multiple KVM guests script using virt-install - automation

Question

I would like install 3 KVM guests automatically using kickstart.
I have no problem installing it manually using virt-install command.
virt-install \
-n dal \
-r 2048 \
--vcpus=1 \
--os-variant=rhel6 \
--accelerate \
--network bridge:br1,model=virtio \
--disk path=/home/dal_internal,size=128 --force \
--location="/home/kvm.iso" \
--nographics \
--extra-args="ks=file:/dal_kick.cfg console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial" \
--initrd-inject=/opt/dal_kick.cfg \
--virt-type kvm
I have 3 scripts like the one above - i would like to install all 3 at the same time, how can i disable the console? or running it in the background?

Answer 1

Based on virt-install man page:
http://www.tin.org/bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=virt-install
--noautoconsole
Don't automatically try to connect to the guest console. The
default behaviour is to launch virt-viewer(1) to display the
graphical console, or to run the "virsh" "console" command to
display the text console. Use of this parameter will disable this
behaviour.
virt-install will connect console automatically. If you don't want,
just simply add --noautoconsole in your cmd like
virt-install \
-n dal \
-r 2048 \
--vcpus=1 \
--quiet \
--noautoconsole \
...... other options

Answer 2

We faced the same problem and at the end the only way we found was to create new threads with the &.
We also include the quiet option, not mandatory.
---quiet option (Only print fatal error messages).
virt-install \
-n dal \
-r 2048 \
--vcpus=1 \
--quiet \
--os-variant=rhel6 \
--accelerate \
--network bridge:br1,model=virtio \
--disk path=/home/dal_internal,size=128 --force \
--location="/home/kvm.iso" \
--nographics \
--extra-args="ks=file:/dal_kick.cfg console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial" \
--initrd-inject=/opt/dal_kick.cfg \
--virt-type kvm &

Answer 3

I know this is kind of old, but I wanted to share my thoughts.
I ran into the same problem, but due to the environment we work in, we need to use sudo with a password (compliance reasons). The solution I came up with was to use timeout instead of &. When we fork it right away, it would hang due to the sudo prompt never appearing. So using timeout with your example above: (we obviously did timeout 10 sudo virt-instal...)
timeout 15 virt-install \
-n dal \
-r 2048 \
--vcpus=1 \
--quiet \
--os-variant=rhel6 \
--accelerate \
--network bridge:br1,model=virtio \
--disk path=/home/dal_internal,size=128 --force \
--location="/home/kvm.iso" \
--nographics \
--extra-args="ks=file:/dal_kick.cfg console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 serial" \
--initrd-inject=/opt/dal_kick.cfg \
--virt-type kvm
This allowed us to interact with our sudo prompt and send the password over, and then start the build. The timeout doesnt kill the process, it will continue on and so can your script.