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Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

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Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#111

Post by stracer »

_joel wrote: post #28

Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms.

Libvirt and virt-manager are just simplified user interface to the real software, which is qemu(and KVM). They solve pretty trivial problems, like parsing config file and passing the right options to the qemu binary.

Yes, they have some additional useful administration features like start/stop based on a config file, serial console access, but these are really simple to implement in your own shell scripts. Storage handling in libvirt is horrible, verbose, complex, yet it can't even work with thin LVs or ZFS properly.

Unless you just want to run stuff the standard corporate way and do not care about learning fundamental software like qemu and shell, or require some obscure feature of libvirt, I recommend using qemu on KVM directly, using your own scripts. You'll learn more about qemu and less about underwhelming Python wrappers, and you'll have more control on your systems.

Also, IBM/Red Hat seems to have deprecated virt-manager in favour (of course) a new web interface (Copilot).

Quickemu seems to be of more interest, as it allows launching new VM right after a quick look at examples, without time wasting on learning a big complicated UI.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#112

Post by stracer »

mise_en_place wrote: post #101
_joel wrote: post #28

Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms.

I just like passing in options to QEMU on cmdline. This works well for some older OS like Windows NT on MIPS, or Ultrix.

This is the way.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#113

Post by spookie »

jvanderbot wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLS prevents a different kind of attack, the MitM one which you describe. GPG signing covers this threat model but much more, the threats include: * The server runs vulnerable software and is compromised by script-kiddies. They, then, upload arbitrary packages on the server * The cloud provider is compromised and attackers take over the server from the admin cloud provider account. * Attacker use a vulnerability (fro…

I agree, but I think that model of GPG is not how it's used any more. I think nowadays people upload a one-shot CI key, which is used to sign builds. So you're basically saying "The usual machine built this". Which is good information, don't get me wrong, but it's much less secure than "John was logged into his laptop and entered the password for the key that signed this" So, you're right, that GPG verifies source, w…

No established GNU/Linux distribution is going to half ass GPG signing as you've implied.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#114

Post by jvanderbot »

spookie wrote: post #113
jvanderbot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I think that model of GPG is not how it's used any more. I think nowadays people upload a one-shot CI key, which is used to sign builds. So you're basically saying "The usual machine built this". Which is good information, don't get me wrong, but it's much less secure than "John was logged into his laptop and entered the password for the key that signed this" So, you're right, that GPG verifies source, w…

No established GNU/Linux distribution is going to half ass GPG signing as you've implied.

Which part is half ass? Manual or automatic?

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#115

Post by spookie »

jvanderbot wrote: post #114
spookie wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No established GNU/Linux distribution is going to half ass GPG signing as you've implied.

Which part is half ass? Manual or automatic?

One shot CI keys. I guess I shouldn't have used that term, it certainly is more work that doing otherwise.

Nevertheless, their advantages offer nothing of value in this context. At least, I think so. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#116

Post by ghostpepper »

jthemenace wrote: post #87
_joel wrote: post #28

Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms.

Anyone running virt-manager on mac connecting to a headless linux hypervisor on the same network? I tried installing it through "brew", but was getting many random errors. I thought about running it over the network using XQuartz, but I'm not sure how maintained / well supported that is anymore.

This might not fit your use case but what I do is:

ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 username@hypervisor

on the hypervisor, start Qemu with -vnc :1

Then open a local VNC client like RealVNC and connect to localhost:1

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#117

Post by thomastjeffery »

3np wrote: post #103
thomastjeffery wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild how important and useful a program that does nothing but configuration can be. Imagine what life would be like if configuration was separated from the software it configures. You could choose your favorite configuration manager, and use that, rather than learn how each and every program with a UI reinvented the wheel. The closest thing we have are text configuration files. Every program that uses them has t…

You have some incumbent competition already, in case you're not aware, and I'd say many of these are closer to what you're describing than text configuration files. You would do well to learn by past and current attempts. This book should be enlightenig (and yes, Elektra is very much alive): https://www.libelektra.org/ftp/elektra/publications/raab2017... Would also be a useful excercice to write a new configuration U…

The irony here is that the problem you have proposed - the complexity introduced by creating a new solution - is the same problem that each solution is intended to solve.

That means that any adequate solution should recursively resolve the problem it introduces.

oh, and also thank you for introducing me to Elektra. That was very helpful of you.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#118

Post by o11c »

stracer wrote: post #111
_joel wrote: post #28

Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms.

Libvirt and virt-manager are just simplified user interface to the real software, which is qemu(and KVM). They solve pretty trivial problems, like parsing config file and passing the right options to the qemu binary. Yes, they have some additional useful administration features like start/stop based on a config file, serial console access, but these are really simple to implement in your own shell scripts. Storage ha…

The real advantage to libvirt is that it also works with things other than qemu.

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#119

Post by gamepsys »

stracer wrote: post #111
_joel wrote: post #28

Shout out to https://virt-manager.org/ - works much better for me, supports running qemu on remote systems via ssh. I used to use this all the time for managing bunches of disparate vm hosts and local vms.

Libvirt and virt-manager are just simplified user interface to the real software, which is qemu(and KVM). They solve pretty trivial problems, like parsing config file and passing the right options to the qemu binary. Yes, they have some additional useful administration features like start/stop based on a config file, serial console access, but these are really simple to implement in your own shell scripts. Storage ha…

> Quickemu seems to be of more interest, as it allows launching new VM right after a quick look at examples, without time wasting on learning a big complicated UI.

Why would anyone want a qt frontend when you can call a cli wrapper, or better yet the core binary directly?

Re: Quickemu: Quickly run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines

#120

Post by IshKebab »

Joker_vD wrote: post #42
repelsteeltje wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but one additional factor (or vector) is that this adds a level of indirection. That is, you're trusting the Quickemu people to take the same diligence you yourself would do when downloading an ISO from, say ubuntu.com for each and every target I can conveniently install with Quickemu. It's a subtle difference, but the trust-chain could indeed be (mildly) improved by re-distributing the upstream gpg…

Eh, you can fetch the GPG keys from some GPG keyserver, it's not like those keys are just random files from the Internet. They're cross-signed, after all!

How do you know which keys to get? Let me guess... you read their website.
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