virt-manager kvm modules are not available

Question

Fedora 16 latest updates running on a HP Mini 210 with an Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz.

sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization 

Only installed virt-viewer

sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization Platform
Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Warning: Group virtualization does not have any packages.
Warning: Group Platform does not exist.
No packages in any requested group available to install or update

After trying the above I am still getting the same message.

I have installed the virt-manager. When I try and create a new virtual machine I get the following warning:

KVM is not available. This may mean the KVM package is not installed, or the KVM kernel modules are not loaded. Your virtual machines may perform poorly.

I have installed the following package:

qemu-kvm-0.15.1-4.fc16.x86_66

And loaded the kvm module:

lsmod | grep kvm
kvm                   406993  0

Not sure what package I am expected to install, or what kvm kernel module is not loaded?

Normally I use virtualbox without any problem. But I wanted to try and see if this virt-manager performs better.

Solution 1

Also in my case (Fedora 16 32 bits) I've installed everything ...also I've activated bios visualization vt-x... cpu is compatible .. but the same error (KVM is not available. This may mean the KVM package is not installed,or the KVM kernel modules are not loaded. Your virtual machines may perform poorly.)

Finaly I've executed manualy modprobe kvm_intel and all done.

[root@monsterm ~]# grep vmx /proc/cpuinfo
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
flags       : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority

lshw | grep vmx
[root@monsterm ~]# lshw | grep vmx
          capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm ida tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority cpufreq


# check kvm kernel modules
modprobe kvm_intel
lsmod | grep kvm

[root@monsterm ~]# lsmod | grep kvm*
kvm_intel             126289  0 
kvm                   356309  1 kvm_intel

Solution 2

There are more packages required than just qemu-kvm.

This will get you what you need.

yum groupinstall Virtualization

Edit:

To answer your question about your CPU and virtualization, run

$ egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo 

If NOTHING is printed, your system does not support the relevant extensions. You can still use the QEMU/KVM, but the emulator will fall back to software virtualization, which is FAR FAR slower.

You should not have to manually load the kvm kernel module. Just start the libvirt service.

service libvirtd start

Now when you run lsmod | grep kvm, you should see

kvm
kvm_intel

If you don't see both modules, kvm is not installed correctly.

Solution 3

try following:

sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization
sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization Platform 
sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization Client
sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization Tools

make sure to reboot after that installation is complete

you can check service is started by issuing following command (it should return service is started)

service libvirtd status

Comments

[Ashish Karpe]

"sudo yum groupinstall Virtualization " will this work on aws amazon linux ec2 instance ??

[ant2009]

thanks for your answer. The Atom N550 doesn't support virtualization extensions. I have noticed that when I start the libvirtd it doesn't automatically load the kvm module. However, I have to load the module myself .i.e modprobe kvm. In your option, does the software virtualization still give better performance than virtualbox?

[George M]

Try to also load kvm_intel with modprobe kvm_intel

[ant2009]

FATAL: Error inserting kvm_intel (/lib/modules/3.3.2-1.fc16.x86_64/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm-in‌​tel.ko): Operation not supported. So I guess its back to virtualbox.

[barfoos]

Note that AMD has KVM modules as well, load them with modprobe kvm_amd