minikube/site/content/en/docs/drivers/kvm2.md

title	weight	description	aliases
kvm2	2	Linux KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) driver	/docs/reference/drivers/kvm2

Overview

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions. To work with KVM, minikube uses the libvirt virtualization API

{{% readfile file="/docs/drivers/includes/kvm2_usage.inc" %}}

Check virtualization support

{{% readfile file="/docs/drivers/includes/check_virtualization_linux.inc" %}}

Special features

The minikube start command supports 3 additional kvm specific flags:

• --gpu: Enable experimental NVIDIA GPU support in minikube
• --hidden: Hide the hypervisor signature from the guest in minikube
• --kvm-network: The KVM network name
• --kvm-qemu-uri: The KVM qemu uri, defaults to qemu:///system

Issues

• minikube will repeatedly ask for the root password if user is not in the correct libvirt group #3467
• Machine didn't return an IP after 120 seconds when firewall prevents VM network access #3566
• unable to set user and group to '65534:992 when dynamic ownership = 1 in qemu.conf #4467
• KVM VM's cannot be used simultaneously with VirtualBox #4913
• On some distributions, libvirt bridge networking may fail until the host reboots

Also see co/kvm2 open issues

Troubleshooting

• Run virt-host-validate and check for the suggestions.
• Run minikube start --alsologtostderr -v=7 to debug crashes
• Run docker-machine-driver-kvm2 version to verify the kvm2 driver executes properly.
• Read How to debug Virtualization problems