Creating virtual machines

Use one of these procedures to create a virtual machine:

• Quick Start guided tour

• Quick create from the Catalog

• Pasting a pre-configured YAML file with the virtual machine wizard

• Using the CLI

When you create virtual machines from the web console, select a virtual machine template that is configured with a boot source. Virtual machine templates with a boot source are labeled as Available boot source or they display a customized label text. Using templates with an available boot source expedites the process of creating virtual machines.

Templates without a boot source are labeled as Boot source required. You can use these templates if you complete the steps for adding a boot source to the virtual machine.

Using a Quick Start to create a virtual machine

The web console provides Quick Starts with instructional guided tours for creating virtual machines. You can access the Quick Starts catalog by selecting the Help menu in the Administrator perspective to view the Quick Starts catalog. When you click on a Quick Start tile and begin the tour, the system guides you through the process.

Tasks in a Quick Start begin with selecting a Red Hat template. Then, you can add a boot source and import the operating system image. Finally, you can save the custom template and use it to create a virtual machine.

Prerequisites

• Access to the website where you can download the URL link for the operating system image.

Procedure

1. In the web console, select Quick Starts from the Help menu.

2. Click on a tile in the Quick Starts catalog. For example: Creating a Red Hat Linux Enterprise Linux virtual machine.

3. Follow the instructions in the guided tour and complete the tasks for importing an operating system image and creating a virtual machine. The Virtualization → VirtualMachines page displays the virtual machine.

Quick creating a virtual machine

You can quickly create a virtual machine (VM) by using a template with an available boot source.

Procedure

1. Click Virtualization → Catalog in the side menu.

2. Click Boot source available to filter templates with boot sources.

   By default, the template list will show only Default Templates. Click All Items when filtering to see all available templates for your chosen filters.

3. Click a template to view its details.

4. Click Quick Create VirtualMachine to create a VM from the template.

   The virtual machine Details page is displayed with the provisioning status.

Verification

1. Click Events to view a stream of events as the VM is provisioned.

2. Click Console to verify that the VM booted successfully.

Creating a virtual machine from a customized template

Some templates require additional parameters, for example, a PVC with a boot source. You can customize select parameters of a template to create a virtual machine (VM).

Procedure

1. In the web console, select a template:

   1. Click Virtualization → Catalog in the side menu.

   2. Optional: Filter the templates by project, keyword, operating system, or workload profile.

   3. Click the template that you want to customize.

2. Click Customize VirtualMachine.

3. Specify parameters for your VM, including its Name and Disk source. You can optionally specify a data source to clone.

Verification

1. Click Events to view a stream of events as the VM is provisioned.

2. Click Console to verify that the VM booted successfully.

Refer to the virtual machine fields section when creating a VM from the web console.

Virtual machine fields

The following table lists the virtual machine fields that you can edit in the OKD web console:

Networking fields

Storage fields

Advanced storage settings

The following advanced storage settings are optional and available for Blank, Import via URL, and Clone existing PVC disks. Before OKD Virtualization 4.11, if you do not specify these parameters, the system uses the default values from the kubevirt-storage-class-defaults config map. In OKD Virtualization 4.11 and later, the system uses the default values from the storage profile.

Cloud-init fields

To configure storage class defaults, use storage profiles. For more information, see Customizing the storage profile.

Pasting in a pre-configured YAML file to create a virtual machine

Create a virtual machine by writing or pasting a YAML configuration file. A valid example virtual machine configuration is provided by default whenever you open the YAML edit screen.

If your YAML configuration is invalid when you click Create, an error message indicates the parameter in which the error occurs. Only one error is shown at a time.

Procedure

1. Click Virtualization → VirtualMachines from the side menu.

2. Click Create and select With YAML.

3. Write or paste your virtual machine configuration in the editable window.

   1. Alternatively, use the example virtual machine provided by default in the YAML screen.

4. Optional: Click Download to download the YAML configuration file in its present state.

5. Click Create to create the virtual machine.

The virtual machine is listed on the VirtualMachines page.

Using the CLI to create a virtual machine

You can create a virtual machine from a virtualMachine manifest.

Procedure

1. Edit the VirtualMachine manifest for your VM. For example, the following manifest configures a Fedora VM:

   Example manifest for a Fedora VM

   apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
   kind: VirtualMachine
   metadata:
     labels:
       app: <vm_name> (1)
     name: <vm_name>
   spec:
     dataVolumeTemplates:
     - apiVersion: cdi.kubevirt.io/v1beta1
       kind: DataVolume
       metadata:
         name: <vm_name>
       spec:
         sourceRef:
           kind: DataSource
           name: rhel9
           namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images
         storage:
           resources:
             requests:
               storage: 30Gi
     running: false
     template:
       metadata:
         labels:
           kubevirt.io/domain: <vm_name>
       spec:
         domain:
           cpu:
             cores: 1
             sockets: 2
             threads: 1
           devices:
             disks:
             - disk:
                 bus: virtio
               name: rootdisk
             - disk:
                 bus: virtio
               name: cloudinitdisk
             interfaces:
             - masquerade: {}
               name: default
             rng: {}
           features:
             smm:
               enabled: true
           firmware:
             bootloader:
               efi: {}
           resources:
             requests:
               memory: 8Gi
         evictionStrategy: LiveMigrate
         networks:
         - name: default
           pod: {}
         volumes:
         - dataVolume:
             name: <vm_name>
           name: rootdisk
         - cloudInitNoCloud:
             userData: |-
               #cloud-config
               user: cloud-user
               password: '<password>' (2)
               chpasswd: { expire: False }
           name: cloudinitdisk

   1	Specify the name of the virtual machine.
   2	Specify the password for cloud-user.

2. Create a virtual machine by using the manifest file:

   $ oc create -f <vm_manifest_file>.yaml

3. Optional: Start the virtual machine:

   $ virtctl start <vm_name>

Virtual machine storage volume types

About RunStrategies for virtual machines

A RunStrategy for virtual machines determines a virtual machine instance’s (VMI) behavior, depending on a series of conditions. The spec.runStrategy setting exists in the virtual machine configuration process as an alternative to the spec.running setting. The spec.runStrategy setting allows greater flexibility for how VMIs are created and managed, in contrast to the spec.running setting with only true or false responses. However, the two settings are mutually exclusive. Only either spec.running or spec.runStrategy can be used. An error occurs if both are used.

There are four defined RunStrategies.

Always

A VMI is always present when a virtual machine is created. A new VMI is created if the original stops for any reason, which is the same behavior as spec.running: true.

RerunOnFailure

A VMI is re-created if the previous instance fails due to an error. The instance is not re-created if the virtual machine stops successfully, such as when it shuts down.

Manual

The start, stop, and restart virtctl client commands can be used to control the VMI’s state and existence.

Halted

No VMI is present when a virtual machine is created, which is the same behavior as spec.running: false.

Different combinations of the start, stop and restart virtctl commands affect which RunStrategy is used.

The following table follows a VM’s transition from different states. The first column shows the VM’s initial RunStrategy. Each additional column shows a virtctl command and the new RunStrategy after that command is run.

apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
kind: VirtualMachine
spec:
  RunStrategy: Always (1)
  template:
...

Additional resources

• The VirtualMachineSpec definition in the KubeVirt v0.58.0 API Reference provides broader context for the parameters and hierarchy of the virtual machine specification.

  The KubeVirt API Reference is the upstream project reference and might contain parameters that are not supported in OKD Virtualization.

• Enable the CPU Manager to use the high-performance workload profile.

• See Prepare a container disk before adding it to a virtual machine as a containerDisk volume.

• See Deploying machine health checks for further details on deploying and enabling machine health checks.

• See Installer-provisioned infrastructure overview for further details on installer-provisioned infrastructure.

• Customizing the storage profile