Virtual Machine Host

Using Fedora Linux as a VM host and Cockpit Project to manage the host.

Sources

Fedora

Get Fedora Server edition

Windows

Obtain a Windows ISO by running the Create Windows 10 installation media tool from Microsoft

Virtio

Obtain the Virtio ISO (Virtual IO drivers for Windows) from Fedora

Installation Process

• Install on a machine
• Follow prompts to install
• Reboot
• Login

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf upgrade
sudo dnf install libvirt cockpit cockpit-machines

# Enable the services
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd --now
sudo systemctl enable cockpit.socket --now

# Not on by default on workstation
sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=cockpit --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
 
ip a  # Get the IP address

Cockpit

Connect the Cockpit interface on this machine from a web browser at its IP address on port 9090

• Go to the Networking tab
• Click Add Bridge
  • Create bridge0
  • With ports ~eth0

Machine may obtain different IP address after creating bridge
Reconnect as needed

Load install media to somewhere accessible to libvirt

Installation of Windows 10 in a VM

• Go to the Virtual Machines tab and click Create VM
• Installation type Local install media
• Installation source /var/lib/libvirt/images/*.iso
• Operating System Microsoft Windows
• Allocate storage and memory
  • This can be extended later
• Deselect immediately start VM
• Click Create
• Click on the created VM name
• In the Disks section:
  • Edit the device disk to bus virtio and press Save
  • Click Add Disk
  • Use existing and select Volume virtio-win.iso
  • Set bus to SATA
  • Press Add
• In the Network section:
  • Change the interface type to bridge to LAN
  • bridge to bridge0
  • model to e1000e
• Click Install

During installation of Windows 10

Windows 10 needs to load a driver to access virtio storage

At the point it is needed click to Manually install a driver

From the virtio ISO select the E:\viostor\w10\amd64 directory The driver should be loaded and storage will become available Proceed to install normally

After the installation

With Windows running navigate to the virtio ISO and run the installer to get the drivers for network and memory management drivers

• Go to the Virtual Machines tab click on the created VM name
• In the Network section
  • Change the interface model to virtio
• In the Disks section
  • Remove VirtIO.iso and Windows10_????.iso

After rebooting the VM networking will be easier for the VM and host to process

Hardware

• Dell PowerEdge T40
  • Xeon E-2224G 3.5 GHz
  • 8GB RAM
  • 1TB SATA HDD
• 16G Ram
• 16G Ram
• M.2 PCIe SSD Adapter

Check

• WD Red SMR vs CMR Tested Avoid Red SMR | ServeTheHome