KVM on Alpine #

Installing a KVM hypervisor with absolutely minimal footprint:

Install Alpine #

Install Alpine Linux by booting from ISO or via netboot and running setup-alpine, choosing sys as the disktype.

Packages #

Install KVM packages:

apk add qemu-system-x86_64 libvirt libvirt-daemon dbus polkit qemu-img

Load Modules #

Reboot or just load necessary kernel modules:

modprobe kvm-intel br_netfilter

br_netfilter is required for the network bridge below.

Bridge Interface #

Add a bridge configuration in /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto br0
iface br0 inet dhcp
	pre-up modprobe br_netfilter
	pre-up echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-arptables
	pre-up echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-iptables
	pre-up echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/bridge/bridge-nf-call-ip6tables
	bridge_ports eth0