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OpenVMS on KVM Prerequisites

Review the requirements and prerequisites below to prepare to configure your KVM virtual machine (VM).

VSI OpenVMS Version Requirements

VSI OpenVMS Version 9.2-2 or higher

Hardware Requirements

See the Supported Platforms page for the currently supported hardware.

VSI recommends that your OpenVMS x86-64 virtual machine be configured with the following minimum settings depending on your version of VSI OpenVMS:

Settings Requirements
Minimum number of CPUs 2
Chipset Q35
Memory 6 GB. If the installation fails due to lack of memory, you can temporarily increase it for the installation and reduce it afterwards if your host system has enough RAM to allocate.
Operating system Other 64-bit
Virtual disk At least 30 GB for the system files. Optionally, if disk space is limited, use a dump off system disk (DOSD); the recommended minimum DOSD size is 8 GB.

For more information, refer to the VSI OpenVMS x86-64 V9.2-2 Release Notes.
Boot option
  • Disable Secure Boot (if present)
  • Enable UEFI or EFI (BIOS is not supported)
Console communication Performed via virsh. Note that only COM1 serial port is supported.
Serial line An additional serial line for non-console login.
Network An E1000 adapter. VSI strongly advises against manual configuration of a DECnet MAC address on any interface.
CD/DVD device Physical or virtual, with the OpenVMS installation kit (.ISO file).

Settings Requirements
Minimum number of CPUs 2
Chipset Q35
Memory 6 GB. If the installation fails due to lack of memory, you can temporarily increase it for the installation and reduce it afterwards if your host system has enough RAM to allocate.
Operating system Other 64-bit
Virtual disk At least 30 GB for the system files. Optionally, if disk space is limited, use a dump off system disk (DOSD); the recommended minimum DOSD size is 8 GB.

For more information, refer to the VSI OpenVMS x86-64 V9.2-3 Release Notes.
Boot option
  • Disable Secure Boot (if present)
  • Enable UEFI or EFI (BIOS is not supported)
Console communication Performed via virsh. Note that only COM1 serial port is currently supported.

Guest Console can be used as an alternative to serial ports.
Network An E1000 or an E1000e adapter. Also, two types of para-virtualized virtio Network Interface Cards (NICs). VSI strongly advises against manual configuration of a DECnet MAC address on any interface.
CD/DVD device Physical or virtual, with the OpenVMS installation kit (.ISO file) assigned to it.

Settings Requirements
Minimum number of CPUs 2
Chipset Q35
Memory 6 GB. If the installation fails due to lack of memory, you can temporarily increase it for the installation and reduce it afterwards if your host system has enough RAM to allocate.
Operating system Other 64-bit
Virtual disk At least 30 GB for the system files. Optionally, if disk space is limited, use a dump off system disk (DOSD); the recommended minimum DOSD size is 8 GB.

For more information, refer to the VSI OpenVMS x86-64 E9.2-4 Release Notes.
Boot option Enable UEFI or EFI (BIOS is not supported)
Console communication Performed via virsh. Note that only COM1 serial port is currently supported.

Guest Console can be used as an alternative to serial ports.
Network An E1000 or an E1000e adapter. Also, two types of para-virtualized virtio Network Interface Cards (NICs). VSI strongly advises against manual configuration of a DECnet MAC address on any interface.
CD/DVD device Physical or virtual, with the OpenVMS installation kit (.ISO file) assigned to it.

Installation Requirements

Before you proceed with installing your KVM virtual machine (VM), you must perform the following steps from the CLI to configure your environment.

  1. Open your terminal and run the following commands to install and enable the packages required to perform operations with your virtual machine:

    sudo dnf install qemu-kvm libvirt virt-install virt-manager
sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd

  2. Edit the /etc/libvirt/qemu.conf file in the following way:

    • Uncomment the line #user = "qemu" by removing the leading hash sign (#) and replace qemu with the name of your Linux user or the name of a service account.

    • Uncomment the line #group = "qemu" by removing the leading hash sign (#) and replace qemu with libvirt.

    Make sure that both user and group are set as described above. Otherwise, you will not be able to use your virtual machine.

    The example below shows what the two lines must look like:

    # Some examples of valid values are:
#
#       user = "qemu"   # A user named "qemu"
#       user = "+0"     # Super user (uid=0)
#       user = "100"    # A user named "100" or a user with uid=100
#
user = "username"
# The group for QEMU processes run by the system instance. It can be
# specified in a similar way to user.
group = "libvirt"

  3. Now, for the changes to take effect, execute the following command:

    sudo systemctl restart libvirtd