Bellow instructions are for creating a kvm guest OS(Debian) on Debian. Though the examples are based on Debian it should be same for all other distro.
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Check if your CPU support virtualization:
grep -E --color=auto 'vmx|svm|0xc0f' /proc/cpuinfo -
Check if the host kernel support KVM:
grep CONFIG_KVM /boot/config-$(uname -r) -
Install necessary packages for QEMU/KVM:
sudo apt install qemu-system -
Create a qcow2 image for the guest:
qemu-img create -f qcow2 virtualdebian.img 50G -
Boot ISO to install the guest OS: (You need to run this as root for networking to work)
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m RAM_IN_MB -smp NUM_CPU -drive file=virtualdebian.img -cdrom debian.iso -boot d
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Install guest OS.
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Now run the guest OS with qemu whenever you want:
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2048 -cpu host -smp 2 -drive file=virtualdebian.img
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If you want to share a folder from host to guest:
- Run the guest with this command:
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2048 -cpu host -smp 2 -drive file=virtualdebian.img,if=virtio -fsdev local,security_model=passthrough,id=fsdev0,path=/path/to/host/folder -device virtio-9p-pci,id=fs0,fsdev=fsdev0,mount_tag=hostshare- In guest mount the host folder:
mount -t 9p -o trans=virtio,version=9p2000.L hostshare /path/to/mount/point
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A better alternative for sharing file would be virtiofs: Needs testing.
Debian netinst doesn't show any output if qemu is run with -nographic option while installing from ISO. You have to use -kernel /path/to/kernel with -append "console=ttyS0". Other Solutions:
- https://sites.google.com/a/palatin.fr/pierre/entries/debian-netinst-qemu
- https://superuser.com/a/1311906/460620
- https://levelup.gitconnected.com/probably-the-simplest-way-to-install-debian-ubuntu-in-qemu-2db6afde27ef
- https://serverfault.com/questions/976140/how-do-i-boot-the-debian-10-image-with-qemu-kvm
Once the installation is done you can start the VM normally.
- Download Ubuntu ARM cloud image: http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/
- Create UEFI image for qemu:
sudo apt-get install qemu-efi
cp /usr/share/qemu-efi-aarch64/QEMU_EFI.fd flash0.img
truncate -s 64M flash0.img
truncate -s 64M flash1.img
- Run Ubuntu cloud image with QEMU:
qemu-system-aarch64 -m 8G -cpu cortex-a57 -M virt,gic-version=max -smp 16 -nographic -drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=flash0.img,readonly -drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=flash1.img -drive if=none,file=focal-server-cloudimg-arm64.img,id=hd0 -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0
- Installing Debian on QEMU’s 64-bit ARM “virt” board
- Build an aarch64 UEFI image for QEMU
- Ubuntu ARM on Qemu
- How to install Ubuntu Server for Arm in a QEMU aarch64 virtual machine
- QEMU ARM limit of 123 cores : Use GIC to scale more than 8 processors
- Audio: -soundhw ac97
- Increase Resolution:
-vga virtio - Better Graphics Support: https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/SPICE
- How to mount a qcow2 disk image
- Changing the password Qemu kvm qcow2 : Uses tool
guestfishbut simply mounting the image and editing /etc/shadow directly with a text editor will work too.
- https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/tree/README?id=refs/tags/v4.3.3
- https://www.linux.com/topic/desktop/how-compile-linux-kernel-0/
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel/Traditional_compilation
- https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/253245/what-does-make-localmodconfig-do
- https://tldp.org/HOWTO/pdf/Modules.pdf
- How to debug kernel using QEMU and aarch64 VM
Quick Configure, build and install
make olddefconfig
make localmodconfig
make -j$(nproc)
make -j$(nproc) bzImage # If you want to create kernel bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
make install
- Direct Linux Boot
- Prepare the environment for developing Linux kernel with qemu.
- Booting a Custom Linux Kernel in QEMU and Debugging It With GDB