In computing

Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...

, the Red Hat Virtual Machine Manager is a desktop-driven virtual-machine manager application with which users can manage virtual machine

Virtual machine

A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

s (VMs).

Features

Virtual Machine Manager allows users to:

• create, edit, start and stop VMs
• view and control of each VM's console
• see performance & utilization statistics for each VM
• view all running VMs and hosts and their live performance & resource utilization statistics.
• use KVM
  Kernel-based Virtual Machine
  Kernel-based Virtual Machine is a virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel. KVM supports native virtualization on processors with hardware virtualization extensions....
  
  , Xen
  Xen
  Xen is a virtual-machine monitor providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently....
  
   or QEMU
  QEMU
  QEMU is a processor emulator that relies on dynamic binary translation to achieve a reasonable speed while being easy to port on new host CPU architectures....
  
   virtual machines, running either locally or remotely.

Distributions including Virtual Machine Manager

Virtual Machine Manager comes as the 'virt-manager' package in:

• Arch Linux
  Arch Linux
  Arch Linux is an independently developed, Linux-based operating system for i686 and x86-64 computers. It is composed predominantly of free and open source software, and supports community involvement....
  
  
• Debian
  Debian
  Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
  
   (since lenny)
• Fedora
  Fedora (operating system)
  Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...
  
   (since version 6)
• Frugalware
  Frugalware
  Frugalware Linux is a general-purpose Linux distribution designed for intermediate users who are familiar with command-line operations. Early versions were based on Slackware, but it is now an independently-developed distribution...
  
  
• Gentoo
  Gentoo Linux
  Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...
  
  
• Mandriva Linux
  Mandriva Linux
  Mandriva Linux is a Linux distribution distributed by Mandriva. It uses the RPM Package Manager...
  
   (since release 2007.1)
• Opensuse
  OpenSUSE
  openSUSE is a general purpose operating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported openSUSE Project and sponsored by SUSE...
  
   (since release 10.3)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...
  
   5
• Ubuntu
  Ubuntu (operating system)
  Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...
  
   (version 8.04 and above)
• Oracle Linux

Documentation

Documentation exists both inside Virtual Machine Manager and at its website.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 virtualization documentation comes in the form of the RHEL Virtualization Guide.

Ubuntu 8.04 virtualization documentation comes with the Ubuntu Server Guide.