systemd/man/systemd-vmspawn.xml

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<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later -->

<refentry id="systemd-vmspawn" conditional="ENABLE_VMSPAWN"
    xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">

  <refentryinfo>
    <title>systemd-vmspawn</title>
    <productname>systemd</productname>
  </refentryinfo>

  <refmeta>
    <refentrytitle>systemd-vmspawn</refentrytitle>
    <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
  </refmeta>

  <refnamediv>
    <refname>systemd-vmspawn</refname>
    <refpurpose>Spawn an OS in a virtual machine.</refpurpose>
  </refnamediv>

  <refsynopsisdiv>
    <cmdsynopsis>
      <command>systemd-vmspawn</command>
      <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">OPTIONS</arg>
      <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">ARGS</arg>
    </cmdsynopsis>
  </refsynopsisdiv>

  <refsect1>
    <title>Description</title>
    <para><command>systemd-vmspawn</command> may be used to start a virtual machine from an OS image. In many ways it is similar to <citerefentry
    project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>, but it
    launches a full virtual machine instead of using namespaces.</para>
  </refsect1>

  <refsect1>
    <title>Options</title>

    <para>The arguments are passed straight through to QEMU, extending its command line arguments.</para>

    <para>The following options are understood:</para>

    <refsect2>
    <title>Image Options</title>

    <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>-i</option></term>
        <term><option>--image=</option></term>

        <listitem><para>Root file system disk image (or device node) for the virtual machine.</para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>
    </refsect2>

    <refsect2>
    <title>Host Configuration</title>

    <variablelist>
      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--qemu-smp=</option><replaceable>SMP</replaceable></term>

        <listitem><para>Configures the number of CPUs to start the virtual machine with.</para>
        <para>Defaults to 1.</para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--qemu-mem=</option><replaceable>MEM</replaceable></term>

        <listitem><para>Configures the amount of memory to start the virtual machine with.</para>
        <para>Defaults to 2G.</para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--qemu-kvm=</option></term>

        <para>Configure whether to use KVM.</para>
        <para>If the option is not specified KVM support will be detected automatically.
        If yes is specified KVM is always used, and vice versa if no is set KVM is never used.</para>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--qemu-gui</option></term>

        <listitem><para>Start QEMU in graphical mode.</para></listitem>
      </varlistentry>

      <varlistentry>
        <term><option>--secboot=</option></term>

        <listitem><para>Configure whether to search for firmware which supports secure boot.</para></listitem>
        <para>If the option is not specified the first firmware which is detected will be used.
        If the option is set to yes then the first firmware with secure boot support will be selected.
        If no is specified then the first firmware without secure boot will be selected.</para>
      </varlistentry>
    </variablelist>

    </refsect2>
    <refsect2>
      <title>Credentials</title>

      <variablelist>
        <varlistentry>
          <term><option>--load-credential=</option><replaceable>ID</replaceable>:<replaceable>PATH</replaceable></term>
          <term><option>--set-credential=</option><replaceable>ID</replaceable>:<replaceable>VALUE</replaceable></term>

          <listitem><para>Pass a credential to the container. These two options correspond to the
          <varname>LoadCredential=</varname> and <varname>SetCredential=</varname> settings in unit files. See
          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
          details about these concepts, as well as the syntax of the option's arguments.</para>

          <para>In order to embed binary data into the credential data for <option>--set-credential=</option>,
          use C-style escaping (i.e. <literal>\n</literal> to embed a newline, or <literal>\x00</literal> to
          embed a <constant>NUL</constant> byte). Note that the invoking shell might already apply unescaping
          once, hence this might require double escaping!.</para>
          </listitem>
        </varlistentry>
      </variablelist>

    </refsect2><refsect2>
    <title>Other</title>

    <variablelist>
      <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="no-pager" />
      <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="help" />
      <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="version" />
    </variablelist>
   </refsect2>
  </refsect1>

  <xi:include href="common-variables.xml" />

  <refsect1>
    <title>Examples</title>

    <example>
      <title>Run an Arch Linux VM image generated by mkosi</title>

      <programlisting># mkosi -d arch -p systemd -p linux --autologin -o image.raw -f build
      # systemd-vmspawn --image=image.raw</programlisting>
    </example>
  </refsect1>

  <refsect1>
    <title>Exit status</title>

    <para>If an error occured the value errno is propagated to the return code.
    Otherwise EXIT_SUCCESS is returned.</para>
  </refsect1>

  <refsect1>
    <title>See Also</title>
    <para>
      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>mkosi</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
    </para>
  </refsect1>
</refentry>