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author	date	footer	header	section	title
Martin Wimpress	August 19, 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"

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

If everything is set up correctly, the smbd address will be printed when the virtual machine is started. For example:

 - smbd:     On guest: smb://10.0.2.4/qemu

If using a Windows guest, right-click on "This PC", click "Add a network location", and paste this address, removing smb: and replacing forward slashes with backslashes (in this example \\10.0.2.4\qemu).

SPICE WebDAV 🐧 🪟

VirtIO-9P 🐧 🍏

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.

Disable networking

To completely disable all network interfaces in a guest VM add this additional line to your virtual machine configuration:

network="none"

Restricted networking

You can isolate the guest from the host (and broader network) using the restrict option, which will restrict networking to just the guest and any virtual devices.

This can be used to prevent software running inside the guest from phoning home while still providing a network inside the guest. Add this additional line to your virtual machine configuration:

network="restrict"

Bridged networking

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

network="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.