Basic VirtualMachineInstance operations can be performed with the stock
kubectl
utility. However, the virtctl
binary utility is required to
use advanced features such as:
- Serial and graphical console access
It also provides convenience commands for:
-
Starting and stopping VirtualMachineInstances
-
Live migrating VirtualMachineInstances
-
Uploading virtual machine disk images
There are two ways to get it:
-
the most recent version of the tool can be retrieved from the official release page
-
it can be installed as a
kubectl
plugin using krew
Example:
export VERSION=v0.26.1
wget https://github.com/kubevirt/kubevirt/releases/download/${VERSION}/virtctl-${VERSION}-linux-x86_64
It is required to install krew
plugin
manager
beforehand. If krew
is installed, virtctl
can be installed via
krew
:
$ kubectl krew install virt
Then virtctl
can be used as a kubectl plugin. For a list of available
commands run:
$ kubectl virt help
Every occurrence throughout this guide of
$ ./virtctl <command>...
should then be read as
$ kubectl virt <command>...