Ubuntu Server & KVM: Headless

This will require an other machine with Ubuntu Desktop with KVM GUI installed to easily create and manage VMs remotely.

Install KVM & Tools

sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients virtinst cpu-checker libguestfs-tools libosinfo-bin -y

Edit network settings

First locate your netplan yaml file

ls /etc/netplan

You will see a file like: 50-cloud-init.yaml

Now Edit that file.

sudo nano /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml

network: version: 2 ethernets: eth0: dhcp4: false dhcp6: false bridges: br0: interfaces: [eth0] dhcp4: true dhcp6: false

Now Verify & Apply

First check for errors using:

sudo netplan generate

If there are no errors...

sudo netplan apply

Pending...

VM guest config file location.

ls /etc/libvirt/qemu

List VMs

virsh list --all

Start VM

virsh start [vmname]

Shutdown VM

virsh shutdown [vmname]

Save State

virsh managedsave [vmname]

Change Saved State Location

sudo rmdir /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/save

sudo ln -s /[new location]/save /var/lib/libvirt/qemu

Export VM Config (Note: Storage images need to be copied manually)

virsh dumpxml [vmname] > /[location]/[vmname].xml

Import VM Config (Note: Storage images need to be copied manually)

sudo virsh define /[location]/[vmname].xml