bashvirt

A simple bash script for launching QEMU virtual machine.

Libvirt is overkill for personal use, you just need several lines of commands to launch a dedicated virtual machine.

If you want to learn the detail of what the script actually do, read the blog post QEMU Install Windows 11 Guest

Usage

First, download this repo to you local storage, such as home directory:

$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/undus5/bashvirt.git

Next, let's say you want to create a virtual machine running Windows 11.

1, create a directory for storing virtual machine related files, say ~/vms/win11:

$ mkdir -p ~/vms/win11
$ cd ~/vms/win11

2, create disk image file for the virtual machine:

$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.qcow2 -o nocow=on 40G

3, create or copy template script to the vm directory, there are comments documentation in the script:

$ cp ~/bashvirt/template.sh ~/vms/win11/run.sh

4, assume you have already downloaded Windows 11 and VirtIO iso images to ~/Downloads, then edit the script with text editor:

#!/usr/bin/bash

_vmdir=~/vms/win11

_cpus=4
_memory=8G
_boot_mode=uefi
_tpm_on=yes
_nic_mode=user
_disk_drive=virtio
_nic_drive=virtio
_gpu_drive=std
_boot_iso=~/Downloads/win11.iso
_virtio_iso=~/Downloads/virtio.iso
_qemu_options_ext="${_qemu_options_ext} -drive file=${_virtio_iso},media=cdrom"

source ~/bashvirt/bashvirt.sh

5, run the script to lanuch virtual machine and install operating system:

$ chmod u+x ~/vms/win11/run.sh
$ ~/vms/win11/run.sh

if anything go wrong, it would generate a log file called qemu_err.log.

6, after installation finished, shutdown the virtual machine, edit the script again, comment out the iso images part, or it would boot from iso every time:

...

_gpu_drive=virtio
#_boot_iso=~/Downloads/win11.iso
#_virtio_iso=~/Downloads/virtio.iso
#_qemu_options_ext="${_qemu_options_ext} -drive file=${_virtio_iso},media=cdrom"

...

All Done.

Options

Run ~/vms/win11/run.sh -h to get help info.

usage: run.sh [actions]
actions:
                            boot virtual machine normally without arguments
    usb-attach <device_id>  passthrough usb device to virtual machine
    usb-detach <device_id>  detach usb device
    usb-list                list attached devices
    monitor-exec            send command to qemu monitor
    monitor-connect         connect qemu monitor
    -h, --help, help        help info
device_id:
    looks like "1d6b:0002", get from command `lsusb`