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Provision Machines with QEMU ​

QEMU is an open source virtualization tool, which allows you to launch VMs on many different architectures. Using QEMU together with meltcloud is handy to quickly get a node joined to your meltcloud clusters.

Prerequisites ​

  1. Create an Enrollment Image or reuse an existing one
  2. Download the .iso file for your architecture (amd64 or arm64) used to launch the QEMU virtual machine.

Launch a Virtual Machine with QEMU ​

Directly launch a virtual machine using QEMU and the previously generated .iso enrollment image.

shell
# install QEMU
brew install qemu

# setup a path to store your QEMU disk files
disks_path=./melt-disks
mkdir -p ${disks_path}

# create a disk for the ephemeral root device that holds docker images
disk_path=${disks_path}/melt-node.qcow2
qemu-img create -f qcow2 $disk_path 10g

# add efi-vars to persist bootorder settings
efi_vars=${disks_path}/efi-vars.fd
cp $(brew --prefix qemu)/share/qemu/edk2-arm-vars.fd $efi_vars

# Enrollment Image ISO path - adjust it to your filename
enrollment_iso="$HOME/Downloads/enrollment-image-arm64.iso"

# assign a UUID - be aware that creating a new UUID will create a new machine in meltcloud
machine_uuid=$(uuidgen)

mem=3G # requires at least 3GB - give more for more workload
cpus=6 # no minimum requirement for CPU, but let's give it some power!

# start the machine (Ctrl-a, release, hit x to exit)
qemu-system-aarch64 \
  --uuid $machine_uuid \
  -m $mem \
  -smp $cpus \
  -netdev user,id=net1 \
  -device nec-usb-xhci,id=usb-bus \
  -device usb-storage,drive=meltcloud-iso,removable=true,bus=usb-bus.0 \
  -drive if=none,id=meltcloud-iso,media=cdrom,file=${enrollment_iso},readonly=on \
  -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net1,bus=pcie.0,addr=0x19 \
  -drive file=$(brew --prefix qemu)/share/qemu/edk2-aarch64-code.fd,if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on \
  -drive file=${efi_vars},if=pflash,format=raw \
  -hda ${disk_path} \
  -machine virt \
  -accel hvf \
  -cpu host \
  -nographic
shell
# install QEMU
sudo apt install qemu-system ovmf
sudo adduser `id -un` kvm

# setup a path to store your QEMU disk files
disks_path=./melt-disks
mkdir -p ${disks_path}

mem=3G # requires at least 3GB - give more for more workload
cpus=2

# create a disk for the ephemeral root device that holds docker images
disk_path=${disks_path}/melt-node.qcow2
qemu-img create -f qcow2 $disk_path 10g

# add efi-vars to persist bootorder settings
efi_vars=${disks_path}/efi-vars.fd
cp /usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_VARS_4M.fd $efi_vars

# Enrollment Image ISO path - adjust it to your filename
enrollment_iso="$HOME/Downloads/enrollment-image-amd64.iso"

# assign a UUID - be aware that creating a new UUID will create a new machine in meltcloud
machine_uuid=$(uuidgen)

# start the machine (To exit press Alt + 2, then type "quit")
qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -uuid $machine_uuid \
  -m $mem \
  -accel kvm \
  -smp $cpus \
  -cdrom $enrollment_iso \
  -cpu host \
  -netdev user,id=hostnet0 \
  -device e1000,netdev=hostnet0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 \
  -drive file=$disk_path,if=virtio \
  -drive file=/usr/share/OVMF/OVMF_CODE_4M.fd,if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on \
  -drive file=${efi_vars},if=pflash,format=raw \
  -boot order=d