kuemu

Bash declarative QEMU tool

Documentation

Config

KUEMU_DISK_PATH - set this to your appropriate location of virtual machine images.

QEMU_BIOS_ROM, QEMU_UEFI_ROM, QEMU_UEFI_NVRAM - ensure they exist in your filesystem. If not, install required packages and firmware, for example for UEFI ROMs You need OVMF EDK2.

Syntax

name "name of virtual machine - set the name of VM. This also will be used in calculation of disk path

arch "arch-suffix - will be translated into qemu-system-, like qemu-system-x86_64

machine "machine" - QEMU uses machine presets, that populates buses, devices and such. Recommended: q35

cpu "cpu" - host, or custom cpu config

smp num-cores - refers to amount of cores

ram 1024m - same as -m parameter of QEMU. For example, 1G or 1024M are accepted.

vga vga-type - VGA device. Recommended: qxl

monitor - spawn QEMU monitor, useful for troubleshooting

spice or spice <port> - spawn SPICE graphics server. Connect with spicy

no_acpi - disables ACPI. Needed for running old operating systems.

Path calculation:

"name" translates to $KUEMU_DISK_PATH/name.img, "name" "fd" - $KUEMU_DISK_PATH/name.fd

uefi - loads UEFI ROMs, populates NVRAM variables into VM images path, like $KUEMU_DISK_PATH/name-nvram.fd

bios - loads BIOS ROM. Better don't use it, since QEMU has its own defaults.

ide_disk "disk-name", sata_disk "name", virtio_disk "name" - creates IDE/SATA/Virtio disk drives, where name translates to $KUEMU_DISK_PATH/vm_name-name.img. When name is empty string, it will translate just to virtual machine's name, like $KUEMU_DISK_PATH/vm_name.img

ide_cdrom "path", sata_cdrom "path", virtio_cdrom "path" - creates IDE/SATA/Virtio CDROMs, where "path" must be full path to file.

network "device-model" "tap" "tap-name" "mac-address" - create network device. For model, you either specify e1000, when guest doesn't have virtio drivers, or virtio-net for virtio network device. Example: network "virtio-net" "tap" "vnet0tap1" "52:54:00:12:34:56"

kuemu_start - finishes QEMU argument building and spawns virtual machine.

Examples

Full virtio guest

#!/usr/bin/env bash

source kuemu.sh

name      "freebsd-dev"
arch      "x86_64"
machine   "q35"
smp       4
ram       "4G"
vga       "qxl"
monitor
spice
uefi
virtio_disk ""
network   "virtio-net" "tap" "vnet0tap1" "d6:7d:05:31:93:61"

kuemu_start

Windows 7

#!/usr/bin/env bash

source kuemu.sh

name      "win7"
arch      "x86_64"
machine   "q35"
smp       4
ram       "4G"
vga       "qxl"
monitor
spice
uefi
sata_disk ""
network   "e1000" "tap" "vnet0tap1" "d6:7d:05:31:93:61"

kuemu_start