On Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 09:51:23AM -0500, The Wanderer wrote: > On 2025-11-14 at 09:16, Franco Martelli wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > running the command: > > > > ~$ kvm -cdrom debian-live-13.0.0-amd64-kde.iso -m 8g > > > > I can start a virtual machine for the Debian Live ISO image. I'd like > > to customize the virtual machine. Is it possible to have a .conf file > > which it contains all the options for the virtual machine, eg. number > > of cores, memory size, etc… without specify all the options on the > > CLI? > > > > I'd like to have a single .conf default file to use for all the ISO, > > reading kvm(1) man-page seems nothing is explained, only options for > > the CLI. > > I am not familiar with this utility myself, but reading through that > file (and it *is* dense and lengthy), I see: > > -readconfig file > Read device configuration from file. This approach is useful when > you want to spawn QEMU process with many command line options but > you don't want to exceed the command line character limit. > > The adjacent '-no-user-config' option also seems to imply that there's > supposed to be a config-file capability, but doesn't provide much to go > on in figuring out what files that would be (except that they'd be > stored under 'sysconfdir') or what syntax the files would need to have.
You gave me an idea, so I went: strace -f -o /tmp/trace qemu ... (yes, I had a qemu hanging around in my history. It is qemu-kvm, so it might be a close cousin). Looking at the opens, I see one potential config: openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/qemu/qemu.conf", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) It's a system config, but might be a start :-) No manpage for qemu.conf, alas. @Franco: perhaps you could try a similar trick? Cheers -- t
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