Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Graphic and Console Interfaces

You need some way to interact with the virtual systems. Generally, you will use a VNC or SDL graphic interface set up by your guest installation tool. VMware provides its own client software to handle this. For Xen and KVM you will likely use the VNC client virt-viewer or the GUI management tool virt-manager to connect to a virtual system. As an alternative, you could interact with a virtual system through a text-based console connected to a virtual system’s serial device. The virt-install command has a --nographics option that will attempt to set this console up for you, but it works only with paravirtualized guests. If your guest system has a properly functioning network connection, you may also be able to use ssh to connect to it.