System Emulation

This section of the manual is the overall guide for users using QEMU for full system emulation (as opposed to user-mode emulation). This includes working with hypervisors such as KVM, Xen or Hypervisor.Framework.

• Introduction
  • Virtualisation Accelerators
  • Feature Overview
  • Running
• Invocation
  • Standard options
  • Block device options
  • USB convenience options
  • Display options
  • i386 target only
  • Network options
  • Character device options
  • TPM device options
  • Boot Image or Kernel specific
  • Debug/Expert options
  • Generic object creation
  • Device URL Syntax
• Device Emulation
  • Common Terms
    • Device Front End
    • Device Buses
    • Device Back End
    • Device Pass Through
  • Emulated Devices
    • CAN Bus Emulation Support
    • Chip Card Interface Device (CCID)
    • Compute Express Link (CXL)
    • Inter-VM Shared Memory device
    • Sparc32 keyboard
    • Network emulation
    • NVMe Emulation
    • USB emulation
    • vhost-user back ends
    • virtio-gpu
    • virtio pmem
    • virtio sound
    • QEMU vhost-user-rng - RNG emulation
    • CanoKey QEMU
    • Universal Second Factor (U2F) USB Key Device
    • igb
• Keys in the graphical frontends
• Keys in the character backend multiplexer
• QEMU Monitor
  • Commands
  • Integer expressions
• Disk Images
  • Quick start for disk image creation
  • Snapshot mode
  • VM snapshots
  • Disk image file formats
  • Read-only formats
  • Using host drives
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • Mac OS X
  • Virtual FAT disk images
  • NBD access
  • iSCSI LUNs
  • GlusterFS disk images
  • Secure Shell (ssh) disk images
  • NVMe disk images
  • Disk image file locking
  • Filter drivers
• QEMU virtio-net standby (net_failover)
  • Restrictions
  • Usecase
  • Usage
  • Hotplug
  • Migration
• Direct Linux Boot
• Generic Loader
  • Loading Data into Memory Values
  • Setting a CPU’s Program Counter
  • Loading Files
  • Restrictions and ToDos
• Guest Loader
  • Arguments
• QEMU Barrier Client
• VNC security
  • Without passwords
  • With passwords
  • With x509 certificates
  • With x509 certificates and client verification
  • With x509 certificates, client verification and passwords
  • With SASL authentication
  • With x509 certificates and SASL authentication
  • Configuring SASL mechanisms
• TLS setup for network services
  • Setup the Certificate Authority
  • Issuing server certificates
  • Issuing client certificates
  • TLS x509 credential configuration
  • TLS Pre-Shared Keys (PSK)
• Providing secret data to QEMU
  • INSECURE: Passing secrets as clear text inline
  • Passing secrets as clear text via a file
  • Passing secrets as cipher text inline
  • Passing secrets via the Linux keyring
  • Best practice
• Client authorization
  • Identity providers
  • Authorization drivers
    • Simple
    • List
    • List file
    • PAM
  • Connecting backends
• GDB usage
  • Breakpoint and Watchpoint support
  • Relocating code
  • Debugging user-space in system emulation
  • Debugging multicore machines
  • Using unix sockets
  • Advanced debugging options
    • Changing single-stepping behaviour
    • Examining physical memory
  • Security considerations
• Record/replay
  • Core idea
  • Instruction counting
  • Block devices
  • Snapshotting
  • Network devices
  • Audio devices
  • Serial ports
  • Reverse debugging
• Managed start up options
• Managing device boot order with bootindex properties
  • Example
  • Limitations
  • Mixing bootindex and boot order parameters
• Virtual CPU hotplug
  • vCPU hotplug
  • vCPU hot-unplug
• Persistent reservation managers
  • Defining a persistent reservation manager
  • Multipath devices and persistent reservations
• QEMU System Emulator Targets
  • Arm System emulator
    • Choosing a board model
    • Board-specific documentation
    • Emulated CPU architecture support
    • Arm CPU features
  • AVR System emulator
  • ColdFire System emulator
  • MIPS System emulator
    • Supported CPU model configurations on MIPS hosts
    • nanoMIPS System emulator
  • PowerPC System emulator
    • Board-specific documentation
  • OpenRISC System emulator
    • Choosing a board model
    • Board-specific documentation
    • Emulated CPU architecture support
    • OpenRISC CPU features
  • RISC-V System emulator
    • Choosing a board model
    • Board-specific documentation
    • RISC-V CPU firmware
  • RX System emulator
  • s390x System emulator
    • Device support
    • Architectural features
  • Sparc32 System emulator
  • Sparc64 System emulator
  • x86 System emulator
    • Board-specific documentation
    • Architectural features
    • OS requirements
  • Xtensa System emulator
• Security
  • Overview
  • Security Requirements
    • Virtualization Use Case
    • Non-virtualization Use Case
  • Architecture
    • Guest Isolation
    • Principle of Least Privilege
    • Isolation mechanisms
  • Sensitive configurations
    • Monitor console (QMP and HMP)
• Multi-process QEMU
  • 1) Configuration
  • 2) Usage
• Confidential Guest Support
  • Running a Confidential Guest
  • Supported mechanisms
• QEMU VM templating
  • Overview
  • !!! Security Alert !!!
  • Memory configuration
  • Incompatible features
    • vhost-user and multi-process QEMU
    • virtio-balloon
    • virtio-mem
    • VM migration