# CoreOS installation on KVM

CoreOS is a lightweight Linux distribution designed specifically to run containers. KVM is the default virtualization infrastructure for Ubuntu. Unfortunately, creating a CoreOS virtual machine for KVM is not a simple process. I built a tool to automate this process and here’s how to use it.

Prerequitistes

• Ubuntu Server
• RSA key
• KVM
• Git
• Wget
• bzip2
• Ruby

Installation

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/camilin87/kvm-automation.git && cd kvm-automation

Create the virtual machine

This command creates a CoreOS virtual machine named vm1 in the ~/vms folder. The new machine will have two CPUs, four GB of RAM, seven GB of hard drive, and will use the bridge network adapter br0

ruby vm_task.rb CoreOsVmCreationTask         \
    --path ~/vms/ --name vm1 --dwnld true    \
    --cpu 2 --ram 4096 --hdd 7 --br br0      \
    --key ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

How does it work?

kvm-automation generates a hard drive after downloading the latest Stable CoreOS QEMU Image. It then builds a cloud-config.yml out of the public RSA key and the machine name. The tool then uses this information to create a KVM virtual machine that will autostart on system boot.

kvm-automation caveats

• Supports only CoreOS and Ubuntu
• Designed to use exclusively bridge network adapters using DHCP
• Does not allow guest customization through the cloud-config.yml
• Deletes pre-existing machines with the specified name