Ubuntu Server on qemu-system-aarch64/kvm

Preparation

1. Linaro QEMU_EFI

   • download

   • latest release

   • introduction

     • support QEMU/arm machvirt machine type (-M virt) both in AArch64 and AArch32.

     • support virtio block, network and SCSI devices.

     • need QEMU >= 2.2 and built for aarch64-softmmu/arm-softmmu

     • QEMU_EFI.fd is Tianocore EDK2’s ArmVirtPkg/ArmVirtQemu.dsc (https://github.com/tianocore/edk2)

2. Ubuntu Server ISO for AArch64

   • 16.04.2 (ubuntu xenial) release

Installation

• QEMU running command:

  qemu-system-aarch64 \
      -enable-kvm -cpu host \
      -M virt -bios QEMU_EFI.fd \
      -m 1024 -smp 4 \
      -nographic \
      -drive id=cdrom1,media=cdrom,if=none,file=<ubuntu_install_iso> \
      -device virtio-scsi-device -device scsi-cd,drive=cdrom1 \
      -drive id=hd0,media=disk,if=none,format=qcow2,file=<ubuntu_qcow2_image> \
      -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
      -netdev user,id=user -device virtio-net-device,netdev=user
  
  # input:
  #   Ubuntu ISO path
  #   Ubuntu qcow2 path
  

• Ubuntu installation

boot up issue(UEFI)

Booting up is blocking at EFI menu for arm64 rootfs of ubuntu, debian, and fedora.

2 solutions

1. execute EFI bootup script in EFI shell EFI\ubuntu\grubaa64.efi

2. write a EFI script startup.nsh to execute EFI bootup script

EFISTUB path

Running and Usage

• QEMU running command:

  qemu-system-aarch64 \
      -enable-kvm -cpu host \
      -M virt -bios QEMU_EFI.fd \
      -m 1024 -smp 4 \
      -nographic \
      -drive id=hd0,media=disk,if=none,format=qcow2,file=<ubuntu_qcow2_image> \
      -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
      -netdev user,id=user -device virtio-net-device,netdev=user
  
  # input:
  #   Ubuntu qcow2 path
  

• guest network: dhcp:

  sudo dhclient -v enp0s1