Cannot install RL10 VM on RL 8 hypervisor

Rocky Linux Help & Support
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1

Hi,

I have a Rocky Linux 8.10 hypervisor on which I have installed Rocky linux 8 and 9 virtual machines. I’m now trying to install a Rocky Linux 10 VM with virt-manager but it seems impossible.

First, virt-manager does not detect the OS from the ISO. So I selected “Rocky Linux unknown”.

The issue occurs with the GUI. The mouse does not work properly. Either the mouse does not move or it moves jerkily. When I do manage to click a button (language for example), the response time is slow.

Is RL 10 compatible with libvirt/qemu-kvm RL 8 . Has anyone had any success with this ?

Thank you for your help.

2

Virtualization in RHEL8 might not be aware of RHEL10 guests (unless support was added at some point?).

In addition, virt-manager was already deprecated in RHEL8.

3

I have Rocky Linux 10 running successfully on RL 8 under the qemu-kvm hypervisor v6.2. The minimum CPU specs for RL 10 have been tightened and now support only x86_64-v3 or later:

I am not running virt-manager, but ganeti v3.0.2 instead.

Hope this helps.

4

If virt-manager is deprecated, i’ll try an installation with Cockpit which replaces it.

Or i’ll do installations with Proxmox.

Thanks for your answers.

5

The GUI of the RL10 installer?

Up to el9 the installer did use (presumably) X11 for GUI and VNC for remote GUI sessions. (The latter was handy when the host had no feasible physical monitor.)

The el10 installer does use Wayland and has replaced VNC with RDP.

Is it possible that the video mode and display type used by libvirt/KVM/virt-manager does not cope the Wayland?

One could therefore test text-mode installer and RDP. One would expect the virt-manager cope with text, and with RDP one will not use virt-manager as client.

6

The other problem here, is if the hardware that Rocky 8 is installed on doesn’t support x86_64-v3 then Rocky 10 will not be installed in the VM either. Unless you start doing hardware emulation which will have performance problems.

7

Surely the RL10 installer would not load kernel, let alone reach “jerky mouse” stage, if there are no x86_64-v3 instructions?
How does one start such hardware emulation with (presumed) libvirt/KVM anyway?

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You can do it in the VM settings, I usually use Virt Manager so do it in the GUI app, but you can change from copy host CPU configuration and under model choose the topology that you want. It could well be that choosing Rocky Unknown could have already configured this (but I’ve not checked/tested it). If it is enabled to effectively emulate then the VM will boot assuming a CPU topology with x86_64-v3 was chosen. If it’s on CPU passthrough from the host, then it would either have to have this functionality for it to boot or it won’t.

For example, on my DL380e from 2014 I have Rocky 9, and I cannot boot Rocky 10 VM on it, unless I emulate CPU hardware. Which at this point will have an impact on performance - maybe the screen doesn’t update/refresh properly, or other symptoms.

Not saying that this is the problem here, but it could be. The VM configuration would need to be verified and provided here for us to know that.

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9

Apparently Cockpit is/was(?) using virt tools behind the scenes and their future isn’t as cut-and-dried as it might seem; link. ( I’m using virt-manager in 8.10 with no obvious issues though not for 10.x guests )

10 
I successfully installed an RL10 VM under RL8 using Cockpit.
I was able to install the VM from the Cockpit console with a 
perfectly working mouse.
It wasn't a CPU issue. Cockpit detected the Cascadelake-server (2019) model.
I recommend using Cockpit for VM management.

I would like to thank you again for all your valuable advice.
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