A practical guide to provisioning customized RHEL virtual machines using Kickstart automation scripts combined with libvirt, QEMU, and KVM. Two workflows are demonstrated: a fully disconnected installation using the RHEL DVD ISO with virtiofs to share local files, and a connected installation using the Boot ISO with Red Hat subscription activation keys. Both approaches use virt-install with direct kernel loading and initrd injection to bypass network boot infrastructure, making them suitable for local developer machines including WSL2 on Windows. Scripts are available in a public Git repository and can be adapted for CI/CD pipelines or RHEL image mode installations.
Table of contents
Automating the provisioning of fully-configured test VMsFrom network to local automatic provisioningA process for automated, network-based installationA process for network-based installation, without networking infrastructureA process for local installation, without any network requirementDisconnected installation from the RHEL DVD mediaConnected installation from the RHEL boot mediaMoving forwardSort: