KVM Installation in Kali 2023 – Step-by-step

Installing

2. 2. Pre-Installation Checks

   Then Check if KVM Can be Installed
   With:

   egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

   If in Output > 0 then your Processor support Hardware Virtualization!
   (But on a PC you may have still to enable it on BIOS…)Now again, Install the needed Tool:

   sudo apt install cpu-checker

   And then Verify it:

   kvm-ok

   If it’s Good you will see:

   INFO: /dev/kvm exists
   KVM acceleration can be used
   

   Finally, if the answer is negative you can still use KVM but only in a Slow mode…

3. 3. Installing KVM

   Now you are Ready to Install KVM on Kali
   Now KVM should already be there, to Check for it try to load the Kernel Module:

   modprobe kvm

   Again on Intel Processors:

   modprobe kvm_intel

   But for AMD instead:

   modprobe kvm_amd

   Last, to Add the default Virtualization Frontend managing Stack run:

   sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils

   Following Kali Documentation about KVM related Packages:

   • libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system provides libvirtd which you need to administer qemu and kvm instances using libvirt
   • qemu-kvm is the backend

4. 4. Adding User to Group

   Next Add User to libvirt Group
   So to Add User run:

   sudo adduser $LOGNAME libvirt

   This because only the Users of this Group can Run Virtual Machines.

5. 5. Verifing KVM Installation

   Finally, Test Installation.

   Simply performing:

   virsh list --all

   And in the Output you should find:

    Id    Name                           State
   ----------------------------------------------------

   This because still no VMs has been made.