot off a local kernel/initrd pair with an
external device tree binary. DTB can be required for some non-x86
configurations like ARM or PPC

--boot loader=BIOSPATH
Use BIOSPATH as the virtual machine BIOS.

--boot bootmenu.enable=on,bios.useserial=on
Enable the bios boot menu, and enable sending bios text output over
serial console.

--boot init=INITPATH
Path to a binary that the container guest will init. If a root
--filesystem has been specified, virt-install will default to
/sbin/init, otherwise will default to /bin/sh.

--boot uefi, --boot uefi=on
Configure the VM to boot from UEFI. In order for virt-install to
know the correct UEFI parameters, libvirt needs to be advertising
known UEFI binaries via domcapabilities XML, so this will likely
only work if using properly configured distro packages. This is the
recommended UEFI setup.

--boot uefi=off
Do not use UEFI if the VM would normally default to it.

--boot uefi,firmware.feature0.name=secure-boot,firmware.feature0.en-
abled=yes,firmware.feature1.name=enrolled-keys,firmware.feature1.en-
abled=yes
Configure the VM to boot from UEFI with Secure Boot support enabled.
Only signed operating systems will be able to boot with this config-
uration.

--boot uefi,firmware.feature0.name=secure-boot,firmware.feature0.enabled=no
Configure the VM to boot from UEFI with Secure Boot support dis-
abled. This configuration allows both signed and unsigned operating
systems to run.

Additional information about the secure-boot and enrolled-keys
firmware features and how they can be used to influence firmware se-
lection is available at
<https://libvirt.org/kbase/secureboot.html>

--boot loader=/.../OVMF_CODE.fd,loader.read-
only=yes,loader.type=pflash,nvram.template=/.../OVMF_VARS.fd,loader_se-
cure=no
Specify that the virtual machine use the custom OVMF binary as boot
firmware, mapped as a virtual flash chip. In addition, request that
libvirt instantiate the VM-specific UEFI varstore from the custom
"/.../OVMF_VARS.fd" varstore template. This setup is not recom-
mended, and should only be used if --boot uefi doesn't know about
your UEFI binaries.

Use --boot=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#operating-system-booting>

--idmap
Syntax: --idmap OPTIONS

If the guest configuration declares a UID or GID mapping, the 'user' name-
space will be enabled to apply these. A suitably configured UID/GID map-
ping is a pre-requisite to make containers secure, in the absence of sVirt
confinement.

--idmap can be specified to enable user namespace for LXC containers. Exam-
ple:

--idmap uid.start=0,uid.target=1000,uid.count=10,gid.start=0,gid.target=1000,gid.count=10

Use --idmap=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#container-boot>

GUEST OS OPTIONS
--osinfo, --os-variant
Syntax: --osinfo [OSNAME|OPT1=VAL1,...]

Optimize the guest configuration for a specific operating system. For most
cases, an OS must be specified or detected from the install media so per-
formance critical features like virtio can be enabled.

The simplest usage is --osinfo OSNAME or --os-variant OSNAME, for example
--osinfo fedora32. The supported suboptions are:

name=, short-id=
The OS name/short-id from libosinfo. Examples: fedora32, win10

id= The full URL style libosinfo ID. For example, name=win10 is the same
as id=http://microsoft.com/win/10

detect=on|off
Whether virt-install should attempt OS detection from the specified
install media. Detection is presently only attempted for URL and
CDROM installs, and is not 100% reliable.

require=on|off
If on, virt-install errors if no OS value is set or detected.

Some interesting examples:

--osinfo detect=on,require=on
This tells virt-install to attempt detection from install media, but
explicitly fail if that does not succeed. This will ensure your
virt-install invocations don't fallback to a poorly performing con-
fig

--osinfo detect=on,name=OSNAME
Attempt OS detection from install media, but if that fails, use OS-
NAME as a fallback.

If any manual --osinfo value is specified, the default is all other set-
tings off or unset.

By default, virt-install will always attempt --osinfo detect=on for appro-
priate install media. If no OS is detected, we will fail in most common
cases. This fatal error was added in 2022. You can work around this by us-
ing the fallback example above, or disabling the require option. If you
just need to get back to the old non-fatal behavior ASAP, set the environ-
ment variable VIRTINSTALL_OSINFO_DISABLE_REQUIRE=1.

Use the command virt-install --osinfo list to get the list of the accepted
OS variants. See osinfo-query os for even more output.

Note: --osinfo and --os-variant are aliases for one another. --osinfo is
the preferred new style naming.

STORAGE OPTIONS
--disk
Syntax: --disk OPTIONS

Specifies media to use as storage for the guest, with various options. The
general format of a disk string is

--disk opt1=val1,opt2=val2,...

The simplest invocation to create a new 10G disk image and associated disk
device:

--disk size=10

virt-install will generate a path name, and place it in the default image
location for the hypervisor. To specify media, the command can either be:

--disk /some/storage/path[,opt1=val1]...

or explicitly specify one of the following arguments:

path A path to some storage media to use, existing or not. Existing media
can be a file or block device.

Specifying a non-existent path implies attempting to create the new
storage, and will require specifying a 'size' value. Even for remote
hosts, virt-install will try to use libvirt storage APIs to automat-
ically create the given path.

If the hypervisor supports it, path can also be a network URL, like
<https://example.com/some-disk.img> . For network paths, they hy-
pervisor will directly access the storage, nothing is downloaded lo-
cally.

pool An existing libvirt storage pool name to create new storage on. Re-
quires specifying a 'size' value.

vol An existing libvirt storage volume to use. This is specified as
'poolname/volname'.

Options that apply to storage creation:

size size (in GiB) to use if creating new storage

sparse
whether to skip fully allocating newly created storage. Value is
'yes' or 'no'. Default is 'yes' (do not fully allocate) unless it
isn't supported by the underlying storage type.

The initial time taken to fully-allocate the guest virtual disk
(sparse=no) will be usually balanced by faster install times inside
the guest. Thus use of this option is recommended to ensure consis-
tently high performance and to avoid I/O errors in the guest should
the host filesystem fill up.

format
Disk image format. For file volumes, this can be 'raw', 'qcow2',
'vmdk', etc. See format types in <https://libvirt.org/stor-
age.html> for possible values. This is often mapped to the dri-
ver_type value as well.

If not specified when creating file images, this will default to
'qcow2'.

If creating storage, this will be the format of the new image. If
using an existing image, this overrides libvirt's format auto-detec-
tion.

backing_store
Path to a disk to use as the backing store for the newly created im-
age.

backing_format
Disk image format of backing_store

Some example device configuration suboptions:

device
Disk device type. Example values are be 'cdrom', 'disk', 'lun' or
'floppy'. The default is 'disk'.

boot.order
Guest installation with multiple disks will need this parameter to
boot correctly after being installed. A boot.order parameter will
take values 1,2,3,... Devices with lower value has higher priority.
This option applies to other bootable device types as well.

target.bus** or *bus
Disk bus type. Example values are be 'ide', 'sata', 'scsi', 'usb',
'virtio' or 'xen'. The default is hypervisor dependent since not
all hypervisors support all bus types.

readonly
Set drive as readonly (takes 'on' or 'off')

shareable
Set drive as shareable (takes 'on' or 'off')

cache The cache mode to be used. The host pagecache provides cache memory.
The cache value can be 'none', 'writethrough', 'directsync', 'un-
safe' or 'writeback'. 'writethrough' provides read caching. 'write-
back' provides read and write caching. 'directsync' bypasses the
host page cache. 'unsafe' may cache all content and ignore flush re-
quests from the guest.

driver.discard
Whether discard (also known as "trim" or "unmap") requests are ig-
nored or passed to the filesystem. The value can be either "unmap"
(allow the discard request to be passed) or "ignore" (ignore the
discard request). Since 1.0.6 (QEMU and KVM only)

driver.name
Driver name the hypervisor should use when accessing the specified
storage. Typically does not need to be set by the user.

driver.type
Driver format/type the hypervisor should use when accessing the
specified storage. Typically does not need to be set by the user.

driver.io
Disk IO backend. Can be either "threads", "native" or "io_uring".

driver.error_policy
How guest should react if a write error is encountered. Can be one
of "stop", "ignore", or "enospace"

serial
Serial number of the emulated disk device. This is used in linux
guests to set /dev/disk/by-id symlinks. An example serial number
might be: WD-WMAP9A966149

source.startupPolicy
It defines what to do with the disk if the source file is not acces-
sible.

snapshot
Defines default behavior of the disk during disk snapshots.

See the examples section for some uses. This option deprecates -f/--file,
-s/--file-size, --nonsparse, and --nodisks.

Use --disk=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#hard-drives-floppy-disks-cdroms>

--filesystem
Specifies a directory on the host to export to the guest. The most simple
invocation is:

--filesystem /source/on/host,/target/point/in/guest

Which will work for recent QEMU and linux guest OS or LXC containers. For
QEMU, the target point is just a mounting hint in sysfs, so will not be au-
tomatically mounted.

Some example suboptions:

type The type or the source directory. Valid values are 'mount' (the de-
fault) or 'template' for OpenVZ templates.

accessmode or mode
The access mode for the source directory from the guest OS. Only
used with QEMU and type=mount. Valid modes are 'mapped' (the de-
fault), 'passthrough', or 'squash'. See libvirt domain XML documen-
tation for more info.

source
The directory on the host to share.

target
The mount location to use in the guest.

Use --filesystem=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete
details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#filesystems>

NETWORKING OPTIONS
-w, --network
Syntax: -w, --network OPTIONS

Connect the guest to the host network. Examples for specifying the network
type:

bridge=BRIDGE
Connect to a bridge device in the host called BRIDGE. Use this op-
tion if the host has static networking config & the guest requires
full outbound and inbound connectivity to/from the LAN. Also use
this if live migration will be used with this guest.

network=NAME
Connect to a virtual network in the host called NAME. Virtual net-
works can be listed, created, deleted using the virsh command line
tool. In an unmodified install of libvirt there is usually a virtual
network with a name of default. Use a virtual network if the host
has dynamic networking (e.g. NetworkManager), or using wireless. The
guest will be NATed to the LAN by whichever connection is active.

type=direct,source=IFACE[,source.mode=MODE]
Direct connect to host interface IFACE using macvtap.

user Connect to the LAN using SLIRP. Only use this if running a QEMU
guest as an unprivileged user. This provides a very limited form of
NAT.

none Tell virt-install not to add any default network interface.

If --network is omitted a single NIC will be created in the guest. If there
is a bridge device in the host with a physical interface attached, that
will be used for connectivity. Failing that, the virtual network called de-
fault will be used. This option can be specified multiple times to setup
more than one NIC.

Some example suboptions:

model.type or model
Network device model as seen by the guest. Value can be any nic
model supported by the hypervisor, e.g.: 'e1000', 'rtl8139', 'vir-
tio', ...

mac.address or mac
Fixed MAC address for the guest; If this parameter is omitted, or
the value RANDOM is specified a suitable address will be randomly
generated. For Xen virtual machines it is required that the first 3
pairs in the MAC address be the sequence '00:16:3e', while for QEMU
or KVM virtual machines it must be '52:54:00'.

filterref.filter
Controlling firewall and network filtering in libvirt. Value can be
any nwfilter defined by the virsh 'nwfilter' subcommands. Available
filters can be listed by running 'virsh nwfilter-list', e.g.:
'clean-traffic', 'no-mac-spoofing', ...

virtualport.* options
Configure the device virtual port profile. This is used for 802.Qbg,
802.Qbh, midonet, and openvswitch config.

Use --network=? to see a list of all available sub options. Com-
plete details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#network-in-
terfaces>

This option deprecates -m/--mac, -b/--bridge, and --nonetworks

hostdev=HOSTDEV
Use the referenced nodedev device as the source for type=hostdev as
described here: <https://libvirt.org/formatdo-
main.html#pci-passthrough>

For HOSTDEV format, see --hostdev documentation

portForward=[ADDRESS:]HOSTPORT[:GUESTPORT][/PROTO]
Simpler option for specifying port forwarding with --network passt
networks. Roughly matches podman run -p syntax. HOSTPORT can be a
represented as a range like 7000-8000, but GUESTPORT can only be a
single port. If GUESTPORT is not provided, host and guest ports are
assumed to match.

Examples:

--network passt,portForward=8080:80 \
--network passt,portForward0=7000-8000/udp,portForward1=127.0.0.1:2222:22 \

GRAPHICS OPTIONS
If no graphics option is specified, virt-install will try to select the ap-
propriate graphics if the DISPLAY environment variable is set, otherwise
'--graphics none' is used.

--graphics
Syntax: --graphics TYPE,opt1=arg1,opt2=arg2,...

Specifies the graphical display configuration. This does not configure any
virtual hardware, just how the guest's graphical display can be accessed.
Typically the user does not need to specify this option, virt-install will
try and choose a useful default, and launch a suitable connection.

General format of a graphical string is

--graphics TYPE,opt1=arg1,opt2=arg2,...

For example:

--graphics vnc,password=foobar

Some supported TYPE values:

vnc Setup a virtual console in the guest and export it as a VNC server
in the host. Unless the port parameter is also provided, the VNC
server will run on the first free port number at 5900 or above. The
actual VNC display allocated can be obtained using the vncdisplay
command to virsh (or virt-viewer(1) can be used which handles this
detail for the use).

spice Export the guest's console using the Spice protocol. Spice allows
advanced features like audio and USB device streaming, as well as
improved graphical performance.

Using spice graphic type will work as if those arguments were given:

--video qxl --channel spicevmc

none No graphical console will be allocated for the guest. Guests will
likely need to have a text console configured on the first serial
port in the guest (this can be done via the --extra-args option).
The command 'virsh console NAME' can be used to connect to the ser-
ial device.

Some supported suboptions:

port Request a permanent, statically assigned port number for the guest
console. This is used by 'vnc' and 'spice'

tlsPort
Specify the spice tlsport.

websocket
Request a VNC WebSocket port for the guest console.

If -1 is specified, the WebSocket port is auto-allocated.

This is used by 'vnc' and 'spice'

listen
Address to listen on for VNC/Spice connections. Default is typically
127.0.0.1 (localhost only), but some hypervisors allow changing this
globally (for example, the qemu driver default can be changed in
/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf). Use 0.0.0.0 to allow access from other ma-
chines.

Use 'none' to specify that the display server should not listen on
any port. The display server can be accessed only locally through
libvirt unix socket (virt-viewer with --attach for instance).

Use 'socket' to have the VM listen on a libvirt generated unix
socket path on the host filesystem.

This is used by 'vnc' and 'spice'

password
Request a console password, required at connection time. Beware,
this info may end up in virt-install log files, so don't use an im-
portant password. This is used by 'vnc' and 'spice'

gl.enable
Whether to use OpenGL accelerated rendering. Value is 'yes' or 'no'.
This is used by 'spice'.

gl.rendernode
DRM render node path to use. This is used when 'gl' is enabled.

Use --graphics=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#graphical-framebuffers>

This deprecates the following options: --vnc, --vncport, --vnclisten,
-k/--keymap, --sdl, --nographics

--autoconsole
Syntax: --autoconsole OPTIONS

Configure what interactive console virt-install will launch for the VM.
This option is not required; the default behavior is adaptive and dependent
on how the VM is configured. But you can use this option to override the
default choice.

--autoconsole graphical
Use the graphical virt-viewer(1) as the interactive console

--autoconsole text
Use the text mode virsh console as the interactive console.

--autoconsole none
This is the same as --noautoconsole

--noautoconsole
Don't automatically try to connect to the guest console. Same as
--autoconsole none

Note, virt-install exits quickly when this option is specified. If your
command requested a multistep install, like --cdrom or --location, after
the install phase is complete the VM will be shutoff, regardless of whether
a reboot was requested in the VM. If you want the VM to be rebooted,
virt-install must remain running. You can use '--wait' to keep virt-install
alive even if --noautoconsole is specified.

VIRTUALIZATION OPTIONS
Options to override the default virtualization type choices.

-v, --hvm
Request the use of full virtualization, if both para & full virtualization
are available on the host. This parameter may not be available if connect-
ing to a Xen hypervisor on a machine without hardware virtualization sup-
port. This parameter is implied if connecting to a QEMU based hypervisor.

-p, --paravirt
This guest should be a paravirtualized guest. If the host supports both
para & full virtualization, and neither this parameter nor the --hvm are
specified, this will be assumed.

--container
This guest should be a container type guest. This option is only required
if the hypervisor supports other guest types as well (so for example this
option is the default behavior for LXC and OpenVZ, but is provided for com-
pleteness).

--virt-type
The hypervisor to install on. Example choices are kvm, qemu, or xen.
Available options are listed via 'virsh capabilities' in the <domain> tags.

This deprecates the --accelerate option, which is now the default behavior.
To install a plain QEMU guest, use '--virt-type qemu'

DEVICE OPTIONS
All devices have a set of address.* options for configuring the particulars
of the device's address on its parent controller or bus. See https://lib-
virt.org/formatdomain.html#device-addresses for details.

--controller
Syntax: --controller OPTIONS

Attach a controller device to the guest.

Some example invocations:

--controller usb2
Add a full USB2 controller setup

--controller usb3
Add a USB3 controller

--controller type=usb,model=none
Disable USB entirely

--controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi
Add a VirtIO SCSI controller

--controller num_pcie_root_ports=NUM
Control the number of default pcie-root-port controller devices we
add to the new VM by default, if the VM will use PCIe by default.

Use --controller=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete
details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#controllers>

--input
Syntax: --input OPTIONS

Attach an input device to the guest. Example input device types are mouse,
tablet, or keyboard.

Use --input=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#input-devices>

--hostdev, --host-device
Syntax: --hostdev, --host-device OPTIONS

Attach a physical host device to the guest. Some example values for HOST-
DEV:

--hostdev pci_0000_00_1b_0
A node device name via libvirt, as shown by 'virsh nodedev-list'

--hostdev 001.003
USB by bus, device (via lsusb).

--hostdev 0x1234:0x5678
USB by vendor, product (via lsusb).

--hostdev 1f.01.02
PCI device (via lspci).

--hostdev wlan0,type=net
Network device (in LXC container).

--hostdev /dev/net/tun,type=misc
Character device (in LXC container).

--hostdev /dev/sdf,type=storage
Block device (in LXC container).

Use --hostdev=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#host-device-assignment>

--sound
Syntax: --sound MODEL

Attach a virtual audio device to the guest. MODEL specifies the emulated
sound card model. Possible values are ich6, ich9, ac97, es1370, sb16, pc-
spk, or default. 'default' will try to pick the best model that the speci-
fied OS supports.

This deprecates the old --soundhw option. Use --sound=? to see a list of
all available sub options. Complete details at <https://libvirt.org/for-
matdomain.html#sound-devices>

--audio
Configure host audio output for the guest's --sound hardware.

Use --audio=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#audio-backends>

--watchdog
Syntax: --watchdog MODEL[,action=ACTION]

Attach a virtual hardware watchdog device to the guest. This requires a
daemon and device driver in the guest. The watchdog fires a signal when the
virtual machine appears to hung. ACTION specifies what libvirt will do when
the watchdog fires. Values are

reset Forcefully reset the guest (the default)

poweroff
Forcefully power off the guest

pause Pause the guest

none Do nothing

shutdown
Gracefully shutdown the guest (not recommended, since a hung guest
probably won't respond to a graceful shutdown)

MODEL is the emulated device model: either i6300esb (the default) or ib700.
Some examples:

--watchdog default
Use the recommended settings

--watchdog i6300esb,action=poweroff
Use the i6300esb with the 'poweroff' action

Use --watchdog=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#watchdog-devices>

--serial
Syntax: --serial OPTIONS

Specifies a serial device to attach to the guest, with various options. The
general format of a serial string is

--serial type,opt1=val1,opt2=val2,...

--serial and --parallel devices share all the same options, unless other-
wise noted. Some of the types of character device redirection are:

--serial pty
Pseudo TTY. The allocated pty will be listed in the running guests
XML description.

--serial dev,path=HOSTPATH
Host device. For serial devices, this could be /dev/ttyS0. For par-
allel devices, this could be /dev/parport0.

--serial file,path=FILENAME
Write output to FILENAME.

--serial tcp,host=HOST:PORT,source.mode=MODE,protocol.type=PROTOCOL
TCP net console. MODE is either 'bind' (wait for connections on
HOST:PORT) or 'connect' (send output to HOST:PORT), default is
'bind'. HOST defaults to '127.0.0.1', but PORT is required. PROTOCOL
can be either 'raw' or 'telnet' (default 'raw'). If 'telnet', the
port acts like a telnet server or client. Some examples:

Wait for connections on any address, port 4567:

--serial tcp,host=0.0.0.0:4567

Connect to localhost, port 1234:

--serial tcp,host=:1234,source.mode=connect

Wait for telnet connection on localhost, port 2222. The user could
then connect interactively to this console via 'telnet localhost
2222':

--serial tcp,host=:2222,source.mode=bind,source.protocol=telnet

--serial udp,host=CONNECT_HOST:PORT,bind_host=BIND_HOST:BIND_PORT
UDP net console. HOST:PORT is the destination to send output to (de-
fault HOST is '127.0.0.1', PORT is required). BIND_HOST:BIND_PORT is
the optional local address to bind to (default BIND_HOST is
127.0.0.1, but is only set if BIND_PORT is specified). Some exam-
ples:

Send output to default syslog port (may need to edit /etc/rsys-
log.conf accordingly):

--serial udp,host=:514

Send output to remote host 192.168.10.20, port 4444 (this output can
be read on the remote host using 'nc -u -l 4444'):

--serial udp,host=192.168.10.20:4444

--serial unix,path=UNIXPATH,mode=MODE
Unix socket, see unix(7). MODE has similar behavior and defaults as
--serial tcp,mode=MODE

Use --serial=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#consoles-serial-parallel-chan-
nel-devices>

--parallel
Syntax: --parallel OPTIONS

Specify a parallel device. The format and options are largely identical to
serial

Use --parallel=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#parallel-port>

--channel
Specifies a communication channel device to connect the guest and host ma-
chine. This option uses the same options as --serial and --parallel for
specifying the host/source end of the channel. Extra 'target' options are
used to specify how the guest machine sees the channel.

Some of the types of character device redirection are:

--channel SOURCE,target.type=guestfwd,target.address=HOST:PORT
Communication channel using QEMU usermode networking stack. The
guest can connect to the channel using the specified HOST:PORT com-
bination.

--channel SOURCE,target.type=virtio[,target.name=NAME]
Communication channel using virtio serial (requires 2.6.34 or later
host and guest). Each instance of a virtio --channel line is exposed
in the guest as /dev/vport0p1, /dev/vport0p2, etc. NAME is optional
metadata, and can be any string, such as org.linux-kvm.virtioport1.
If specified, this will be exposed in the guest at /sys/class/vir-
tio-ports/vport0p1/NAME

--channel spicevmc,target.type=virtio[,target.name=NAME]
Communication channel for QEMU spice agent, using virtio serial (re-
quires 2.6.34 or later host and guest). NAME is optional metadata,
and can be any string, such as the default com.redhat.spice.0 that
specifies how the guest will see the channel.

--channel qemu-vdagent,target.type=virtio[,target.name=NAME]
Communication channel for QEMU vd agent, using virtio serial (re-
quires 2.6.34 or later host and guest). This allows copy/paste func-
tionality with VNC guests. Note that the guest clipboard integration
is implemented via spice-vdagent, which must be running even when
the guest does not use spice graphics. NAME is optional metadata
that specifies how the guest will see the channel, and should be
left as the default com.redhat.spice.0 unless you know what you are
doing.

Use --channel=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#channel>

--console
Connect a text console between the guest and host. Certain guest and hyper-
visor combinations can automatically set up a getty in the guest, so an out
of the box text login can be provided (target_type=xen for xen paravirt
guests, and possibly target_type=virtio in the future).

Example:

--console pty,target.type=virtio
Connect a virtio console to the guest, redirected to a PTY on the
host. For supported guests, this exposes /dev/hvc0 in the guest.
See
<https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/VirtioSerial> for more
info. virtio console requires libvirt 0.8.3 or later.

Use --console=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#console>

--video
Syntax: --video OPTIONS

Specify what video device model will be attached to the guest. Valid values
for VIDEO are hypervisor specific, but some options for recent kvm are cir-
rus, vga, qxl, virtio, or vmvga (vmware). Use --video=? to see a list of
all available sub options. Complete details at <https://libvirt.org/for-
matdomain.html#video-devices>

--smartcard
Syntax: --smartcard MODE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual smartcard device.

Example MODE values are host, host-certificates, or passthrough. Example
suboptions include:

type Character device type to connect to on the host. This is only ap-
plicable for passthrough mode.

An example invocation:

--smartcard passthrough,type=spicevmc
Use the smartcard channel of a SPICE graphics device to pass smart-
card info to the guest

Use --smartcard=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#smartcard-devices>

--redirdev
Syntax: --redirdev BUS[,OPTIONS]

Add a redirected device. Example suboptions:

type The redirection type, currently supported is tcp or spicevmc .

server
The TCP server connection details, of the form 'server:port'.

Examples invocations:

--redirdev usb,type=tcp,server=localhost:4000
Add a USB redirected device provided by the TCP server on 'local-
host' port 4000.

--redirdev usb,type=spicevmc
Add a USB device redirected via a dedicated Spice channel.

Use --redirdev=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#redirected-devices>

--memballoon
Syntax: --memballoon MODEL[,OPTIONS]

Attach a virtual memory balloon device to the guest. If the memballoon de-
vice needs to be explicitly disabled, MODEL='none' is used.

MODEL is the type of memballoon device provided. The value can be 'virtio',
'xen' or 'none'. Some examples:

--memballoon virtio
Explicitly create a 'virtio' memballoon device

--memballoon none
Disable the memballoon device

Use --memballoon=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete
details at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#memory-balloon-device>

--tpm
Syntax: --tpm TYPE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual TPM device. Examples:

--tpm /dev/tpm
Convenience option for passing through the hosts TPM.

--tpm emulator
Request an emulated TPM device.

--tpm default
Request virt-install to fill in a modern recommended default.

--tpm none
Request virt-install to disable TPM device.

Use --tpm=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#tpm-device>

--rng
Syntax: --rng TYPE[,OPTIONS]

Configure a virtual RNG device.

Example TYPE values include random, egd or builtin.

Example invocations:

--rng /dev/urandom
Use the /dev/urandom device to get entropy data, this form implic-
itly uses the "random" model.

--rng builtin
Use the builtin rng device to get entropy data.

--rng egd,backend.source.host=localhost,backend.source.service=8000,back-
end.type=tcp
Connect to localhost to the TCP port 8000 to get entropy data.

Use --rng=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#random-number-generator-device>

--panic
Syntax: --panic MODEL[,OPTS]

Attach a panic notifier device to the guest. For the recommended settings,
use: --panic default

Use --panic=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#panic-device>

--shmem
Syntax: --shmem NAME[,OPTS]

Attach a shared memory device to the guest. The name must not contain / and
must not be directory-specific to . or ..

Use --shmem=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#shared-memory-device>

--memdev
Syntax: --memdev OPTS

Add a memory module to a guest which can be hotunplugged. To add a memdev
you need to configure hotplugmemory and NUMA for a guest.

Use --memdev=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete de-
tails at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#memory-devices>

--vsock
Syntax: --vsock OPTS

Configure a vsock host/guest interface. A typical configuration would be

--vsock cid.auto=yes

Use --vsock=? to see a list of all available sub options. Complete details
at <https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#vsock>

--iommu
Syntax: --iommu MODEL[,OPTS]

Add an IOMMU device to the guest.

Use --iommu=? to see a list of all available options. Complete details at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#iommu-devices>

--pstore
Syntax: --pstore OPT=VAL,[...]

Add a pstore device to a guest for storing oops/panic logs before it
crashes.

Use --pstore=? to see a list of all available options. Complete details at
<https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#pstore>

MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
-h, --help
Show the help message and exit

--version
Show program's version number and exit

--autostart
Set the autostart flag for a domain. This causes the domain to be started
on host boot up.

--transient
Use --import or --boot and --transient if you want a transient libvirt VM.
These VMs exist only until the domain is shut down or the host server is
restarted. Libvirt forgets the XML configuration of the VM after either of
these events. Note that the VM's disks will not be deleted. See:
<https://wiki.libvirt.org/page/VM_lifecycle#Transient_guest_do-
mains_vs_Persistent_guest_domains>

--destroy-on-exit
When the VM console window is exited, destroy (force poweroff) the VM. If
you combine this with --transient, this makes the virt-install command work
similar to qemu, where the VM is shutdown when the console window is closed
by the user.

--print-xml
Syntax: --print-xml [STEP]

Print the generated XML of the guest, instead of defining it. By default
this WILL do storage creation (can be disabled with --dry-run). This option
implies --quiet.

If the VM install has multiple phases, by default this will print all gen-
erated XML. If you want to print a particular step, use --print-xml 2 (for
the second phase XML).

--noreboot
Prevent the domain from automatically rebooting after the install has com-
pleted.

--wait
Syntax: --wait WAIT

Configure how virt-install will wait for the install to complete. Without
this option, virt-install will wait for the console to close (not necessar-
ily indicating the guest has shutdown), or in the case of --noautoconsole,
simply kick off the install and exit.

Bare '--wait' or any negative value will make virt-install wait indefi-
nitely. Any positive number is the number of minutes virt-install will
wait. If the time limit is exceeded, virt-install simply exits, leaving the
virtual machine in its current state.

--dry-run
Proceed through the guest creation process, but do NOT create storage de-
vices, change host device configuration, or actually teach libvirt about
the guest. virt-install may still fetch install media, since this is re-
quired to properly detect the OS to install.

--check
Enable or disable some validation checks. Some examples are warning about
using a disk that's already assigned to another VM (--check
path_in_use=on|off), or warning about potentially running out of space dur-
ing disk allocation (--check disk_size=on|off). Most checks are performed
by default.

-q, --quiet
Only print fatal error messages.

-d, --debug
Print debugging information to the terminal when running the install
process. The debugging information is also stored in ~/.cache/virt-man-
ager/virt-install.log even if this parameter is omitted.

EXAMPLES
The simplest invocation to interactively install a Fedora 29 KVM VM with
recommended defaults. virt-viewer(1) will be launched to graphically inter-
act with the VM install

# sudo virt-install --install fedora29

Similar, but use libosinfo's unattended install support, which will perform
the fedora29 install automatically without user intervention:

# sudo virt-install --install fedora29 --unattended

Install a Windows 10 VM, using 40GiB storage in the default location and
4096MiB of ram, and ensure we are connecting to the system libvirtd in-
stance:

# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--name my-win10-vm \
--memory 4096 \
--disk size=40 \
--osinfo win10 \
--cdrom /path/to/my/win10.iso

Install a CentOS 7 KVM from a URL, with recommended device defaults and de-
fault required storage, but specifically request VNC graphics instead of
the default SPICE, and request 8 virtual CPUs and 8192 MiB of memory:

# virt-install \
--connect qemu:///system \
--memory 8192 \
--vcpus 8 \
--graphics vnc \
--osinfo centos7.0 \
--location http://mirror.centos.org/centos-7/7/os/x86_64/

Create a VM around an existing debian9 disk image:

# virt-install \
--import \
--memory 512 \
--disk /home/user/VMs/my-debian9.img \
--osinfo debian9

Start serial QEMU ARM VM, which requires specifying a manual kernel.

# virt-install \
--name armtest \
--memory 1024 \
--arch armv7l --machine vexpress-a9 \
--disk /home/user/VMs/myarmdisk.img \
--boot kernel=/tmp/my-arm-kernel,initrd=/tmp/my-arm-initrd,dtb=/tmp/my-arm-dtb,kernel_args="console=ttyAMA0 rw root=/dev/mmcblk0p3" \
--graphics none

Start an SEV launch security VM with 4GB RAM, 4GB+256MiB of hard_limit,
with a couple of virtio devices:

Note: The IOMMU flag needs to be turned on with driver.iommu for virtio de-
vices. Usage of --memtune is currently required because of SEV limitations,
refer to libvirt docs for a detailed explanation.

# virt-install \
--name foo \
--memory 4096 \
--boot uefi \
--machine q35 \
--memtune hard_limit=4563402 \
--disk size=15,target.bus=scsi \
--import \
--controller type=scsi,model=virtio-scsi,driver.iommu=on \
--controller type=virtio-serial,driver.iommu=on \
--network network=default,model=virtio,driver.iommu=on \
--rng /dev/random,driver.iommu=on \
--memballoon driver.iommu=on \
--launchSecurity sev

BUGS
Please see <https://virt-manager.org/bugs>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) Red Hat, Inc, and various contributors. This is free soft-
ware. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> . There is NO WAR-
RANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
virsh(1), virt-clone(1), virt-manager(1), the project website
<https://virt-manager.org>

VIRT-INSTALL(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=virt-install&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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