KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

• rescan default pool for new images:

  pool-refresh default

• move from ZVOL to standard qcow2 image:

  qemu-img convert -p -f raw -O qcow2 /dev/zvol/YOUR_ZVOL /your/image.qcow2

credits: 1

• extract slic from donor

  #!/bin/bash
  
  set -e
  
  cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/SLIC > slic.bin
  cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM > msdm.bin
  dmidecode -t 0 -u | grep $'^\t\t[^"]' | xargs -n1 | perl -lne 'printf "%c", hex($_)' > smbios_type_0.bin
  dmidecode -t 1 -u | grep $'^\t\t[^"]' | xargs -n1 | perl -lne 'printf "%c", hex($_)' > smbios_type_1.bin

• apply to your kvm xml

  <domain type='kvm' xmlns:qemu='http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/qemu/1.0'>
    <!-- ... -->
    <qemu:commandline>
      <qemu:arg value='-acpitable'/>
      <qemu:arg value='file=/some/path/slic.bin'/>
      <qemu:arg value='-acpitable'/>
      <qemu:arg value='file=/some/path/msdm.bin'/>
      <qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
      <qemu:arg value='file=/some/path/smbios_type_0.bin'/>
      <qemu:arg value='-smbios'/>
      <qemu:arg value='file=/some/path/smbios_type_1.bin'/>
    </qemu:commandline>
  </domain>

virt-manager doesn't pick the best options for the clock and, as consequence, the CPU usage is quite high. Replace the clock section with:

  <clock offset='localtime'>
    <timer name='hpet' present='yes'/>
    <timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/>
  </clock>

• Red Hat sponsored

• Arch Linux KVM page
• Gentoo Linux KVM page
• Debian KVM page

• Notes about hugetlbfs
• Notes about a KVM installation on Debian Squeeze