QEMU Tutorial

Name: QEMU Tutorial
Rating: 4.6 (12 reviews)

Learn to use QEMU for system emulation

Created byQi Liang

Last updated 10/2025

English

What you'll learn

Install and start virtual machine with QEMU system emulator, and how to boot it.
Understand the QEMU image formats like raw, qcow2, and luks, and the features of backing file and snapshot.
Understand the block devices NBD and 9PFS.
Understand the network backends like user network, bridge, TAP, socket, stream, dgram, and passt.
Understand the seriral port and characater devices.

Course content

9 sections • 26 lectures • 4h 46m total length

Introduction5:11
Introduction of QEMU, explaining the difference among system emulation, user emulation, and virtualization.
Installation15:00
Demonstrate how to install QEMU binary on Linux and how to make QEMU build from source code.

Block Device Introduction8:48
Introduces the three ways to define block devices.
File based Block Device8:46
Introduces the file based block device, and the create and info command of qemu-img tool.
Image File Format - raw3:33
Introduces image file format raw, and the sub option of preallocation.
Image File Format - qcow23:08
Introduces image file format qcow2.
Image File Format - qcow2 - Backing File18:44
Introduces backing file, and the create, commit, and rebase command of qemu-img.
Image File Format - qcow2 - Snapshot7:58
Introduces how to create, list, apply, and delete snapshots from QEMU monitor and with qemu-img.
Image File Format - qcow2 - Options3:04
Introduces the format options of qcow2, cluster_size, preallocation, and refcount.
Image File Format - luks9:04
Introduces image file format of luks.
Block Devices - NBD & 9PFS18:16
Introduces the protocol-based block device, NBD and 9PFS. The image file can be exposed locally or remotely via network with NBD. With 9PFS, the host can mount the image file with Plan 9 Filesystem protocol.

User Network17:26
Introduces QEMU user network, and how to have two VMs using user network talk to each other.
Bridge + TAP Network24:42
Introduces Bridge + TAP network, including network backend of tap and bridge.
Socket Network12:22
Introduces Socket network, including the TCP-based one, and the UDP multicasting one.
Stream Network7:19
Introduce Stream network, using inet socket, unix domain socket, or file descriptor.
DGRAM Network8:51
Introduces DGRAM network, including UDP multicasting and bidirectional UDP channels.
Passt Network15:21
Introduces Passt server and Passt network, including how to make system emulator with Passt support for Passt network backend.
Network Summary3:58
Summaries the network backends of user, bridge, tap, socket, stream, dgram, and passt.

Requirements

Linux commands.
An x86 machine with Linux installed.

Description

QEMU is the open-source tool for system emulation, user-space emulation, and virtualization. It contains a lot of features and options for emulation. This course will teache you how to use QEMU for system emulation. It includes the following topics.

1. Install QEMU with binary and make QEMU from source code;

2. Install and start virtual machine with QEMU system emulator;

3. Define machine type, virtual CPUs, and memory for virtual machine with QEMU system emulator;

4. Define NUMA nodes for the emulation of NUMA architecture machine;

5. Introduce QEMU image file formats like raw, qcow2, and luks, and demonstrate how to use them;

6. Demonstrate the qcow2 features of backing file, and snapshots;

7. Define the emulated block device with QEMU image file, NBD (Network Block Device), and 9PFS (Plan 9 Filesystem);

8. Introduce QEMU display options like VNC;

9. Introduce the virtual networks like user network, bridge + tap network, socket network, stream network, dgram network, and passt network;

10. Introduce QEMU boot options like -boot, -bios, -pflash, -kernel, -append, and -initrd;

11. Introduce the serial port option and the character devices like file, stdio, socket, pty, and hub.

This course provides many sample script files of the above QEMU features, and demonstrates them with script files, so that you can set up your own virtual machine referring to them.

Who this course is for:

Any person with the interests in QEMU technology.

QEMU Tutorial

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction2 lectures • 20min

Your First QEMU VM1 lecture • 21min

QEMU Machine, CPU, and Memory3 lectures • 36min

Block Devices9 lectures • 1hr 21min

Display1 lecture • 10min

Virtual Network7 lectures • 1hr 30min

Boot Options1 lecture • 8min

Serial Port and Character Device1 lecture • 20min

Thank You1 lecture • 1min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: