There is so much different information out there about setting up a virtual machine but I'm at a lost where to start. My fundamental question is:
How do I virtually deploy a web server (complete with a unique set of users) on top of the headless machine that I'm running?
The things that make my particular system unique (i.e. makes it hard for me to find information via google):
- Server is wireless.
- Server doesn't run a GUI.
Most tutorials/howtos assume a wired connection and/or a GUI.
What I've Tried
- I've read documentation for
libvirt
,qemu
, andkvm
. I've also seen a number of tutorials that useubuntu-vm-builder
orqemu-img
. I'm just not sure where to start. I'm not sure how to think about the entire stack: I think it looks like this:libvirt
--controls-->qemu
--controls-->kvm
. But I'm not sure. - I've turned on virtualization through the BIOS on my system.
- I've installed the
qemu*
andlibvirt*
packages. - I've tried to run
qemu-system-x86_64 ubuntu-server-12.04.iso
with the downloaded server ISO. This didn't work.
Challenges I haven't found the answers to yet.
- What are the canonical steps to get a virtualized server running? Do you start with
qemu-img
? Or does the first step begin withubuntu-vm-builder
? - How do you keep it running every time your physical server boots?
- One tutorial noted that you couldn't bridge off of a wireless card. Is this still true today?
- I don't understand how to edit
/etc/network/interfaces
. I use wlan0 as my primary networking interface so I'm a little tentative to mess with it since all the tutorials I've seen assume that I'm using eth0. - All of the tutorials I've seen assume that I have a GUI running. I don't. How would I get the guest OS to blit to the video card (I have a video card, but Ubuntu Server just runs CLI)?
- There are a lot of filesystems available for using
qemu-img
. Which should I use?
There are a lot of questions stuffed into this one. Sorry, but the question I care about most is at the beginning. My preference is to not to have to install Xen or use Virtual Box.