Configuring Linux-based Virtual Machines

After installing a Linux-based virtual machine, configure the additional resources and software necessary for production use, as described in:

• Creating and Initializing a Disk (Linux-based VMs)
• Installing Applications (Linux-based VMs)

If you plan to create VM snapshots (see Managing Snapshots), consider installing the QEMU guest agent, as described in:

• Installing the QEMU Guest Agent for Application-Consistent Snapshots (Linux-based VMs)

In addition, ensure that you configure the following settings:

• Disable hibernation (enabled by default in some cases) to prevent the guest operating system from going into a power-saving state.

• Configure the power button action in the guest operating system to shut down the guest (and not to hibernate it) to allow the Shutdown VM button in the everRun Availability Console to work properly. For the minimal server version of Ubuntu Linux, optionally install the acpid package to enable the Shutdown button. See Shutting Down a Virtual Machine.

  Note: For Disaster Recovery (DR)-protected VMs, ensure that you configure the power button action in the guest operating system to shut down the guest. If the DR software cannot automatically shut down a VM with the power button action in the event of a DR migration, the operation may be delayed until you log on to the VM console and manually shut down the guest operating system.
• Install the kexec-tools package and configure the guest operating system to generate a crash dump file if the system crashes.
• For Ubuntu Linux guest operating systems, to prevent a problem where the VM console hangs in everRun Availability Console, edit the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and change the gfxmode parameter to text (for example, set gfxmode=text). If the VM console hangs before you can set the parameter, see the troubleshooting information in Opening a Virtual Machine Console Session to resolve the issue.

For more information about these settings, see your Linux documentation.

Related Topics

Managing Virtual Machines