Document Actions

QEMU on FreeBSD

by Khairil Yusof — last modified 2007-06-07 09:04 AM

Using QEMU processor emulator on FreeBSD

Installing QEMU

Is straightforward, although to take advantage of virtualisation features it is recommended to build the kqemu accellerator module.

        cd /usr/ports/emulators/qemu   

        make WITH_KQEMU=1 install clean

Loading up the kqemu kernel module

        kldload kqemu

You may want to do this automatically at boot time by adding the following line to your /boot/loader.conf

        kqemu_load="YES"

If during make you chose to use DMA for IDE, you will also need to load the aio kernel module

kldload aio

Using QEMU for the first time

QEMU is really easy to use. We will install Centos Linux in this example.

Disk image

This will be the disk image that will be used as the hard disk for the virtual installation.

            qemu-img centos.img 8G

This will create an 8GB disk image for your installation called centos.img This is straightforward, but you can use the -h option to see other options.

Making sure SDL is working

QEMU uses SDL for video output, you may need to specific the video option for SDL in your shell environment:

SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11

Booting QEMU and installation

            qemu -cdrom CentOS-4.2-i386-bin1of4.iso -hda centos.img

            -boot d

This will boot from cdrom loaded with CentOS disk 1 iso, and use our recently created disk image as the first IDE hard disk.

If all goes well you will get the CentOS boot screen

Centos-Boot

QEMU console

The QEMU console is very useful for a few basic tasks. It is accessed by pressing ctrl-alt-2.

Changing Disks
When you are installing certain distributions like Centos you will need to change disks. When the time comes, you switch to the QEMU console and type
```
                    eject cdrom

                    change cdrom CentOS-4.2-i386-bin2of4.iso
```
Sending key combination commands
Another common use is when you want to switch to the console from graphical display in your virtual session. For example to access VTY1 you would switch to the console and type:
```
                    sendkey ctrl-alt-f1
```

You can switch back to the virtual session by pressing ctrl-alt-1

Sources: