What is Kimchi?
Kimchi is an HTML5 based management tool for KVM. It is designed to make it as easy as possible to get started with KVM and create your first guest.
Kimchi runs as a Wok plugin.
Kimchi manages KVM guests through libvirt. The management interface is accessed over the web using a browser that supports HTML5.
Getting Started
The latest packages available can be found at https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/releases/latest
If you prefer to install Kimchi from source code, follow the steps below!
Install Dependencies
First of all, make sure to Wok installed in your system.
To add Kimchi plugin, please make sure to have all the dependencies installed before starting up the wokd service.
Fedora
Development Dependencies
sudo dnf install -y gcc make autoconf automake git python3-pip python3-requests python3-mock gettext-devel rpm-build libxslt gcc-c++ python3-devel python3-pep8 python3-pyflakes rpmlint python3-pyyaml
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-dev.txt
Runtime Dependencies
sudo dnf install -y python3-configobj python3-lxml python3-magic python3-paramiko python3-ldap spice-html5 novnc qemu-kvm python3-libvirt python3-pyparted python3-ethtool python3-pillow python3-cherrypy python3-libguestfs libvirt libvirt-daemon-config-network iscsi-initiator-utils libguestfs-tools sos nfs-utils
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-FEDORA.txt
Debian / Ubuntu
Development Dependencies
sudo apt install -y gcc make autoconf automake git python3-pip python3-requests python3-mock gettext pkgconf xsltproc python3-dev pep8 pyflakes python3-yaml
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-dev.txt
Runtime Dependencies
sudo apt install -y python3-configobj python3-lxml python3-magic python3-paramiko python3-ldap spice-html5 novnc qemu-kvm python3-libvirt python3-parted python3-guestfs python3-pil python3-cherrypy3 libvirt0 libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients nfs-common sosreport open-iscsi libguestfs-tools libnl-route-3-dev
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-UBUNTU.txt
openSUSE LEAP
Development Dependencies
sudo zypper install -y gcc make autoconf automake git python3-pip python3-requests python3-mock gettext-tools rpm-build libxslt-tools gcc-c++ python3-devel python3-pep8 python3-pyflakes rpmlint python3-PyYAML python3-distro
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-dev.txt
Runtime Dependencies
sudo zypper install -y python3-configobj python3-lxml python3-magic python3-paramiko python3-ldap spice-html5 novnc qemu-kvm python3-libvirt-python python3-ethtool python3-Pillow python3-CherryPy python3-libguestfs parted-devel libvirt libvirt-daemon-config-network open-iscsi guestfs-tools nfs-client gcc python3-devel
sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements-OPENSUSE-LEAP.txt
Build and Install
sudo ./autogen.sh --system
make
# Optional if running from the source tree
sudo make install
# Or, to make installable .deb packages
make deb
# Or, for RPM packages
make rpm
If you are looking for stable versions, there are some packages available at https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/releases
Testing
make check-local
sudo make check
After all tests are executed, a summary will be displayed containing any errors/failures which might have occurred.
Usage
Connect your browser to https://localhost:8001. You should see a screen like:
By default, wok uses PAM to authenticate users so you can log in with the same username and password that you would use to log in to the machine itself. Once logged in you will see a screen like:
This shows you the list of running guests including a live screenshot of the guest session. You can use the action buttons to shutdown the guests or connect to the display in a new window.
To create a new guest, click on the "+" button in the upper right corner. In Kimchi, all guest creation is done through templates.
You can view or modify templates by clicking on the Templates link in the top navigation bar.
The template screen looks like:
From this view, you can change the parameters of a template or create a new template using the "+" button in the upper right corner.
To create a template, you need an ISO or image file on your host or use a remote one. If you are willing to use your own ISO, please copy it to out of box storage pool (default path is: /var/lib/kimchi/isos).
Troubleshooting
Server access
Please, check Wok configuration if you are getting problems to access Wok server.
Missing Virtualization tab
If you follow all the steps to get Wok and Kimchi running and even though you can not see the virtualization tab, it means something went wrong.
You can get more details about it when running wok with --environment=dev.
sudo python3 /usr/bin/wokd --environment=dev
There will be a message like:
Failed to import plugin wok.plugins.kimchi.Kimchi, error: XXX
NFS storage pool
Please, check the NFS export path permission is configured like below:
-
Export path need to be squashed as kvm gid and libvirt uid: /my_export_path *(all_squash,anongid=, anonuid=,rw,sync)
So that root user can create volume with right user/group.
-
Set libvirt user and kvm group for export path, in order to make sure all mapped user can get into the mount point.
Contributing to Kimchi Project
There are a lof of ways to contribute to the Kimchi Project:
- Issues can be reported at Github
- Patches are always welcome! Please, follow these instructions on how to send patches to the mailing list (kimchi-devel@ovirt.org) or submit a pull request.
Find more information about Wok Project at https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/wiki