Fabian Lee : Software Engineer

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.13 on nested VMware environment

October 11, 2022
Categories: Kubernetes

Anthos GKE on-prem is a managed platform that brings GKE clusters to on-premise datacenters. This product offering brings best practice security measures, tested paths for upgrades, basic monitoring, platform logging, and full enterprise support. Setting up a platform this extensive requires many steps as officially documented here. However, if you want to practice in a … Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.13 on nested VMware environment

KVM: Creating a bridged network with NetPlan on Ubuntu 22.04

September 20, 2022
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

In order to expose KVM virtual machines on the same network as your bare-metal Host, you need to enable bridged networking. In this article, I’ll show how to implement KVM bridged networking on Ubuntu 22.04 using Netplan. This bridged network will expose the KVM Guest OS as a peer on the upstream network, with no … KVM: Creating a bridged network with NetPlan on Ubuntu 22.04

KVM: creating a Windows2019 Domain Controller using Powershell

August 6, 2022
Categories: Virtualization

Based on my previous article on creating a Windows2019 base template using Sysprep, we can now move on to creating a Windows Domain Controller using this template as a backing file. Once this new Windows 2019 guest OS is provisioned, we will prepare it and then run Powershell scripts that will enable the Active Directory … KVM: creating a Windows2019 Domain Controller using Powershell

KVM: configuring a base Window2019 instance with Sysprep

August 6, 2022
Categories: Virtualization

In the world of Linux containers where deployment takes on the order of seconds, even the best-case scenario for spinning up a new Windows host can seem like an eternity. Clearly, you don’t want to wait for the entire Windows install process each time you bring up a Windows guest OS. Even automated, this would … KVM: configuring a base Window2019 instance with Sysprep

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.11 on nested VMware environment

May 9, 2022
Categories: Hyperscaler, Kubernetes

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.10 on nested VMware environment

January 7, 2022
Categories: Containers

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.9 on nested VMware environment

December 5, 2021
Categories: Containers

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.8 on nested VMware environment

December 4, 2021
Categories: Containers

Update Dec 2021: I have written an updated version of this article for vCenter 7.0U1 and Anthos 1.9. Anthos GKE on-prem is a managed platform that brings GKE clusters to on-premise datacenters. This product offering brings best practice security measures, tested paths for upgrades, basic monitoring, platform logging, and full enterprise support. Setting up a … Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.8 on nested VMware environment

KVM: Deploy the VMware vCenter 7.0 appliance using the CLI installer

November 18, 2021
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

If you have just virtualized the VMware ESXi server on top of KVM, the next step will be to install vCenter for its centralized control and additional feature set and management capabilities. In my last article we took KVM running on bare metal and deployed an ESXi 7.0 host on top of it. In this … KVM: Deploy the VMware vCenter 7.0 appliance using the CLI installer

KVM: Deploying a nested version of VMware ESXi 7.0 on KVM

November 18, 2021
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

If you are running KVM on an Ubuntu server, you already have an excellent Type 1 virtualization engine. Luckily, if you need to test something specific to VMware you can always run ESXi 7.0 nested inside a KVM virtual machine. In this article, I’ll be using a bare metal server running Ubuntu and KVM as … KVM: Deploying a nested version of VMware ESXi 7.0 on KVM

Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.4 on nested VMware environment

August 20, 2021
Categories: Containers

Update Dec 2021: I have written an updated version of this article for vCenter 7.0U1 and Anthos 1.8. Anthos GKE on-prem is a managed platform that brings GKE clusters to on-premise datacenters. This product offering brings best practice security measures, tested paths for upgrades, basic monitoring, platform logging, and full enterprise support. Setting up a … Kubernetes: Anthos GKE on-prem 1.4 on nested VMware environment

Kubernetes: microk8s cluster on Ubuntu using Ansible

July 25, 2021
Categories: Containers

microk8s is a lightweight Kubernetes deployment by Canonical that is enterprise-grade, yet also compact enough to run on development boxes and edge devices. In this article, I will show you how to deploy a three-node microk8s cluster on Ubuntu nodes that are created using Terraform and a local KVM libvirt provider. Ansible is used for … Kubernetes: microk8s cluster on Ubuntu using Ansible

Kubernetes: microk8s cluster on Ubuntu using terraform and libvirt

July 25, 2021
Categories: Containers

microk8s is a lightweight Kubernetes deployment by Canonical that is enterprise-grade, yet also compact enough to run on development boxes and edge devices. In this article, I will show you how to deploy a three-node microk8s cluster on Ubuntu nodes that are created using Terraform and a local KVM libvirt provider. This article focuses on … Kubernetes: microk8s cluster on Ubuntu using terraform and libvirt

KVM: creating and reverting libvirt external snapshots

January 10, 2021
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Update July 2021: I have seen errors with external snapshots of volumes on versions of QEMU/KVM/libvirt from Ubuntu 20 Focal. Adding note on using internal snapshot on volume backed by qcow2. Internal snapshots created on QEMU copy-on-write (qcow2) disks are the most commonly used snapshot when using libvirt. It is easy to see why; … KVM: creating and reverting libvirt external snapshots

KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for a RHEL cloud image

March 22, 2020
Categories: Linux

The ability to quickly stand up a guest OS with cloud-init is most often associated with deployment of virtual machines in an IaaS like EC2 or Azure. But cloud-init is not just for remote cloud providers, and using cloud-init for local images that can be quickly deployed in KVM works great for local development and … KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for a RHEL cloud image

KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for a CentOS cloud image

March 14, 2020
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for an Ubuntu cloud image

February 23, 2020
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

KVM: Terraform and cloud-init to create local KVM resources

February 22, 2020
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Terraform is a popular tool for provisioning infrastructure on cloud provider such as EC2 and Azure, but there is also a provider written for local KVM libvirt resources. Using the libvirt provider, we can use standard Terraform constructs to create local VMs, networks, and disks.

KVM: Creating a guest VM on a network in routed mode

June 5, 2019
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

In a previous article I showed how to use a bridged network to give a VM access to the same network as the host, and then followed that up with creating a guest in a NAT network for network segmentation. In this article I will show how to create a network in Routed mode. This … KVM: Creating a guest VM on a network in routed mode

KVM: Creating a guest VM on a NAT network

May 26, 2019
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

In a previous article I showed how to use a bridged network to give a KVM Guest access to the same network as the Host. Now we will go over NAT networks which allow the KVM Guest to reach outside the network, but hosts from the outside cannot reach the guest directly. This opens up … KVM: Creating a guest VM on a NAT network

KVM: Creating a bridged network with NetPlan on Ubuntu 18.04 bionic

April 1, 2019
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

UPDATE September 2022: New article for bridged networks written for Ubuntu 22.04 In order to expose KVM virtual machines on the same network as your Host, you need to enable bridged networking. In this article, I’ll show how to implement KVM bridged networking on Ubuntu 18.04 bionic using Netplan. This bridged network will expose the … KVM: Creating a bridged network with NetPlan on Ubuntu 18.04 bionic

KVM: virt-manager to connect to a remote console using qemu+ssh

February 16, 2019
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

If you are running KVM on a console-only server, you still have the option to use the graphical virt-manager. You just need to specify the method of communication (ssh, tls, tcp, etc). In this article I will show how to use virt-manager from an Ubuntu client desktop to a server running KVM and libvirtd, with … KVM: virt-manager to connect to a remote console using qemu+ssh

Kubernetes: running Minikube locally on Ubuntu using KVM

February 11, 2019
Categories: Containers, Kubernetes

Updated Aug 2023: tested on Ubuntu 22 with QEMU 6.2.0/libvirt 8.0.0 and with Minikube v1.31.2 Minikube is a tool that runs a full Kubernetes stack on a host, making it ideal for local development and experimentation. We are taking it one step further by placing Minikube into a virtual machine run by the KVM virtualization … Kubernetes: running Minikube locally on Ubuntu using KVM

KVM: Deploy the VMware vCenter 6.7 appliance using the CLI installer

November 6, 2018
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Update Nov 2021: I have written a newer article that deploys vCenter 7.0. If you have just virtualized the VMware ESXi 6.7 server on top of KVM, the next step will be to install vCenter 6.7 for its centralized control and additional feature set and management capabilities. In my last article we took KVM running … KVM: Deploy the VMware vCenter 6.7 appliance using the CLI installer

KVM: Using dnsmasq for libvirt DNS resolution

October 22, 2018
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

On Linux host servers, libvirt uses a separate instance of dnsmasq for each virtual network. So if you want full name and reverse lookup for KVM guests on the default 192.168.122.0 network, you can configure this particular dnsmasq instance using virsh. The ability to customize the libvirt instances are limited, however, so if you need … KVM: Using dnsmasq for libvirt DNS resolution

KVM: Creating an Ubuntu VM with console-only access

October 6, 2018
Categories: Linux

If you are running KVM on a console-only host OS, you can still do a full Ubuntu installation on a KVM guest VM by using serial port output and the Ubuntu Server text-based installer. Once deployed, this guest VM can be accessed by using ssh or ‘virsh console’, without the need for a graphics display. … KVM: Creating an Ubuntu VM with console-only access

KVM: Implementing linked clones with a backing file

September 24, 2018
Categories: Linux

If you need KVM to bring up a full guest OS as quickly as possible, consider preparing a base disk image that can be used as the basis for any number of linked clones by using a backing file. This article is related to a previous article, “Cloning and fixing an Ubuntu host using KVM“. … KVM: Implementing linked clones with a backing file

KVM: Deploying a nested version of VMware ESXi 6.7 inside KVM

September 19, 2018
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Update Nov 2021: I have written a newer article that deploys ESXi 7.0U1. If you are running KVM on an Ubuntu server, you already have an excellent Type 1 virtualization engine. Luckily, if you need to test something specific to VMware you can always run ESXi 6.7 nested inside a KVM virtual machine. In this … KVM: Deploying a nested version of VMware ESXi 6.7 inside KVM

KVM: Cloning and fixing Ubuntu host using KVM

September 17, 2018
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Usually the purpose of cloning a KVM guest OS is to have it use the same binaries and configuration as the parent, but allow it to run as an independent entity. When first cloned, the whole guest OS is cloned including host name, network settings, etc. and for those reasons you cannot run the parent … KVM: Cloning and fixing Ubuntu host using KVM

KVM: Alternate firmware BIOS for KVM

September 13, 2018
Categories: Linux

By default, KVM will use an older SeaBIOS x86 firmware for your virtual machines. If you want to use a more recent version of seaBIOS or want to drop the older BIOS standard and instead use the newer UUEFI specification (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), KVM can support that with configuration changes. In this article, I … KVM: Alternate firmware BIOS for KVM

KVM: Building the latest SeaBIOS firmware for virtual machines

September 13, 2018
Categories: Linux

By default, KVM will use the SeaBIOS x86 firmware for virtual machines. This is typically installed as a dependent package which is years old. In this article, I will show how to built the latest SeaBIOS image from source.

KVM: Building the latest OVMF firmware for virtual machines

September 12, 2018
Categories: Linux

OVMF is an open-source project that implements the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification. UUEFI is designed to eventually replace the BIOS firmware interface. In this article, I will show how to build the latest OVMF image from source.

KVM: Bare metal virtualization on Ubuntu with KVM

August 27, 2018
Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Update September 2022: Validated these instructions on Ubuntu 22.04 If you are running an Ubuntu host, you have multiple choices for a virtualization hypervisor. I have written up several articles on using VirtualBox, but now let’s consider a bare metal hypervisor like KVM. KVM is a type 1 hypervisor implemented as a Linux kernel module … KVM: Bare metal virtualization on Ubuntu with KVM