qemu-2.8.0

egrep '^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

[*] Virtualization:  --->                            [CONFIG_VIRTUALIZATION]
  <*/M>   Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) support [CONFIG_KVM]
  <*/M>     KVM for Intel processors support         [CONFIG_KVM_INTEL]
  <*/M>     KVM for AMD processors support           [CONFIG_KVM_AMD]

[*] Networking support  --->                         [CONFIG_NET]
  Networking options  --->
    <*/M> 802.1d Ethernet Bridging                   [CONFIG_BRIDGE]
Device Drivers  --->
  [*] Network device support  --->                   [CONFIG_NETDEVICES]
    <*/M>    Universal TUN/TAP device driver support [CONFIG_TUN]

groupadd -g 61 kvm

usermod -a -G kvm <username>

if [ $(uname -m) = i686 ]; then
   QEMU_ARCH=i386-softmmu
else
   QEMU_ARCH=x86_64-softmmu
fi

mkdir -vp build &&
cd        build &&

../configure --prefix=/usr               \
             --sysconfdir=/etc           \
             --target-list=$QEMU_ARCH    \
             --audio-drv-list=alsa       \
             --with-sdlabi=2.0           \
             --docdir=/usr/share/doc/qemu-2.8.0 &&

unset QEMU_ARCH &&

make

make install

cat > /lib/udev/rules.d/65-kvm.rules << "EOF"
KERNEL=="kvm", GROUP="kvm", MODE="0660"
EOF

chgrp kvm  /usr/libexec/qemu-bridge-helper &&
chmod 4750 /usr/libexec/qemu-bridge-helper

ln -sv qemu-system-`uname -m` /usr/bin/qemu

Using Qemu

Since using qemu means using a virtual computer, the steps to set up the virtual machine are in close analogy with those to set up a real computer. You'll need to decide about CPU, memory, disk, USB devices, network card(s), screen size, etc. Once the “hardware” is decided, you'll have for example to choose how to connect the machine to internet, and/or to install an OS. In the following, we show basic ways of performing those steps. But qemu is much more than this, and it is strongly advised to read the qemu documentation in /usr/share/doc/qemu-2.8.0/qemu-doc.html.

Disk

A virtual disk may be set up in the following way:

VDISK_SIZE=50G
VDISK_FILENAME=vdisk.img
qemu-img create -f qcow2 $VDISK_FILENAME $VDISK_SIZE

The virtual disk size and filename should be ajusted as desired. The actual size of the file will be less than specified, but will expand as needed, so it is safe to put a high value.

Operating System

To install an operating system, download an iso image from your prefered Linux distribution. For the purposes of this example, we'll use Fedora-16-x86_64-Live-LXDE.iso in the current directory. Run the following:

qemu -enable-kvm                           \
     -drive file=$VDISK_FILENAME           \
     -cdrom Fedora-16-x86_64-Live-LXDE.iso \
     -boot d                               \
     -m 1G

Follow the normal installation procedures for the chosen distribution. The -boot option specifies the boot order of drives as a string of drive letters. Valid drive letters are: a, b (floppy 1 and 2), c (first hard disk), d (first CD-ROM). The -m option is the amount of memory to use for the virtual machine. The choice depends on the load of the host. Modern distributions should be comfortable with 1GB. The -enable-kvm option allows hardware acceleration. Without this switch, the emulation is much slower.

Defining the virtual hardware

The virtual machine hardware is defined by the qemu command line. An example command is given below:

qemu -enable-kvm                     \
     -smp 4                          \
     -cpu host                       \
     -m 1G                           \
     -drive file=$VDISK_FILENAME     \
     -cdrom grub-img.iso             \
     -boot order=c,once=d,menu=on    \
     -net nic,netdev=net0            \
     -netdev user,id=net0            \
     -soundhw ac97                   \
     -vga std                        \
     -serial mon:stdio               \
     -name "fedora-16"

Meaning of the command line options

-enable-kvm: enable full KVM virtualization support. On some hardware, it may be necessary to add the undocumented -machine smm=off option in order to enable KVM.

-smp <N>: enable symmetric multiprocessing with <N> CPUs.

-cpu <model>: simulate CPU <model>. the list of supported models can be obtained with -cpu help.

-drive file=<filename>: defines a virtual disk whose image is stored in <filename>.

-cdrom grub-img.iso: defines an iso formated file to use as a cdrom. Here we use a grub rescue disk, which may turn handy when something goes wrong at boot time.

-boot order=c,once=d,menu=on: defines the boot order for the virtual BIOS.

-net nic,netdev=<netid>: defines a network card connected to the network device with id <netid>.

-netdev user,id=<netid>: defines the network “user” device. This is a virtual local network with addresses 10.0.2.0/24, where the host has address 10.0.2.2 and acts as a gateway to internet, and with a name server at address 10.0.2.3, and an smb server at address 10.0.2.4. A builtin DHCP server can allocate addresses between 10.0.2.15 and 10.0.2.31.

-soundhw <model>: defines the soundcard model. The list may be obtained with -soundhw help.

-vga <type>: defines the type of vga card to emulate.

-serial mon:stdio: sends the serial port of the guest (/dev/ttyS0 on linux guests), multiplexed with the qemu monitor, to the standard input and output of the qemu process.

-name <name>: sets the name of the guest. This name is displayed in the guest window caption. It may be useful if you run several guests at the same time.

Controling the Emulated Display

It may happen that the guest window displayed by qemu does not correspond to the full capability of the emulated vga card. For example, the vmware card is 1600x900 capable, but only 1024x768 is displayed by default. A suitable Xorg configuration on the guest allows to use the full size (Note that the Xorg video driver to use is Xorg VMware Driver-13.2.1):

cat > /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-vmware.conf << "EOF"
Section         "Monitor"
  Identifier    "Monitor0"
  # cvt 1600 900
  # 1600x900 59.95 Hz (CVT 1.44M9) hsync: 55.99 kHz; pclk: 118.25 MHz
  Modeline      "1600x900"  118.25  1600 1696 1856 2112  900 903 908 934 -hsync +vsync
  Option        "PreferredMode" "1600x900"
  HorizSync     1-200
  VertRefresh   1-200
EndSection

Section         "Device"
  Identifier    "VMware SVGA II Adapter"
  Option        "Monitor" "default"
  Driver        "vmware"
EndSection

Section         "Screen"
  Identifier    "Default Screen"
  Device        "VMware SVGA II Adapter"
  Monitor       "Monitor0"

  SubSection    "Display"
    Depth       24
    Modes       "1600x900" "1440x900" "1366x768" "1280x720" "800x480"
  EndSubSection

EndSection
EOF

New sizes will be available besides the native ones. You need to restart X in order to have the new sizes available.

Networking

The above solution for networking allows the guest to access the local network through the host (and possibly to access internet through the local routers), but the converse is not true. Not even the host can access the guest, unless port forwarding is enabled. And in the case several guests are running, they cannot communicate with each other. Other network devices can be used for this purpose. For example, there is the “socket” device, which allows several guests to share a common virtual network. In the following, we describe in more details how to set up the “bridge” device, which allows the guests to appear as if connected to the local network. All the commands below should be run as the root user.

Set up bridging with bridge-utils-1.6. Only the physical interface(s) should be set up at boot. The virtual interface(s) will be added as needed when qemu is started.

Set up a required configuration file:

install -vdm 755 /etc/qemu &&
echo allow br0 > /etc/qemu/bridge.conf

In the command above, replace the switch -netdev user,... with -netdev bridge,id=net0.