How to Install KVM on Centos 6.3 x86_64

KVM is short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine and makes use of hardware virtualization.You need a CPU that supports hardware virtualization, e.g. Intel VT or AMD-V.


First You need to check if your CPU supports hardware virtualization using below command.

[root@localhost ~]# egrep '(vmx|svm)' --color=always /proc/cpuinfo

If nothing is displayed, then your processor doesn't support hardware virtualization, and you must stop here.

How to Install KVM

First we need to install EPEL repo.you can use this link


Then install the kvm, libvirt,  python-virtinst and qemu-kvm packages.

kvm --> The kvm package contains the KVM kernel module

libvirt ---> Libvirt is a API library for interacting with hypervisors.

python-virtinst --> Provides the virt-install command fro creating virtual machine.

virt-manager --> Provides a Graphical tool for administering virtual machine.


[root@localhost ~]#  yum  install  kvm  libvirt  python-virtinst  qemu-kvm virt-manager

After installation done start the libvirt daemon


[root@localhost ~]# /etc/init.d/libvirtd start

To check if KVM has successfully been installed

[root@localhost ~]# virsh list --all

 Id    Name                           State

----------------------------------------------------