Kimchi is an HTML5 based management tool for KVM. It is designed to make it as easy as possible to get started with KVM and create your first guest.

Kimchi runs as a daemon on the hypervisor host. It manages KVM guests through libvirt. The management interface is accessed over the web using a browser that supports HTML5.

• Internet Explorer: IE9+
• Chrome: Current-1 version
• Firefox: Current-1 version Firefox 24ESR
• Safari: Current-1 version
• Opera: Current-1 version

• Safari iOS: Current-1 version
• Android Browser Current-1 version

Current-1 version denotes that we support the current stable version of the browser and the version that preceded it. For example, if the current version of a browser is 24.x, we support the 24.x and 23.x versions.This does not mean that kimchi cannot be used in other browsers, however, functionality and appearance may be diminished and we may not be able to provide support for any problems you find.

Kimchi daemon might run on any GNU/Linux distribution that meets the conditions described on the 'Getting Started' section below.

The Kimchi community makes an effort to test with the latest versions of Fedora, RHEL, OpenSuSe, and Ubuntu.

For fedora and RHEL:

 $ sudo yum install gcc make autoconf automake gettext-devel git \
                    python-cherrypy python-cheetah libvirt-python \
                    libvirt libxml2-python python-imaging \
                    PyPAM m2crypto python-jsonschema rpm-build \
                    qemu-kvm python-psutil python-ethtool sos \
                    python-ipaddr python-lxml nfs-utils \
                    iscsi-initiator-utils libxslt pyparted nginx \
                    policycoreutils-python python-libguestfs \
                    libguestfs-tools python-requests python-websockify \
                    novnc
 # If using RHEL6, install the following additional packages:
 $ sudo yum install python-unittest2 python-ordereddict
 # Restart libvirt to allow configuration changes to take effect
 $ sudo service libvirtd restart

Packages version requirement:
    python-psutil >= 0.6.0

Note for RHEL users: Some of the above packages are located in the Red Hat EPEL repositories. See this FAQ for more information on how to configure your system to access this repository.

For debian:

$ sudo apt-get install gcc make autoconf automake gettext git \
                       python-cherrypy3 python-cheetah python-libvirt \
                       libvirt-bin python-libxml2 python-imaging \
                       python-pam python-m2crypto python-jsonschema \
                       qemu-kvm libtool python-psutil python-ethtool \
                       sosreport python-ipaddr python-lxml nfs-common \
                       open-iscsi lvm2 xsltproc python-parted nginx \
                       firewalld python-guestfs libguestfs-tools \
                       python-requests websockify novnc

Packages version requirement:
    python-jsonschema >= 1.3.0
    python-psutil >= 0.6.0

For openSUSE:

$ sudo zypper install gcc make autoconf automake gettext-tools git \
                      python-CherryPy python-Cheetah libvirt-python \
                      libvirt python-libxml2 python-imaging \
                      python-pam python-M2Crypto python-jsonschema \
                      rpm-build kvm python-psutil python-ethtool \
                      python-ipaddr python-lxml nfs-client open-iscsi \
                      libxslt-tools python-xml python-parted nginx \
                      python-libguestfs guestfs-tools python-requests \
                      python-websockify novnc

Packages version requirement:
    python-psutil >= 0.6.0

Note for openSUSE users: Some of the above packages are located in different openSUSE repositories. See this FAQ for python-parted; and this FAQ for python-ethtool to get the correct repository based on your openSUSE version. And this FAQ for more information on how configure your system to access this repository.

$ ./autogen.sh --system
$ make
$ sudo make install   # Optional if running from the source tree

$ sudo kimchid --host=0.0.0.0

Connect your browser to https://localhost:8001. You should see a screen like:

Kimchi uses PAM to authenticate users so you can log in with the same username and password that you would use to log in to the machine itself. Once logged in you will see a screen like:

This shows you the list of running guests including a live screenshot of the guest session. You can use the action buttons to shutdown the guests or connect to the display in a new window.

To create a new guest, click on the "+" button in the upper right corner. In Kimchi, all guest creation is done through templates.

You can view or modify templates by clicking on the Templates link in the top navigation bar.

The template screen looks like:

From this view, you can change the parameters of a template or create a new template using the "+" button in the upper right corner.

To create a template, you need an ISO on your host or using remote one. If you are willing to use your own ISO, please copy it to out of box storage pool (default path is: /var/lib/kimchi/isos).

1. Kimchi is still experimental and should not be used in a production environment.
2. When you are using NFS as storage pool, check the nfs export path permission is configured as: (1) export path need to be squashed as kvm gid and libvirt uid: /my_export_path *(all_squash,anongid=, anonuid=,rw,sync) So that root user can create volume with right user/group. (2) Chown of export path as libvirt user, group as kvm group, In order to make sure all mapped user can get into the mount point.

All patches are sent through our mailing list hosted by oVirt. More information can be found at:

https://github.com/kimchi-project/kimchi/wiki/Communications

Patches should be sent using git-send-email to kimchi-devel@ovirt.org.