vm-utils

Scripts to manage QEMU-based VMs.

Why?

I didn't like libvirt.

Installation

Copy the vm folder to your /etc, or elsewhere and adjust the rootdir= statements in the scripts/ files. Optionally, make symlinks for vm-<script> to /etc/vm/scripts/<script> in your /usr/local/sbin, and copy init.rc to /etc/init.d/vm for an OpenRC init script. It can be copied as vm.<name> as well to only start a specific VM.

You're gonna want to have socat and qemu-system-x86_64 installed, as well as KVM (CONFIG_KVM) and macvtap (CONFIG_MACVLAN) support in your kernel.

Setup

These scripts presume a setup like Hetzner, where IPv4s and IPv6 ranges are directly routed to your machine and a macvtap interface can accept them.

Overview

• machines.d: Main VM configurations for QEMU;
• conf: VM configurations for vm-utils;
• include: Include files for VM configurations;
• scripts: Various scripts to automate VM management:
  • start: Start a VM named by machines.d/<name>.conf;
  • stop: Stop a VM named by machines.d/<name>conf;
  • attach: Attach to management console of VM named by machines.d/<name.conf>;
  • launch: Launch VM in current terminal session and attach to management console; used by start
  • ifup/ifdown: Network interface management scripts;

Adding a new VM

1. Add an entry in machines.d, see example.conf for format;
2. Add an entry in conf, see example.conf for format;
3. Create a new disk: qemu-img create -f qcow2 /var/vm/disks/<name>qcow2 <size>G;
4. Start the VM: scripts/start <name>.

License

WTFPL; see LICENSE for details.