Enabling VNC on Existing KVM Instances

This article outlines the steps needed to enable VNC on existing virtual machines.

KVM

Step 1 - Shutdown the Instance

SSH into the host where the virtual machine of interest resides. To shut down the virtual machine gracefully, invoke the following command on the terminal:

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virsh shutdown test-vm

where test-vm is the name of the virtual machine.

Check to see if the instance is in the shut off state by invoking the following:

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virsh list --all

You may also SSH into the instance and power off the instance from the terminal.

If all else fails, you may want to shutdown the instance ungracefully.

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virsh destroy test-vm

Step 2 - Edit the Virtual Machine's XML Configuration

After verifying that the instance is shut off, open the instance's XML configuration:

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virsh edit test-vm

Add the following inside the <devices> element:

It should look similar to this:

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<graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes' listen='127.0.0.1' keymap='en-us'>

  <listen type='address' address='127.0.0.1'/>

  </graphics>

Step 3 - Start the Instance

Start the instance after saving the configuration:

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virsh start test-vm

To verify whether the configuration succeeded, run the following on the terminal:

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virsh vncdisplay test-vm

You should see something similar to this:

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root@localhost:~# virsh vncdisplay test-vm

127.0.0.1:0