KVM: Start a Virtual Machine / Guest At Boot Time

There are various ways to start virtual machines at at boot time. This means you don’t have to type virsh start vmName command. This can be done by marking a vm as autostart. To configure a domain to be automatically started at boot. It will create an softlink at /etc/libvirt/qemu/autostart/. So if your VM name is mailserver1, your config file name should be /etc/libvirt/qemu/mailserver1.xml and the softlink should be created at /etc/libvirt/qemu/autostart/mailserver1.xml

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KVM: Autostart a Domain / VM Command

Type the following command:

virsh autostart vmName
virsh autostart mailserver1

Sample outputs:

Domain mailserver1 marked as autostarted

Also, make sure /etc/init.d/libvirtd service is stared on boot:
chkconfig libvirtd on
OR
systemctl enable libvirtd

How do I disable autostarting a domain/VMs

The syntax is:
virsh autostart VMNameHere --disable
To disable auto starting freebsd vm, enter:
virsh autostart freebsd --disable
Sample outputs:

Domain freebsd unmarked as autostarted