How To Install virt-manager on CentOS 8

virt-manager is Desktop tool for managing virtual machines via libvirt

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install virt-manager on CentOS 8.

What is `virt-manager`

Virtual Machine Manager provides a graphical tool for administering virtual machines for KVM, Xen, and LXC. Start, stop, add or remove virtual devices, connect to a graphical or serial console, and see resource usage statistics for existing VMs on local or remote machines. Uses libvirt as the backend management API.

We can use yum or dnf to install virt-manager on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install virt-manager.

Install virt-manager on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install virt-manager using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install virt-manager

Install virt-manager on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install virt-manager using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install virt-manager

How To Uninstall virt-manager on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the virt-manager package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove virt-manager

virt-manager Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/bin/virt-manager
/usr/share/appdata/virt-manager.appdata.xml
/usr/share/applications/virt-manager.desktop
/usr/share/doc/virt-manager
/usr/share/doc/virt-manager/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/virt-manager/NEWS.md
/usr/share/doc/virt-manager/README.md
/usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/org.virt-manager.virt-manager.gschema.xml
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/22x22/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/virt-manager.png
/usr/share/man/man1/virt-manager.1.gz
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/16x16
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/16x16/actions
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/16x16/actions/icon_console.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/16x16/actions/vm_new.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/actions
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/actions/icon_console.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/actions/icon_details.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/actions/vm_new.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices/device_cpu.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices/device_mem.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices/device_pci.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices/device_serial.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/devices/device_usb.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/status
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/status/state_paused.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/status/state_running.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/22x22/status/state_shutoff.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/24x24
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/24x24/actions
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/24x24/actions/icon_console.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/24x24/actions/vm_clone_wizard.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/24x24/actions/vm_new.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/actions
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/actions/icon_console.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/actions/vm_new.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/status
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/status/state_paused.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/status/state_running.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/32x32/status/state_shutoff.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions/vm_clone_wizard.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions/vm_delete_wizard.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions/vm_import_wizard.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions/vm_new_wizard.png
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/about.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/addhardware.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/addstorage.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/asyncjob.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/clone.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/connectauth.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/createconn.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/createnet.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/createpool.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/createvm.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/createvol.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/delete.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/details.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/fsdetails.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/gfxdetails.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/host.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/hostnets.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/hoststorage.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/manager.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/migrate.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/netlist.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/oslist.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/preferences.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/snapshots.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/snapshotsnew.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/storagebrowse.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/vmwindow.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/vsockdetails.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/ui/xmleditor.ui
/usr/share/virt-manager/virt-manager
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/__init__.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/about.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/addhardware.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/baseclass.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/clone.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/config.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/connection.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/connmanager.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createconn.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createnet.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createpool.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createvm.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/createvol.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/delete.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/__init__.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/console.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/details.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/serialcon.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/snapshots.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/sshtunnels.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/details/viewers.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/__init__.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/addstorage.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/fsdetails.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/gfxdetails.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/mediacombo.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/netlist.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/device/vsockdetails.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/engine.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/error.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/host.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/hostnets.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/hoststorage.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/__init__.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/connectauth.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/graphwidgets.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/inspection.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/keyring.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/libvirtenummap.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/module_trace.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/statsmanager.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/lib/uiutil.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/manager.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/migrate.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/__init__.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/domain.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/interface.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/libvirtobject.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/network.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/nodedev.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/storagepool.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/oslist.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/preferences.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/storagebrowse.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/systray.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/vmmenu.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/vmwindow.py
/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/xmleditor.py

References

virt-manager website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install virt-manager on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.