To be able to use virsh console to access a vm console directly from a KVM host, a serial port in the vm needs to be configured.
Debian/Ubuntu
Create a serial port
Create file /etc/init/ttyS0.conf with the following content
exec /sbin/getty -8 115200 ttyS0 xterm
Configure GRUB
Configure GRUB to start output to our serial port
in file /etc/default/grub/ add console=ttyS0
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”console=ttyS0″
Update GRUB
Update GRUB for the changes to take effect on the next boot, by executing the following command
update-grub2