Configuring KVM for Pexip Infinity

This section describes the KVM configuration required before you install the Management Node or install a Conferencing Node.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you have a KVM environment already installed. You must ensure that:

  • the KVM environment may be managed through libvirt
  • the virt-manager, virsh and virt-install applications are available for use on the client system that is managing the KVM environment; to do this, run the command:
    sudo apt-get install virt-manager libvirt-bin

The libvirt command line tools are used to import the disk image and create the VM. Note that we use the libvirt command line tools to perform the import as they provide greater control than Virtual Machine Manager. For more information, see http://libvirt.org/drvqemu.html.

Disk image format (raw versus qcow2)

Our installation guides specify the use of raw as the disk image format. This is because it provides more reliable performance characteristics and has a lower CPU overhead. However, you can only take a snapshot of a raw image if you first suspend or shutdown the VM.

You can opt to use qcow2 format instead. This format supports live snapshots (and other features such as thin provisioning and encryption) but it may have unpredictable performance characteristics which could lead to system instability in certain situations (for example if more disk space is required to accommodate a new file such as a snapshot), and has a higher CPU overhead.

Synchronizing time

Pexip Infinity uses NTP servers to obtain accurate system time. This is necessary to ensure correct operation, including configuration replication and log timestamps.

All host servers must be synchronized with accurate time before you install the Management Node or Conferencing Nodes on them.

NTP must be enabled on the Management Node VM before you deploy any Conferencing Nodes (this is done during installation of the Management Node).

We strongly recommend that you configure at least three distinct NTP servers or NTP server pools on all your host servers and the Management Node itself. This ensures that log entries from all nodes are properly synchronized.

The VMs hosting the Management Node and Conferencing Nodes use the UTC timezone, and all logs are in UTC. Do not attempt to change the timezone on these systems. Note however that the administrator web interface uses your local time. For more information, see Timezones.

Install the NTP package on your host server using the appropriate package management tool for your Linux distribution.

Enabling automatic startup

After deploying a new Management Node or Conferencing Node in KVM, you should enable automatic startup of that virtual machine (VM). In KVM, automatic startup is disabled by default for every new VM. This means that if the host server is powered down for any reason, when it restarts the VM will not restart and must be started manually.

You can only enable automatic startup after the Management Node or Conferencing Node has been deployed.

To enable automatic startup using Virtual Machine Manager:

  1. Connect to the Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager) that is managing the node's VM.

  2. Select the node's VM and then, from the toolbar, select the Show the virtual machine console and details icon .

    A new window for that VM is opened.

  3. If necessary, select View > Details to display the VM information.
  4. From the sidebar menu, select Boot Options.
  5. Select the Start virtual machine on host boot up check box.
  6. Select Apply.