VM using Debian cloud image does not connect to virtual network.

[Cristian Capsuna]

Hello,

    This is my first message to the community so if I am doing something wrong please assume I am ignorant and not disobedient with respect to the community rules.

    I am also a novice with respect to this wonderful operating system. That being said, what am I trying to do? I am trying to create an Ansible playbook that sets up a QEMU/KVM libvirt VM running Debian 12 (without the Desktop stuff) so that I may experiment with open source tools. The computer I am trying to do all this stuff from is also running Debian 12( I like new stuff ) but with the Desktop stuff on.

    I did this successfully initially using a Fedora 38 qcow2 image. With some of the recent news about Red Hat I decided that it is maybe best if the continuous existence and support of my chosen flavor of Linux/GNU is not dependent on a corporation.

    Finally, what is my problem? I have many problems but what you kind folk might be able to help me with is the lack of network connectivity of this VM machine created using a Debian cloud image. I have not done any of the cloud-init stuff. I am trying to keep the number of mechanisms I need to learn and set-up low.

    I have tried using the below images:

• debian-12-genericcloud-amd64-20230802-1460
• debian-12-generic-amd64-20230802-1460

    I have also tried adding interface settings to /etc/network/interfaces to try and make the interface connect and get an ipv4. I tried bringing the interface up (it is down by default) with ip link set dev <interface> up. No ipv4 is obtained. After a bit of digging I found that the cloud images also don't have networking.service (not sure exactly what that implies).

    At this point my 4 neurons are screaming in agony hence I have come seeking assistance. Hope someone has some suggestions about how I may solve this mystery.

Kind regards,

Cristian Căpșună

[Michael Kjörling]

On 15 Aug 2023 21:12 +0100, from cristian...@gmail.com (Cristian Capsuna):

> This is my first message to the community

Welcome.

> Finally, what is my problem? I have many problems but what you kind
> folk might be able to help me with is the lack of network connectivity of
> this VM machine created using a Debian cloud image. I have not done any of
> the cloud-init stuff. I am trying to keep the number of mechanisms I need
> to learn and set-up low.
>
> I have tried using the below images:
>

> - debian-12-genericcloud-amd64-20230802-1460
> - debian-12-generic-amd64-20230802-1460

I haven't tried specifically with the "cloud" images, but I've done
something very similar to what it seems like you're doing (minus the
Ansible portion, at least so far) with the standard installation
DVD/USB images. Getting guest network connectivity with KVM is
slightly convoluted, but this blog post of mine might perhaps help you
get unstuck:

https://michael.kjorling.se/blog/2022/linux-kvm-host-nftables-guest-networking/

I was running Debian 11 when I wrote it but am fairly certain I didn't
need to make any adjustments when upgrading to Debian 12.

You may also be interested in

https://michael.kjorling.se/debian-12-bookworm-preseed/

I hope that this will help you get unstuck.

--
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

[Cristian Capsuna]

Hi Michael,

    Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my e-mail.

    I will give the posts a read and try to adapt them to my issue. Will get back with feedback thereafter.

    Also I really like your website design. I've got it as a personal goal to create one for myself at some point.

Kind regards,

Cristian Căpșună

[Cristian Capsuna]

Hello,

    I have found the solution to this and want to drop it here in case someone finds this and has the same problem. The solution is described in this section of the Debian documentation.

Kind regards,

Cristian Căpșună

On Wed, 16 Aug 2023 at 07:35, Michael Kjörling <2695bd...@ewoof.net> wrote:

On 16 Aug 2023 07:26 +0100, from cristian...@gmail.com (Cristian Capsuna):

>     Also I really like your website design. I've got it as a personal goal
> to create one for myself at some point.

Thank you. It's a ready-made Wordpress theme (Lovecraft) which I have
tweaked with some custom CSS, so for most of the design I can't claim
credit.