Install KVM Hypervisor on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04

3 min readSep 30, 2022

In this guide, you will learn to Install KVM Hypervisor Virtualization server on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04 Linux system. KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a free and open source virtualization solution for Linux Systems running on x86 hardware. It requires the server to have CPU virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

Check the link for installation of KVM on Fedora, RHEL/CentOS 8

KVM consists of a loadable kernel module,kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko.

Step 1: Install KVM / QEMU on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04

Here are the steps to follow when installing KVM Virtualization tool on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04 Linux machine. All KVM packages for Ubuntu are available on upstream repositories. The apt package manager is used for all packages installation.

sudo apt update

sudo apt -y install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon-system

Aso install other useful Virtual Machine management tools.

sudo apt -y install virt-top libguestfs-tools libosinfo-bin  qemu-system virt-manager

Ensure the vhost_net module is loaded and enabled.

$ sudo modprobe vhost_net 

$ lsmod | grep vhost

vhost_net              24576  0

tun                    49152  1 vhost_net

vhost                  49152  1 vhost_net

tap                    28672  1 vhost_net



$ echo vhost_net | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

This will give you tools similar to Linux ls, cat, top command for use with Virtual Machines.

Step 2: Create KVM Bridge on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04 (Optional)

For your Virtual Machines to talk to the outside world, a Linux bridge is required. Installation of KVM on Ubuntu 22.04|20.04 creates a Linux bridge called virbr0. This can be used for all test environments.

But if you want to your VMs to be accessible over the network, you’ll need to create a bridge on physical network interface attached to your machine.

Create one on your Debian server/workstation like below.

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

My bridge configuration uses a network interface (ens33) to create a Linux bridge called br1. Replace the values provided with yours.

# Primary network interface

auto ens33

iface ens33 inet manual



# Bridge definitions

auto br1

iface br1 inet static

bridge_ports ens33

bridge_stp off

address 172.16.54.149

network 172.16.54.0

netmask 255.255.255.0

broadcast 172.16.54.255

gateway 172.16.54.2

dns-nameservers 172.16.54.2

Reboot your machine for the network configuration changes to take effect.

sudo reboot

Confirm IP network details.

$ ip addr

See screenshot below.

Step 3: Create Virtual Machine on KVM

You can use Virtual Machine Manager GUI to create an instance on KVM or via virt-install command line tool.

For virt-install, installation snippet is shared below.

sudo virt-install \

  --name de11 \

  --ram 2048 \

  --vcpus 2 \

  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/deb11.qcow2,size=20 \

  --os-type linux \

  --os-variant debian10 \

  --network bridge=br1 \

  --graphics none \

  --console pty,target_type=serial \

  --location 'http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/bullseye/main/installer-amd64/' \

  --extra-args 'console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial'