vmtools, or virtual machine tools, is a set of scripts for managing virtual machines and images. Its purpose is to help with testing software and features on operating systems without touching the host. Virtual machines are running in snapshot mode, which means that after halting every change is forgotten.

• qemu-kvm
• mkisofs
• netstat (from net-tools) or ss (from iproute)
• curl
• wget
• ssh
• clishe v0.02 or later

PREFIX=<prefix, default is /usr/local> make install

First, setup vmtools at your home:

vmtools-setup

Then, you can adjust your configuration:

vmtools-config

Next, let get some images:

vmtools-getimage <URL> MyImage

Now, create your first virtual machine:

vminit myfirstvm

Configure your myfirstvm:

vmconfig myfirstvm

To ensure that myfirstvm start, you must set VMCFG_IMAGE to the image name previously pulled with vmtools-getimage:

VMCFG_IMAGE="MyImage"

Apply the changes made by vmconfig (if you just provided image name, you do not need to run vmupdate):

vmupdate myfirstvm

Finally, lets launch it!

vmstart myfirstvm

You can check the SSH connection with vmping or you can connect to myfirstvm directly:

vmping myfirstvm
vmssh myfirstvm

Or you can halt it if you are done with it:

vmstop myfirstvm

There are plenty of other useful commands:

• vmkill to send a signal to the process running the virtual machine
• vmstatus to check whether virtual machine is active or halted
• vmplay to run a set of Ansible playbooks
• vmsetup to setup the virtual machine

Have fun!