Category Archives: KVM

Installing Debian 12 and 13 on a ProLiant DL360 G7

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Introduction

In a previous post, I discussed my experiences with installing a recent version of Enterprise Linux, AlmaLinux 9, on an e-waste HP ProLiant DL360 G7. I also discussed updating the firmware for the Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) remote management tool and the HP Smart Array controller, and installing the OS over the network from the iLO console. In this post I will perform some of these tasks, but for Debian instead. I will also incorporate some knowledge from my previous posts on virtualization, networking, and Ansible.

These exercises were performed on a ProLiant DL360 G7, but it’s likely that they will work on other Proliant servers.

A ProLiant DL360 G7 at the bottom of an e-waste stack.

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Modifying my Perl YAML-based Provisioner for KVM

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Introduction

In my last post, I discussed how I wrote a Perl script that uses a YAML file to build a list of virtual machines on the Xen hypervisor. When the script was nearly complete, it occurred to me: why not modify this script for use with libvirt/KVM? I mainly use KVM instead of Xen because of its better support for Enterprise Linux. Often, when I need to spin up a set of virtual machines for testing, I use dmacvicar/libvirt provider for Terraform. Usually this works pretty well; however, sometimes I get annoyed at having to learn the HCL language and just want to define a list of VMs with my specs. That is where I can see this script being of use, at least for myself. Of course, my intention was not to replace Terraform, even for myself. Mainly, this was a fun project that exercised my Perl skills and taught me stuff about Linux networking, libvirt, and more.

KVM host setup

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