I am desperately looking for a tiny, really tiny, Linux distro to run as a QEMU-KVM host. 64bit of course.
I am not looking for graphics, just "plain old command line" (SSH).

I have just finished trying with TinyCore v6.1. No way to get it installed in a "normal way" and no way to get QEMU package.

DamnSmall is way too old. Almost dead I'd say.

Then what?
Thanks in advance.

For something like that, I'd look for something like Slackware or Arch. Something to give you the flexibility you want. Ubuntu Server is always another option. Slackware or Ubuntu probably have the easiest tools to install. Arch is a pain in the rump.

You could also try FreeBSD, although it's not Linux it's fast and efficient.

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Can make a custom distro at SuseStudio.com if you want. A JEOS should do. The provide the image you make in almost any form and use.

The old command line distro's have not been updated in years.

Many of the modern distro's have ways for minimal installs without any window manager. Since you want 64 bit and I don't know why exactly you will have to use a more modern larger kernel.

Specialty distro's like Gentoo could be build and easy to maintain.

I'm kind of regretting my post. Shortly after I posted it I remembered VMware ESX. It's not QEMU or KVM, but from what I've seen and read it's a lot faster and easier to manage. It is a standalone Linux distro, and the only con I can find with it is that you can only access the guests remotely. You can control the host remotely via a VMware client or via SSH.

This compares ESXi with KVM.
http://virtualization.softwareinside...re-ESXi-vs-KVM

Note that on the supported OS section, it is not quite accurate. VMware can run most anything, even things that are not supported by the VMware tools (such as Windows 95, Haiku/BeOS, or a 2.2 Linux), even though the Tools will install on most anything that you would want.

Unless you absolutely must have QEMU/KVM, give this a look.

Slitaz is very small (about 30MB with X, about 10MB without X) and has Qemu in its package list, so you may want to try that.

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The comparing is biased (vmware sponsored items apear in it)...
The 'RAM per host limit' on KVM is ridiculous.
Also, KVM is not a type2 hypervisor. If it is, so is vmware, as it lays on top of a "custom" linux distro.

The whole thing looks like advertising to me.

Where have you ever seen a RedHat ad? I've never seen one, (probably because I use an ad blocker) and a quick Google search looks to me that you're more likely to see a VMware ad than any ad for any RedHat product. The only thing on that page that I saw as advertising was for Parallels. THAT was advertising and definitely was biased. The site gives information from reports of users, not people being paid to scrounge up info. Google is a great resource for information if you choose to use it.

KVM is RedHat's kernel module for QEMU to run x86(_64). QEMU is an emulator. It is not meant as a high-performance hypervisor. VMware is. Yes, it's not a type 2 hypervisor, but that has it's advantages, like security. So far, VMware has proved nearly unhackable. Go ahead, try. The best you'll get is a crippled BusyBox shell to diagnose issues. KVM on the other hand, running on say...Slax...can be accessed by decrypting the hashes in the shadow file using something like L0phtCrack, using ncrack, or simply exploiting GRUB to boot it into runlevel 0.

What does this mean? "No way to get it installed in a "normal way" and no way to get QEMU package."

For a tiny distro almost any vm from Bochs to commercial should do fine on a modern system.

I was, of course, referring to the fact that the site inserts a third product into the comparison, clearely labeling it as "sponsored".
It looks like this third product is random, so I got a vmware product when I clicked the link.
Nevertheless, the stats on KVM are completely wrong, so any comparative is flawed.

Was wikipedians would say: citation needed.
hehe aren't they all?
I'm betting that no commercial product would say 'well, performance is not our goal' about themselves...
That is just silly talk. It runs linux underneath and is vulnerable to anything that afflicts linux.
As an example: heartbleed

ANY operating system is a tool. It is up to the admin to use it correctly.
If you don't secure your system, it can be exploited.

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Yes, and it was not VMware, as you said it was.

QEMU is an emulator. It runs software not made for x86. It is similar to PearPC, only supports more arches. The KVM module lets it emulate x86. Do your research.

Seriously, what can you do with just a heavily modified kernel and a few crummy BusyBox utilities? And severely crippled user privileges? (It has no root account by default, and pretty sure most people keep it that way, as it is not needed because the VMware software that runs on the client end lets you do most anything you need to do.)

VMware is about as secure as it will get out of the box. There is very little you can do (besides a strong password) to make it any more secure. I have experience with VMware ESXi, I know how it works.


EDIT:
Just noticed your screenshot. I saw an ad for Parallels there, not vSphere. Just ignore that pane. I agree, that is an ad. I thought you were talking about the pane for VMware on the left.

Alpine Linux has qemu and is small distro.

No, KVM is a native Linux kernel module, which enables the use of Intel VT and AMD-V. Qemu provides emulation and paravirtualization for all the rest of the virtual hardware.

And yet, it has been outperforming vmware since 2008, on every benchmark, every year. Nice, huh?

KVM makes "types" of hypervisors moot, because while using an OS, it still works directly at the baremetal level. Ever since it appeared in 2006, talking about these types is something marketing people do, and IT professionals laugh at.

VMWare is proprietary software. They are not obliged, nor will they ever confess to a security flaw or discuss such a flaw in public. Read their EULA - if you publish a benchmark of ESXi or any other commentary, including security issues, you are immediately in breach of contract, and they have as many lawyers as M$.


Yup, but here's some more news for you - if you get into that busybox, you can take all the VMs down, delete their images and wreak havoc. If you break into a Linux box as non-root, you will be limited in what you can do, and you have 25 years of security development and best practices to block you every step of the way. If you break into a KVM VM, there's absolutely nothing you can do to the host or the other VMs. Go read about sVirt and how it works if you're so concerned about security.

In short, ESXi is nice, but KVM is easier, performs better and has no weird legacy crap slowing it down, nor are any of the features behind a 5+ figure paywall. Can you live migrate between two free ESXi servers? What about storage migration? Read about gang scheduling and why KVM doesn't do it, for example. Read some more about supported storage types for each system. While you're at it, check the results on SpecVirt, the independent open benchmark system.

Of course, if you are, like I suspect, a vmware FUDbot, you will just try and wave all of these arguments off, but that's fine, the people who know what they are doing, are choosing KVM anyway.

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Just to make it clearer.

1. QEMU-KVM is my objective. No VirtualBox, no VMWare-whatever, no XEN. I am not willing to discuss about the choice.
2. I don't need and don't want X/Wayland. "Just the OS, the bash and SSHv2"(tm). Mosh is a desired addon I can live without.
3. As this distro is going to be the host for the VMs, it needs to contain (or to later install) mdadm, multipath, bridge utilities and the likes. IPTables (or newer technology) is also a strongly desired tool I need.
4. Hints and suggestions, as usual, are always welcome whenever associated with motivations.
5. My warmest thanks to everyone here!!!

oVirt comes with a tiny (~150Mb) distribution called ovirt-node. It can run VMs, has an easy deployment mechanism, and upgrades take a few moments. The downside is that it needs to be managed by oVirt, otherwise, while you still have bash in there, the system isn't easy to use directly.

I would in any case recommend oVirt as a multihost KVM based management system, but if you're after a single machine with nothing added, you can deploy ovirt-node, and grab the configs and RPM list in place, then strip down your own CentOS/Fedora to the same state.

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OVirt looks very close to what I am looking for.
Bit it's way too much. It needs Java to work while I do need only ssh. I already have my ssh-based solution. So far it's the closest match, though.