How do I access the F8 Bootmenu while booting a Windows 2008R2 KVM Guest VM?
Solution 1
The trick seems to be that you have to put the guest's virt-manager
session in fullscreen mode. Here are the steps that I took to get this working:
1. Put guest in fullscreen mode
2. Start the Guest VM
3. Focus the VM immediately once it starts up by clicking inside its window w/ mouse
4. Start hitting the F8 key
5. Now you'll see the Guest VM's bootmenu
EDIT #1
If you're still having issue as I said in the question originally and as @dyasny mentioned in his answer, try giving yourself more time during boot up of the guest VM by adding the following to the guest's domain XML via the virsh
command:
% virsh edit DR-01
...
<os>
<type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type>
<boot dev='hd'/>
<bootmenu enable='yes'/>
</os>
Solution 2
if you enable the boot menu in VM boot options, it will provide an extra delay, so you can refocus.
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slm
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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slm almost 2 years
Stupid question but this doesn't work, seems like it should. Is there a trick to access a booting Guest VM's bootmenu using
KVM
? I'm running the VM usingvirt-manager
0.8.7.KVM
server is a CentOS 6.3 box runningqemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6_3.8.x86_64
. Guest is Windows 2008R2.I added this to the Guest VM's XML:
% virsh edit DR-01 ... <os> <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type> <boot dev='hd'/> <bootmenu enable='yes'/> </os>
Doesn't give me the ability to hit the F8 key. Any ideas how to accomplish this?
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Michael Hampton over 11 yearsI just press F8.
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Philip over 11 yearsIf F8 doesn't work try holding Ctrl while the VM is still in it's "BIOS" until the boot menu comes up.
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slm over 11 years@Michael Hamton: Yeah I tried that and it's not working.
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slm over 11 yearsI just tried fullscreen and hitting F8 and that worked, if it's windowed it doesn't.
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the-wabbit over 11 years@slm you should write this as an answer to your question and accept it to help future visitors.
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slm over 11 yearsCtrl + F8 doesn't have any effect either.
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David Corsalini over 11 yearsactually, the more complex virt management solutions (RHEV/oVirt) have an option to start a VM in paused mode. This way, you have the console open and ready for F8 (or whatever else) you hit play, and easily switch to the console without a hurry