Creating virtual machines from the command line

You can create virtual machines (VMs) from the command line by editing or creating a VirtualMachine manifest.

Creating a VM from a VirtualMachine manifest

You can create a virtual machine (VM) from a VirtualMachine manifest.

Procedure

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

    Example manifest for a Fedora VM

    1. apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
    2. kind: VirtualMachine
    3. metadata:
    4.   labels:
    5.     app: <vm_name> (1)
    6.   name: <vm_name>
    7. spec:
    8.   dataVolumeTemplates:
    9.   - apiVersion: cdi.kubevirt.io/v1beta1
    10.     kind: DataVolume
    11.     metadata:
    12.       name: <vm_name>
    13.     spec:
    14.       sourceRef:
    15.         kind: DataSource
    16.         name: rhel9
    17.         namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images
    18.       storage:
    19.         resources:
    20.           requests:
    21.             storage: 30Gi
    22.   running: false
    23.   template:
    24.     metadata:
    25.       labels:
    26.         kubevirt.io/domain: <vm_name>
    27.     spec:
    28.       domain:
    29.         cpu:
    30.           cores: 1
    31.           sockets: 2
    32.           threads: 1
    33.         devices:
    34.           disks:
    35.           - disk:
    36.               bus: virtio
    37.             name: rootdisk
    38.           - disk:
    39.               bus: virtio
    40.             name: cloudinitdisk
    41.           interfaces:
    42.           - masquerade: {}
    43.             name: default
    44.           rng: {}
    45.         features:
    46.           smm:
    47.             enabled: true
    48.         firmware:
    49.           bootloader:
    50.             efi: {}
    51.         resources:
    52.           requests:
    53.             memory: 8Gi
    54.       evictionStrategy: LiveMigrate
    55.       networks:
    56.       - name: default
    57.         pod: {}
    58.       volumes:
    59.       - dataVolume:
    60.           name: <vm_name>
    61.         name: rootdisk
    62.       - cloudInitNoCloud:
    63.           userData: |-
    64.             #cloud-config
    65.             user: cloud-user
    66.             password: '<password>' (2)
    67.             chpasswd: { expire: False }
    68.         name: cloudinitdisk
    1Specify the name of the virtual machine.
    2Specify the password for cloud-user.

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

    1. $ oc create -f <vm_manifest_file>.yaml

  3. Optional: Start the virtual machine:

    1. $ virtctl start <vm_name>