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slm
Asked: 2013-01-05 07:43:12 +0800 CST

How do I access the F8 Bootmenu while booting a Windows 2008R2 KVM Guest VM?

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Stupid question but this doesn't work, seems like it should. Is there a trick to access a booting Guest VM's bootmenu using KVM? I'm running the VM using virt-manager 0.8.7. KVM server is a CentOS 6.3 box running qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6_3.8.x86_64. Guest is Windows 2008R2.

I added this to the Guest VM's XML:

% virsh edit DR-01
...
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
    <bootmenu enable='yes'/>
  </os>

Doesn't give me the ability to hit the F8 key. Any ideas how to accomplish this?

linux

2 Answers

  1. if you enable the boot menu in VM boot options, it will provide an extra delay, so you can refocus.

    • 2
  2. Best Answer

    The trick seems to be that you have to put the guest's virt-manager session in fullscreen mode. Here are the steps that I took to get this working:

    1. Put guest in fullscreen mode

               Guest VM in fullscreen

    2. Start the Guest VM

                                        start guest VM

    3. Focus the VM immediately once it starts up by clicking inside its window w/ mouse

    4. Start hitting the F8 key

    5. Now you'll see the Guest VM's bootmenu

    Guest VM's bootmenu

    EDIT #1

    If you're still having issue as I said in the question originally and as @dyasny mentioned in his answer, try giving yourself more time during boot up of the guest VM by adding the following to the guest's domain XML via the virsh command:

    % virsh edit DR-01
...
<os>
  <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type>
  <boot dev='hd'/>
  <bootmenu enable='yes'/>
</os>
    • 1