qvm-ctl

QEMU/KVM wrapper. Repeatable VM lifecycles without libvirt.

Requirements

• qemu (qemu-system-x86_64, qemu-img)
• OVMF/edk2 (UEFI firmware)
• bash ≥ 4
• SPICE viewer (remote-viewer or virt-viewer) — optional, for display

Arch: sudo pacman -S qemu-full edk2-ovmf virt-viewer
Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils ovmf virt-viewer

Install

git clone https://github.com/youruser/qvm-ctl.git
cd qvm-ctl
sudo install -m755 qvm-ctl.sh /usr/local/bin/qvm

The installed command is qvm. The repo name is qvm-ctl.

Usage

qvm create <name> <iso>     Create a VM
qvm launch <name>           Boot with ISO attached
qvm launch <name> --no-iso  Boot from disk only
qvm stop   <name>           Graceful shutdown
qvm list                    Show all VMs
qvm disable <name>          Stop + delete a VM
qvm version                 Print version

VMs are stored in ~/vms/<name>/ by default. Override with QVM_DIR:

QVM_DIR=/data/vms qvm create archlinux /path/to/archlinux.iso
QVM_DIR=/data/vms qvm launch archlinux

The name passed to create becomes a subdirectory of QVM_DIR. Do not create that directory beforehand — qvm create will fail if it already exists.

Environment

QVM_DIR    VM storage (default: ~/vms)
QVM_RAM    RAM in MB  (default: 8192)
QVM_CPUS   vCPUs      (default: 4)
QVM_DISK   Disk size  (default: 40G)