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KVM

KVM

KVM is an open-source virtualization technology integrated into the Linux kernel that enables running virtual machines on a physical computer. It uses hardware virtualization (like Intel VT or AMD-V) to efficiently run guest systems like Linux or Windows.

Installation

For Debian Bookworm, there are several tutorials describing KVM installation on a Linux system, e.g., How Do I Properly Install KVM on Linux. The following points are particularly important:

Check System Requirements

  • Make sure your processor supports hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD-V).
  • Check with egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo (value > 0 means support).
  • Test KVM acceleration with kvm-ok (after installing cpu-checker if needed).

Install Packages

  • For Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients bridge-utils virt-manager

Start and Enable Libvirt Service

  • sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd
  • Check the status: sudo systemctl status libvirtd

Set User Permissions

  • Add your user to the libvirt group: sudo usermod -aG libvirt $(whoami)
  • Log out and back in for changes to take effect.

Configure Network (optional)

  • Set up a network bridge using bridge-utils if VMs need to be externally accessible (details in the guide). For our purposes, we don't need this.
  • NAT is used by default.

Verify Installation

  • Test KVM with virsh list --all (should show an empty VM list if no VMs exist).
  • Check loaded modules: lsmod | grep kvm (e.g., kvm_intel or kvm_amd).

Optimization (optional)

  • Enable TuneD profile virtual-host: sudo tuned-adm profile virtual-host
  • Verify with tuned-adm active.

The same applies to installing a Windows OS in KVM, e.g., How to Properly Install a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on KVM

In this context, preparing your own ISO image for Windows as described here is interesting.

WiP: X-Plane Plugins in a Windows OS in KVM

  • Streamdeck
    • Add USB Devices
    • StreamDeck for Xplane 12
      • Configure IP address
    • X321 Streamdeck Profile
      • Fonts!
    • Other profiles?
  • My FS Flight

Copy SSH Key to Server

The easiest way is to use ssh-copy-id:

Create SSH Key (if not exists)

  • Generate key: ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your@email.com"
  • By default, the key is stored in ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Copy Key to Server

  • Using ssh-copy-id: ssh-copy-id username@server
  • Alternative manual method: 
    cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub | ssh username@server "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

Check Permissions

  • On the server, the following permissions should be set: 
    chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys