Enter BIOS in virtualized RedHat Enterprise Linux running in KVM

Question

How can I enter BIOS in a virtualized RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.6 running in KVM ?

I can send Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but GRUB boot loader loads up so fast I cannot press F2 / Delete.

Solution 1

The BIOS used by KVM does not have a setup interface accessible from the VM console. All options which need to be configured through the BIOS setup in a physical computer (e.g., boot device list) are set through kvm command line options, which in RHEL5 are usually controlled through libvirt and its management tools.

Note that you need to turn off the VM and start it again for the new options to take effect (just rebooting the VM from inside it, e.g. by Ctrl+Alt+Delete, is not enough — it does not restart the kvm process).

Solution 2

When booting a VM in BIOS mode there is no such thing.

When booting a VM in EFI mode use ESC key to enter EFI (make sure to click on the pane to get focus).

Comments

[Admin]

wrong. found it by mistake trying to boot OSX. hit f8 too early but I cant trip it again. its there but its super tiny like an award bios.

[lzap]

Correction: You can now enter EFI via ESC key.

[Michael Hampton]

You can also choose System Setup from the GRUB menu to enter the EFI BIOS.

[lzap]

Well, yeah. That is something an OS adds but works fine.