Installation and Environment

We’ll use the DNF package manager to install the packages required for virtualization. The following components are recommended for most users, regardless of the frontend being used:

sudo dnf install libvirt qemu-kvm virt-install virt-viewer

The package libvirt includes the tool virsh, which is used to manage virtual machines via the command line. For graphical management, additional packages will be required (covered in the next part).

The libvirt package also includes the libvirtd service, which provides an API for managing virtual machines with other applications. Both virsh and graphical frontends like Cockpit and Virt-Manager use this interface.

Therefore, libvirtd must be started regardless of whether virtual machines are managed via the command line or graphically. As the name suggests, it’s managed as a systemd unit:

sudo systemctl start libvirtd

Optionally, you can additionally enable the service, which means that it would be started automatically on boot. For that replace start with enable in the last command. This is recommended for users who regularly access their virtual machines.