Preparing the CMS KVM file

Last Updated : Apr 29, 2026 |
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Avaya supplies the KVM files as an KVM OVA file. That file contains a .qcow2 file you can use to create a CMS virtual machine.
Before you begin
  • Download the CMS KVM OVA file from Avaya PLDS. For example, CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-e810-00-1.ova.
  1. Login to KVM CLI as the custadm user.
  2. Run sudo ls -ld /var/lib/libvirt/staging.
  3. Check that the directory /var/lib/libvirt/staging is listed.
    • If the directory does not exist, create it by running the following commands:
      sudo mkdir /var/lib/libvirt/staging
      sudo chown custadm:wheel /var/lib/libvirt/staging
  4. Check that the directory permissions shown as match drwxr-x---.
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
    • If the permissions do not match, change them using the following command. This allows custadm to write into the directory folder using sudo commands.
    • sudo chown custadm:wheel /var/lib/libvirt/staging
  5. Verify there is sufficient free-space to copy the size of the KVM image. There needs to be a minimum of 800 GB free space.
  6. Copy the downloaded CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-e810-00-1.ova file into the /var/lib/libvirt/staging directory.
  7. Extract the contents of the ova using the command:
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
    tar -xvf CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-e810-00-1.ova
    This extracts the following files
    • CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm.ovf
    • CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm.mf
    • CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1.qcow2
  8. The .qcow2 file is in thin provisioning format. To create a copy that is thick provisioned file, run the command:
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
    sudo qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -o preallocation=full CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1.qcow2 CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1-THICK.qcow2
    This operation takes around 45 minutes.
  9. Verify that the thick provision copy is 800 GB by running the command:
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
    sudo qemu-img info CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1-THICK.qcow2
  10. Move the thick provisioned file image to the virtual machine images directory:
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
    sudo mv -i CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1-THICK.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images
  11. Change the file owner and file permission by running following commands:
    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: sudo chown qemu:qemu /var/lib/libvirt/imagesCMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1-THICK.qcow2
    sudo chmod 640 /var/lib/libvirt/images/CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-1-THICK.qcow2
  12. You can now delete the downloaded CMS-R21.0.0.1.ab.b-kvm-e810-00-1.ova file and extracted files from the /var/lib/libvirt/staging folder.
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