Ubuntu Server Virtual Machine Host (VMHost) is used for running guest operating systems based on Linux-based distributions, unlike types 1 hypervisors such as Xen and VMWare ESXi which install directly on hardware. As it’s classified as Type 2 hypervisor it runs inside an OS rather than installing directly onto hardware itself.
To effectively administer your Ubuntu server virtual machine host, the virt-manager utility offers an intuitive graphical user interface for creating and managing virtual machines (VMs).
System Requirements
Ubuntu Server has become one of the most widely-used operating systems for deploying and scaling open source software. From internal company file servers, web servers or even massive render farms for movies or video games – Ubuntu Server can handle it all! From deployment on bare metal through cloud deployment with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Joyent and IBM cloud certification.
For Virtual Machine Host installations of Ubuntu Server, a physical computer with enough RAM (Random Access Memory) and disk space will be necessary. Intel VT-x or AMD-v hardware virtualization support should also be enabled in its BIOS. Virt-install and the GUI Virt Manager GUI can then be used to create and configure Virtual Machines; after installing these programs make sure the Libvirt daemon is running and users managing these VMs have been added to its group for better management of these VMs.
Installation
Once your hardware and VMware are set up, the next step in setting up Ubuntu in your VM is installing it using its setup wizard. It will take you through several setup screens which include verifying keyboard layout, downloading updates during installation and selecting which partitions on the disk to erase before installing Ubuntu.
Once you’ve selected an installer option, click Forward. When you reach the first dialog screen, click on the computer icon in the upper-left corner and choose Local install media (ISO image or CDROM) installation as a method.
In the second window, click Browse and navigate to your ISO file saved earlier. In the third dialog, define an OS name, number of vcpus to assign, and amount of memory allocation.
Configuration
The Description field allows you to keep a record of how a virtual machine was configured. While this won’t have any bearing on its functionality, it could be beneficial in keeping track of certain settings or software installed in it.
Base Memory settings determine how much RAM will be allocated when starting up a VM. As necessary, increase or decrease this setting accordingly; however, never reduce it below what’s required to run its OS successfully.
This option enables a guest OS to access a virtual serial port that corresponds to a 16550A compatible UART device on the host machine, while its mode and type can be customized using VBoxManage modifyvm command.
This option enables support for drag and drop between guest machines and host machines, and requires installation of Guest Additions within each VM. If you wish to limit what can be copied or moved between them, uncheck this option.
Troubleshooting
Virtual machines (VMs) that lose network connectivity could be due to any number of reasons. If a VM cannot ping its host machine or you are unable to log onto it using putty, begin troubleshooting networking issues at the host level first – misconfiguration of physical switches may prevent VMs from communicating with each other and require further investigation.
Ubuntu runs KVM as its virtualization technology of choice and utilizes libvirt as its toolkit/API; for managing virtual machines (VMs), front ends include virt-manager (graphical user interface) and virsh (command line interface).
Guests configured with an e1000 network adapter type may fail to reconnect after being suspended or resumed, thus leading them back onto the network. To address this problem, install and run the netplug package on Linux host systems; additionally configure VMs with vmxnet3 instead of e1000 as this temporary workaround until VMware provides a solution via future releases of their tools; until then manually edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-network_name file manually manually manually until VMware provides a solution available through future releases of VMware tools or manually change this file manually manually until an official release of future release of tools becomes available allowing direct fix.