libvirt and KVM

Purpose

The libvirt profile installs QEMU/KVM administration, UEFI firmware, software TPM support, VM creation tools, bridge utilities, and the libvirt daemon. This supports later Linux or Windows 11 VM work without defining guests.

Firmware pre-checks

Confirm CPU virtualization is enabled:

lscpu | grep -E 'Virtualization|Hypervisor'
grep -Eom1 '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

IOMMU and GPU passthrough require separate firmware, kernel command-line, device isolation, driver binding, and recovery planning. This toolkit reports hints but does not apply those changes.

Validation

systemctl status libvirtd
virsh list --all
virsh net-list --all
virsh pool-list --all

Use virt-host-validate when available for a broader host capability report. Desktop use of virt-manager requires a graphical environment or remote display strategy.

Networking and Windows 11

The default libvirt NAT network is distinct from host bridge networking. Review DHCP, DNS, forwarding, and firewall behavior before changing it.

Windows 11 typically needs UEFI and a TPM device. The installed OVMF and swtpm packages provide those building blocks, but guest creation and licensing remain manual.

Troubleshooting

journalctl -u libvirtd
virsh net-info default
virsh pool-list --all
lsmod | grep kvm

Disabling libvirtd does not remove VM disks or definitions. Package removal and VM data deletion are intentionally outside this toolkit.

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