Monday, April 18, 2011

Quick and easy Server 2008 R2 with KVM

Let's say you need some quick and easy Server 2008 virts - maybe for testing or training. What's the fastest way to get them rolling without a prior image ready? This may not be the fastest, but it's faster than the alternative.

Go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx?pf=true

Click "get VHD image" and download the full 2GB version. Extract this out into the full 6.5GB file and now you have a VHD. I've read that you can boot VHD's in KVM, but I've not been able to do that with the brief attempts I made, so run this command next:
kvm-img convert -O raw server2008R2ENT.vhd /var/lib/libvirt/images/server01.raw

Now just create the virts and go on your way.

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