quickemu/docs/quickemu_conf.1.md

author	date	footer	header	section	title
Martin Wimpress	February 20, 2022	quickemu_conf	Quickemu Configuration Manual	1	QUICKEMU_CONF

NAME

quickemu_conf - Options and parameters in the quickemu <vm>.conf

DESCRIPTION

quickemu will create and run highly optimised desktop virtual machines for Linux, macOS and Windows. It uses sensible defaults, but many configuration options can be overridden in the required configuration file, which will as a minimum specify the path to the installation ISO and QEMU disk for the installed VM

OPTIONS

These are the options and defaults for the <vm>.conf file

# Lowercase variables are used in the VM config file only
boot="efi"
bridge=""
cpu_cores=""
disk_img=""
disk_size=""
fixed_iso=""
floppy=""
guest_os="linux"
img=""
iso=""
macos_release=""
port_forwards=()
preallocation="off"
ram=""
secureboot="off"
tpm="off"
usb_devices=()

EXAMPLES

guest_os="linux"
disk_img="debian-bullseye/disk.qcow2"
iso="debian-bullseye/firmware-11.0.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso"

The default macOS configuration looks like this:

guest_os="macos"
img="macos-catalina/RecoveryImage.img"
disk_img="macos-catalina/disk.qcow2"
macos_release="catalina"

• guest_os="macos" instructs Quickemu to optimise for macOS.
• macos_release="catalina" instructs Quickemu to optimise for a particular macOS release.
  • For example VirtIO Network and Memory Ballooning are available in Big Sur and newer, but not previous releases.
  • And VirtIO Block Media (disks) are supported/stable in Catalina and newer.

The default Windows 11 configuration looks like this:

guest_os="windows"
disk_img="windows-11/disk.qcow2"
iso="windows-11/Win11_EnglishInternational_x64.iso"
fixed_iso="windows-11/virtio-win.iso"
tpm="on"

• guest_os="windows" instructs quickemu to optimise for Windows.
• fixed_iso= specifies the ISO image that provides VirtIO drivers.
• tpm="on" instructs quickemu to create a software emulated TPM device using swtpm.

BIOS and EFI

Since Quickemu 2.1.0 efi is the default boot option. If you want to override this behaviour then add the following line to you VM configuration to enable legacy BIOS.

• boot="legacy" - Enable Legacy BIOS boot

Tuning CPU cores, RAM & disks

By default, Quickemu will calculate the number of CPUs cores and RAM to allocate to a VM based on the specifications of your host computer. You can override this default behaviour and tune the VM configuration to your liking.

Add additional lines to your virtual machine configuration:

• cpu_cores="4" - Specify the number of CPU cores allocated to the VM
• ram="4G" - Specify the amount of RAM to allocate to the VM
• disk_size="16G" - Specify the size of the virtual disk allocated to the VM

Disk preallocation

Preallocation mode (allowed values: off (default), metadata, falloc, full). An image with preallocated metadata is initially larger but can improve performance when the image needs to grow.

Specify what disk preallocation should be used, if any, when creating the system disk image by adding a line like this to your VM configuration.

• preallocation="metadata"

CD-ROM disks

If you want to expose an ISO image from the host to guest add the following line to the VM configuration:

• fixed_iso="/path/to/image.iso"

Floppy disks

If you're like Alan Pope you'll probably want to mount a floppy disk image in the guest. To do so add the following line to the VM configuration:

• floppy="/path/to/floppy.img"

File Sharing

All File Sharing options will only expose ~/Public (or localised variations) for the current user to the guest VMs.

Samba 🐧 🍏 🪟

If smbd is available on the host, Quickemu will automatically enable the built-in QEMU support for exposing a Samba share from the host to the guest.

You can install the minimal Samba components on Ubuntu using:

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends samba

SPICE WebDAV 🐧 🪟

• TBD

VirtIO-9P 🐧 🍏

• TBD

Network port forwarding

Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration. For example:

• port_forwards=("8123:8123" "8888:80")

In the example above:

• Port 8123 on the host is forwarded to port 8123 on the guest.
• Port 8888 on the host is forwarded to port 80 on the guest.

Bridged networking

Connect your virtual machine to a preconfigured network bridge. Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration

• bridge="br0"

USB redirection

Quickemu supports USB redirection via SPICE pass-through and host pass-through.

SPICE redirection (recommended)

Using SPICE for USB pass-through is easiest as it doesn't require any elevated permission, start Quickemu with --display spice and then select Input -> Select USB Device for redirection from the menu to choose which device(s) you want to attach to the guest.

Host redirection NOT Recommended

USB host redirection is not recommended, it is provided purely for backwards compatibility to older versions of Quickemu. Using SPICE is preferred, see above.

Add an additional line to your virtual machine configuration. For example:

• usb_devices=("046d:082d" "046d:085e")

In the example above:

• The USB device with vendor_id 046d and product_id 082d will be exposed to the guest.
• The USB device with vendor_id 046d and product_id 085e will be exposed to the guest.

If the USB devices are not writable, quickemu will display the appropriate commands to modify the USB device(s) access permissions, like this:

 - USB:      Host pass-through requested:
              - Sennheiser Communications EPOS GTW 270 on bus 001 device 005 needs permission changes:
                sudo chown -v root:user /dev/bus/usb/001/005
                ERROR! USB permission changes are required 👆

TPM

Since Quickemu 2.2.0 a software emulated TPM device can be added to guest virtual machines. Just add tpm="on" to your VM configuration. quickget will automatically add this line to Windows 11 virtual machines.

AUTHORS

Written by Martin Wimpress.

BUGS

Submit bug reports online at: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu/issues

SEE ALSO

Full sources at: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu

quickget(1), quickemu(1), quickgui(1)