Creating VirtualMachines

The virtctl sub command create vm allows easy creation of VirtualMachine manifests from the command line. It leverages instance types and preferences and provides several flags to control details of the created virtual machine.

For example there are flags to specify the name or run strategy of a virtual machine or flags to add volumes to a virtual machine. Instance types and preferences can either be specified directly or it is possible to let KubeVirt infer those from the volume used to boot the virtual machine.

For a full set of flags and their description use the following command:

virtctl create vm -h

Creating VirtualMachines on a cluster

The output of virtctl create vm can be piped into kubectl to directly create a VirtualMachine on a cluster, e.g.:

# Create a VM with name my-vm on the cluster
virtctl create vm --name my-vm | kubectl create -f -
virtualmachine.kubevirt.io/my-vm created

Specifying or inferring instance types and preferences

Instance types and preference can be specified with the appropriate flags, e.g.:

virtctl create vm --instancetype my-instancetype --preference my-preference

The type of the instance type or preference (namespaced or cluster scope) can be controlled by prefixing the instance type or preference name with the corresponding CRD name, e.g.:

# Using a cluster scoped instancetype and a namespaced preference
virtctl create vm \
  --instancetype virtualmachineclusterinstancetype/my-instancetype \
  --preference virtualmachinepreference/my-preference

If a prefix was not supplied the cluster scoped resources will be used by default.

To infer instance types and/or preferences from the volume used to boot the virtual machine add the following flags:

virtctl create vm --infer-instancetype --infer-preference

Boot order of added volumes

Please note that volumes of different kinds currently have the following fixed boot order regardless of the order their flags were specified on the command line:

1. ContainerDisk
2. DataSource
3. Cloned PVC
4. Directly used PVC

If multiple volumes of the same kind were specified their order is determined by the order in which their flags were specified.

Specifying cloud-init user data

To pass cloud-init user data to virtctl it needs to be encoded into a base64 string. Here is an example how to do it:

# Put your cloud-init user data into a file
$ cat cloud-init.txt
#cloud-config
users:
  - name: admin
    sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
    ssh_authorized_keys:
      - ssh-rsa AAAA...

# Base64 encode the contents of the file without line wraps and store it in a variable
$ CLOUD_INIT_USERDATA=$(base64 -w 0 cloud-init.txt)

# Show the contents of the variable
$ echo $CLOUD_INIT_USERDATA
I2Nsb3VkLWNvbmZpZwp1c2VyczoKICAtIG5hbWU6IGFkbWluCiAgICBzdWRvOiBBTEw9KEFMTCkgTk9QQVNTV0Q6QUxMCiAgICBzc2hfYXV0aG9yaXplZF9rZXlzOgogICAgICAtIHNzaC1yc2EgQUFBQS4uLgo=

You can now use this variable as an argument to the --cloud-init-user-data flag:

virtctl create vm --cloud-init-user-data $CLOUD_INIT_USERDATA

Examples

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a random name:

virtctl create vm

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified name and RunStrategy Always

virtctl create vm --name=my-vm --run-strategy=Always

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineClusterInstancetype

virtctl create vm --instancetype=my-instancetype

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineInstancetype (namespaced)

virtctl create vm --instancetype=virtualmachineinstancetype/my-instancetype

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineClusterPreference

virtctl create vm --preference=my-preference

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachinePreference (namespaced)

virtctl create vm --preference=virtualmachinepreference/my-preference

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with an ephemeral containerdisk volume

virtctl create vm --volume-containerdisk=src:my.registry/my-image:my-tag

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a cloned DataSource in namespace and specified size

virtctl create vm --volume-datasource=src:my-ns/my-ds,size:50Gi

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a cloned DataSource and inferred instancetype and preference

virtctl create vm --volume-datasource=src:my-annotated-ds --infer-instancetype --infer-preference

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineCluster{Instancetype,Preference} and cloned PVC

virtctl create vm --volume-clone-pvc=my-ns/my-pvc

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineCluster{Instancetype,Preference} and directly used PVC

virtctl create vm --volume-pvc=my-pvc

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a clone DataSource and a blank volume

virtctl create vm --volume-datasource=src:my-ns/my-ds --volume-blank=size:50Gi

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineCluster{Instancetype,Preference} and cloned DataSource

virtctl create vm --instancetype=my-instancetype --preference=my-preference --volume-datasource=src:my-ds

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineCluster{Instancetype,Preference} and two cloned DataSources (flag can be provided multiple times)

virtctl create vm --instancetype=my-instancetype --preference=my-preference --volume-datasource=src:my-ds1 --volume-datasource=src:my-ds2

Create a manifest for a VirtualMachine with a specified VirtualMachineCluster{Instancetype,Preference} and directly used PVC

virtctl create vm --instancetype=my-instancetype --preference=my-preference --volume-pvc=my-pvc