Literally for squeeze,

apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin

To manage vm’s as a normal user, add that user to the libvirt group.

More on KVM here.

Then you can use virsh to manage vm’s on the command line! But since that can be a pain, I highly recommend using virt-manager (a gnome gui utility) or some other gui (web/desktop) utility which can connect to libvirt remotely and manage your KVM Server.

To enable libvirt to listen for incoming connections:

In /etc/default/libvirt-bin:

libvirtd_opts=“-d -l”

Then in /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf:

listen_tls = 0

listen_tcp = 1

Now restart libvirt (service libvirt-bin restart) and use your remote vm manager applicaton to log onto the server and do stuffs! Moar on setting up libvirt here.

As I do more with KVM and other guis, i will fill you in!

Mario Loria is a builder of diverse infrastructure with modern workloads on both bare-metal and cloud platforms. He's traversed roles in system administration, network engineering, and DevOps. You can learn more about him here.