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Creating virtual machines from the command line

You can create virtual machines (VMs) from the command line by editing or creating a VirtualMachine manifest. You can simplify VM configuration by using an instance type in your VM manifest.

You can also create VMs from instance types by using the web console.

Creating manifests by using the virtctl tool

You can use the virtctl CLI utility to simplify creating manifests for VMs, VM instance types, and VM preferences. For more information, see VM manifest creation commands.

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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VM:

    This example manifest does not configure VM authentication.
    Example manifest for a RHEL VM
     apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1
 kind: VirtualMachine
 metadata:
  name: rhel-9-minimal
 spec:
  dataVolumeTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: rhel-9-minimal-volume
      spec:
        sourceRef:
          kind: DataSource
          name: rhel9 (1)
          namespace: openshift-virtualization-os-images (2)
        storage: {}
  instancetype:
    name: u1.medium (3)
  preference:
    name: rhel.9 (4)
  running: true
  template:
    spec:
      domain:
        devices: {}
      volumes:
        - dataVolume:
            name: rhel-9-minimal-volume
          name: rootdisk
    1 The rhel9 golden image is used to install RHEL 9 as the guest operating system.
    2 Golden images are stored in the openshift-virtualization-os-images namespace.
    3 The u1.medium instance type requests 1 vCPU and 4Gi memory for the VM. These resource values cannot be overridden within the VM.
    4 The rhel.9 preference specifies additional attributes that support the RHEL 9 guest operating system.

  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> -n <namespace>
Next steps