I have a centos3 based legacy distribution with all the desktop environment removed. I have only access via command line. I am now asked to run a centos 6.1 distribution on a virtual machine on this system. From what I understand, the virtual machine software (qemu, vmplayer, virtual box) will have to create a window to show the guest operating system  and will therefore need a desktop environment. Is there any way possible to run centos 6.1 via virtual machine without a desktop environment? 
Is there any way to deploy an virtual machine software via command line on centos3
centos;virtual machine
It's the VM that will need a (virtual) graphics card, not the host.Just use the -vnc option to kvm/qemu and connect to that VNC server from a machine that has a graphical interface (any machine with a VNC viewer even MS-WIN will do).kvm -hda your-disk.img -cdrom installer.iso -m 1024 -boot d -vnc :0 -monitor stdioAnd connect from the VNC viewer to the-host:0.-monitor stdio is so you can control that VM (shutdown, attach devices, send keys...) from the command line.