QEMU and HVF

0 - setup

# Summary
A few notes I took to see if I could use MacOS as Hypevirsor in a similar fashion to Linux
I wanted to see how few addons were needed instead of using Parallels, Virtual Box, VM Fsion etc.
The idea is to use QEMU, Hypervisor Framework (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hypervisor) and some custom host networking.

# Installations
brew install qemu (For controlling Hypervisor Framework)
brew install cdrtools (For making cloud init iso's)
http://tuntaposx.sourceforge.net/download.xhtml (For customer tap based networking)

# Helpful Links (Mostly for the networking stuff)
https://davidhamann.de/2017/04/19/sharing-vpn-on-macos/
https://github.com/ckujau/scripts/blob/master/qemu-tap.sh
https://superuser.com/questions/596095/how-do-i-bridge-a-connection-from-wi-fi-to-tap-on-mac-os-x-for-the-emulator-qe
https://blog.san-ss.com.ar/2016/04/setup-nat-network-for-qemu-macosx
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-configure-static-ip-address-on-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-configure-a-static-ip-address-in-ubuntu-server-18-04/
http://osxdaily.com/2015/06/24/load-unload-kernel-extensions-mac-os-x/

1 - qemu commands

#Static Builds
## Creata disk
qemu-img create -f qcow2 server1.img 10G

## Install the OS onto the disk
qemu-system-x86_64 -M accel=hvf --cpu host -hda server1.img -cdrom ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso -boot d -m 2048      

## Boot the server
qemu-system-x86_64 -M accel=hvf --cpu host server1.img -m 2048

## Boot the server with some custom networking
## This requires some additional configuration on the host to make work.
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -M accel=hvf --cpu host server1.img -m 2048 -netdev tap,id=tap0,script=no,downscript=no -device e1000,netdev=tap0
## This requires some scripts at /etc/qemu-ifup and /etc/qemu-ifdown
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -M accel=hvf --cpu host server1.img -m 2048 -net nic,model=virtio -net tap,br=/dev/bridge1,id=tap0

# Cloud Based Images

## Create the meta-data and user-data files (samples are the other files in this gist)

## Create the init iso
mkisofs -output init.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock {user-data,meta-data}

## Boot the cloud image
qemu-system-x86_64 -M accel=hvf --cpu host -hda ubuntu-18.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.img --cdrom init.iso -boot d -m 2048

## Working on making this work with custom networking this was a pain to do without having ssh access to login to the server and test stuff out.

## Once the network is all settled I can work on headless most and some automation to bring up and down the VM's via Ansible.

2 - meta-data

# sample cloud init meta-data file, everything below this line.
instance-id: k8sm1
local-hostname: k8sm1

3 - user-data

# sample cloud init user-data file, everything below this line.
#cloud-config
#obviously for demo purposes only, would want to inject ssh keys here.
#sets the ubuntu user password, root user password and allows password ssh vs key based ssh.
hostname: k8sm1
fqdn: k8sm1
ssh_pwauth: True
password: password
chpasswd:
  list: |
    root:password
  expire: False

I guess this is for an Intel based Mac, is it? Or did it work on an M1 machine?

@vaibhav-kaushal. This is from Intel based MAC.

I can also confirm, hvf support does not work in qemu under M1 chipsets using x86_64 emulation, using the version of qemu in brew (6.2.0) nor built from upstream git source with --enable-hvf. That support does get compiled into the aarch64 qemu binary, but not the x86_64 qemu binary.

Likewise UTM, adding the -accel hvf flag throws a warning, because the embedded qemu that ships with UTM, also does not support hvf.