can virt-manager work without installing a full GUI?
 

hi all,

I'm trying to create VMs with virt-manager but i didn't succeed to launch it so i'm wondering if i have first to install a full GUI(ubuntu-desktop) in order to use virt-manager.Any comment is welcomed..

my system is Ubuntu server 12.04.1.

thnx

It no need a full desktop, if you installed it by package manager then all required dependencies should be installed too. However, it is graphical application so it need somewhere to display its graphical output (it can't do that on text console), so explain how do you want to view its output. You can start real X server manually and display virt-manager on the same machine, or you can use VNC or XDMCP and display it on other machine where X server is already installed.

i want to view its output from another machine, what packages do i need to install? vnc and ssh i assume...

If you choose VNC, install "vnc4server" package, choose password by "vncpasswd" command, optionally edit "~/.vnc/xstartup", for example, add autostart entry for virt-manager, and start server by "vncserver". It should display port on which is running (5900 or some higher) or display number after colon, like ":0", te rule is that port number is 5900 + display number, if display number for example will be 7, then port will be 5907. If you did not start your graphical application from that script, but later time from shell, then you need to export DISPLAY variable, for example, if server started on display :1, then doTo connect to it from another computer, you can use any vnc viewer, for example, on Ubuntu there is You can use display number or port number, possibly that other vnc software does not recognize display number, then use a port.

vncserver can be also started by inetd, or just from autostart. SSH is not neccessary if you do not need crypted transmission.