I've installed libvirt and also Virtual Box OSE hypervisor, in order to see if I could properly manage it through virsh. I could easily set up, start, pause, resume, shutdown and destroy the newly created domains, from a XML file. Then I was wondering how could I be able to spawn commands in the domain through virsh, and the command 'console' gave me a the thought that I should connect to the domain's console, so that, once connected, I would be able to "do anything". Am I right? I need to be able to run commands in the virtual machine. If the only way is by accessing the domain's console, how can I properly set up one? I tried several ways, following the examples in the documentation. Problem is that no matter what I wrote in the xml file about serial or console devices, it aways get overriden by null configuration when I start the domain (I can see it by using command 'edit' <domain> ). So then I tried to edit the XML through virsh and insert specifications about console or serial devices, but I never was able to sucessfully edit the file. I always got the same error message: "could not define a domain, rc=80bb0004", although the domain is in fact defined! I tried editing the XML both with the domain running and stopped. My final alternative was using command 'attach-device' passing a xml containing only the specifications of serial or console devices. I aways received an error message saying that memory limit was exceeded, although I strongly suppose that's not the real problem. I am sure that I am configuring something (or many things) wrongly, so that I am getting all those errors... My initial problem is just to be able to run commands in the newly created domain. Anybody can tell me an easier way to do this? If setting up consoles is the only way, what is going on wrongly for me? Sorry if an answer for this issue is already somewhere in the documentation, I tried to find it hard before emailing you guys! Thanks anyway!! -- Guilherme Santos G. Baptista Graduando em Ciência da Computação pela UFCG LSD - Laboratório de Sistemas Distribuídos