Quickemu
Quickemu

Simple shell script to manage Qemu virtual machines.

Quickemu Screenshot

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## Introduction Quickemu is a very simple script to "manage" Qemu virtual machines. Each virtual machine configuration is broadly the same requiring minimal setup. The main objective of the project is to enable quick testing of desktop Linux distributions where the virtual machines can be stored anywhere, such as external USB storage. See the video where I explain my motivations for creating this script. [![Replace VirtualBox with Bash & QEMU](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AOTYWEgw0hI/0.jpg)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTYWEgw0hI) ## Installation ### Ubuntu 19.10 or newer Install qemu ```bash sudo apt install qemu qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon bridge-utils ovmf sudo adduser ${SUDO_USER} kvm ``` Install `samba` *(optional)* if you want to share home directories with guest virtual machines ```bash sudo apt install samba ``` Install the `qemu-virgil` snap *(optional)* ```bash snap install qemu-virgil snap connect qemu-virgil:kvm snap connect qemu-virgil:removable-media ``` ## Usage * Download a .iso image of a Linux distribution * Create a VM configuration file; for example `ubuntu.conf` ``` iso="/media/$USER/Quickemu/ubuntu/focal-desktop-amd64.iso" disk_img="/media/$USER/Quickemu/ubuntu/focal-desktop-amd64.qcow2 disk=128G ``` * Use `quickemu.sh` to start the virtual machine: ``` ./quickemu --vm ubuntu-focal-desktop.conf ``` Here are the full usage instructions: ``` Usage quickemu --vm ubuntu.conf You can also pass optional parameters --delete : Delete the disk image. --efi : Enable EFI BIOS (experimental). --restore : Restore the snapshot. --snapshot : Create a disk snapshot. --virgil : Use virgil, if available. ``` ## TODO - [x] Make display configuration more robust - [ ] Improve stdout presentation - [ ] Make disk image optionally size configurable