NAME

       sbuild-qemu-boot - Boot a VM using a QEMU image

SYNOPSIS

       sbuild-qemu-boot   [-h]   [--read-write]   [--snapshot]   [--shared-dir]  [--arch=ARCH]  [--ram-size=MiB]
       [--cpus=CPUs] [--ssh-port=PORT] [--noexec] IMAGE

DESCRIPTION

       sbuild-qemu-boot boots a QEMU VM using IMAGE into a console. The image is in read-only mode  by  default,
       as the goal is to support experimentation.

       The architecture is auto-guessed by stripping any file suffix and then splitting the image name on dashes
       ``-'',  and  finally  by  looking for a Debian architecture name. sid-amd64.img, amd64-temporary.image or
       even just amd64 would all be assumed to be amd64 images, but not amd64.rebuild-tests.img. If this guesses
       wrong, use the --arch option.

       Note that you might need to invoke stty(1) within the VM to match your host terminal's settings.

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Show this help message and exit.

       --read-write
              Write changes back to the image, instead of using the image in read-only mode.

       --snapshot
              Create a snapshot of the image before changing it. Useful for reproducibility purposes. Ignored if
              the image is not booted in read-write mode, which is the default.

       --shared-dir
              Share this directory on the host with the guest. This will only work when the  image  was  created
              with sbuild-qemu-create(1).

       --arch=ARCH
              Architecture to use (instead of attempting to auto-guess).

       --ram-size=MiB
              VM memory size in MB. Default: 2048

       --cpus=CPUs
              VM CPU count. Default: 2

       --ssh-port=PORT
              Forward  local  port  PORT  to  port 22 within the guest. Package openssh-server must be installed
              within the guest for this to be useful.

       --boot=auto,bios,efi,ieee1275,none
              How to boot the image. Default is BIOS on amd64 and i386, EFI on arm64 and armhf, and IEEE1275  on
              ppc64el.

       --noexec
              Don't actually do anything. Just print the command string that would be executed, and then exit.

EXAMPLES

       $ sbuild-qemu-boot --shared-dir /tmp/foo unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img

       This  will  update  the  image  unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img  in the current directory. If no such file
       exists there, then $IMAGEDIR/unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img is tried.

ENVIRONMENT

       If $IMAGEDIR is unset, then ~/.cache/sbuild is used.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2020-2022 Christian Kastner <ckk@debian.org>

SEE ALSO

       sbuild(1), sbuild-qemu(1), sbuild-qemu-create(1).

Version 0.85.10ubuntu0.2                           02 May 2025                               SBUILD-QEMU-BOOT(1)