How to create a Arm64 Ubuntu virtual machine using Virt-Manager

I wanted to run Ubuntu on an Arm64/Aarch64 virtual machine on a host Intel Linux computer for the longest time for compiling binaries for Raspberry Pis and other SBC boards. I finally figured out how to do it with virt-manager, and it is quite simple as clicking and selecting options on the virt-manager graphical user interface. The instructions below show how it is done.

Download and install prerequisites

1. In Ubuntu, open up a Terminal and enter the following commands to install the prerequisite software.
   
   

   $ sudo apt install qemu-kvm \
   libvirt-daemon-system \
   libvirt-clients \
   bridge-utils \
   virt-manager \
   qemu-system-arm \
   qemu-efi-aarch64 \
   qemu-utils
   

2. Open up an Internet browser. Download an Ubuntu Arm64 image to install. For example: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/22.04/release/ubuntu-22.04.2-live-server-arm64.iso
   
   

 Create the virtual machine

1. In Ubuntu, click the Virtual Machine Manager icon.
   
   The Virtual Machine Manager application appears.
   
   
   
2. Select File | Create New Virtual Machine.
   
   The New VM dialog box pops up.
   
   
   
3. Choose Local install media (ISO image or CDROM).
   
   
4. In the Architecture options, choose aarch64 architecture. Click Forward.
   
   Step 2 of 5 pages appears.
   
   
5. In the Choose ISO or CDROM install media field, choose the iso image downloaded previously.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Forward. If necessary, change the memory size and the number of CPUs.
   
   Step 3 of 5 pages appear.
   
   
   
7. Click Forward. If necessary, change the disk image size to a suitable size.
   
   Step 4 of 5 appears.
   
   
   
8. Click Forward.
   
   Step 5 of 5 appears.
   
   
   
9. Optional. In the Name field, type in a desired name.
   
   
10. Toggle On the Customize configuration before install field.
    
    
    
    
    
11. Click Finish.
    
    The 'vm name' on QEMU/KVM dialog box appears.
    
    
    
    
12. In the Hypervisor Details group, change the Firmware to UEFI aarch64.
    
    
    
13. Click Apply. Then click the Begin Installation button and follow the prompts to complete the installation.
    
    The installation begins...
    

Use Virtual Machine Manager to create a Raspberry Pi virtual machine on Ubuntu

I tried to use the Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)'s graphical user interface on Ubuntu to create a Raspberry Pi virtual machine. I found it to be a little tricky having to know the right parameters and configuration. This post describes the steps I went through to successfully create and run the Raspberry Pi virtual machine.

Install software prerequisites

If virt-manager and/or QEMU are not installed on the Ubuntu host, then run the following commands to install them.

$ sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-clients libvirt-daemon-system bridge-utils virtinst libvirt-daemon virt-manager

Download a Raspberry Pi OS image

1. Open up a browser to https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/.
   
   
2. Click on a Raspberry Pi OS image of your choice to download. For example, Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
   
   
3. Unzip the download file and place the extracted image file e.g. 2021-05-raspios-buster-armhf-lite.img to a folder, e.g. /path/to/folder/.
   

Download a QEMU kernel and the device tree blob (.dtb) for Raspberry Pi

1. Open up a browser and browse to the repository https://github.com/dhruvvyas90/qemu-rpi-kernel.
   
   
2. Click on kernel-qemu-4.19.50-buster and download the kernel to a folder, e.g. /path/to/folder/.
   
   
   
3. Next, click on versatile-pb-buster.dtb and download the file to a folder, e.g. /path/to/folder/.
   
   

Create a new VM

1. On the Ubuntu host, run virt-manager.
   
   The Virtual Machine Manager graphical application appears.
    
2. Click the Create a new virtual machine button.
   
   The New VM dialog box wizard appears.
   
   
   
3. In the Architecture options drop down, choose armv6l in the Architecture combo box. Then select versatilepb in the Machine Type combo box. Press Forward.
   
   Step 2 page appears.
    
4. In the Provide the existing storage path field, click Browse.
   
   The Choose Storage Volume dialog appears.
   
   
   
5. Click Browse Local and choose to open the previously downloaded Raspberry Pi OS image, e.g. /path/to/folder/2021-05-raspios-buster-armhf-lite.img.
   
   
   
   
6. In the Kernel path field, click the Browse button.
   
   The Choose Storage Volume appears again.
   
   
   
7. Click Browse Local and choose to open the previously downloaded kernel file, e.g. /path/to/folder/kernel-qemu-4.19.50-buster.
   
   
8. In the DTB path field, click the Browse button.
   
   The Choose Storage Volume appears.
   
   
9. Click Browse Local and choose to open the previously downloaded dtb file, e.g. /path/to/folder/versatile-pb-buster.dtb.
   
   
10. In the Kernel args field, type in the following:
    
    root=/dev/vda2 panic=1
    
    
11. Finally, in the Choose the operating system you are installing field, type and choose the following:
    
    Generic default (generic)
    
    The Step 2 of the New VM dialog should look like the screen below.
    
    
    
12. Click Forward.
    
    Page Step 3 appears.
    
    
13. In the Memory field, change the value to 256.
    
    
    
    
14. Click Forward.
    
    Page 4 appears.
    
    
    
15. Optional. Change the Name from vm-armv6l if necessary.
    
     
16. Toggle on Customize configuration before install. In the Network selection drop down, select Specify shared device name. Then type in virbr0 in the Bridge name.
    
    
17. Click Finish.
    
    The vm-armv6l on QEMU/KVM dialog box appears.
    

Customize configuration

1. Click CPUs. Then in the Model combo box, choose arm1176. Then click Apply to save the change.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Boot Options. Toggle on Enable boot menu. Then Toggle on IDE Disk 1. Click Apply.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click on IDE Disk 1. Then click the Advanced options drop down. In the Disk bus field, change from IDE to VirtIO. Click Apply.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the NIC icon. Then change the Device model to virtio. Click Apply.
   
   
   
   
5. Optional. Click Add Hardware to add additional peripherals such as Serial mouse, Video card etc. if necessary.
   
   
6. Click Begin Installation.
   
   The processing messages appear and the Raspberry Pi VM is created.
   
   
   

Allocating more space to an emulated Raspbian disk image

The Raspberry Pi Raspbian images from http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/ for QEMU have limited disk space, just enough for booting up and not much else. In the screenshot below, the image has just 3.3GB to it.

In order to work with ROS or other applications, the disk image has to be resized with more free disk space. This can be done by doing the following.

1. Optional but recommended. Make a copy of the original Raspbian image and rename it, for example as raspbian.img.
   
   $ cp 2019-06-20-raspbian-buster.img raspbian.img
   
2. Extend the copied image's size with the following command in the Terminal.
   
   $ qemu-img resize raspbian.img +6G
   
   
   Note: +6G means to extend the original size by 6 gigabytes
3. Next, boot up the newly resized image with QEMU.
   
   $ qemu-system-arm -kernel kernel-qemu-4.4.34-jessie \
     -cpu arm1176 \
     -m 256 \
     -M versatilepb \
     -serial stdio \
     -append "root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 rw" \
     -hda raspbian.img \
     -net nic \
     -net user,hostfwd=tcp::5022-:22 \
     -no-reboot
   
   The QEMU window appears.
   
   
4. In the QEMU window, open up a Terminal.
   
5. Enter the following commands to delete and create a new partition.
   
   $ sudo fdisk /dev/sda
6. Print out the current partitions by entering p. Make a note of the starting offset of the second partition e.g. 540672.
   
   
   
7. Delete the second partition by entering d followed by 2. Then recreate the second partition by entering c, n, p, 2, followed by the starting address noted from the previous steps e.g. 540672. Leave the signature alone when prompted.
   
   
   
8. Now, reboot the emulated Raspbian OS.
   
9. When QEMU has restarted the Raspbian OS, open a Terminal and enter the command to resize the file system.
   
   $ sudo resize2fs /dev/sda2
   
   
10. To see the available disk space, enter the command:
    
    $ df -h
    
    

How to emulate a Raspbian OS in QEMU on Windows 10

I wanted to test out developing for a Raspberry Pi on a Windows 10 PC platform running an emulated Raspbian OS. After trying out a few methods to get  the emulator running, I settled on the following procedure.

Install QEMU for 64-bit Windows 10

1. Go to the following web site https://www.qemu.org/download/ and download the latest QEMU installer for Windows 64bit.
   
2. Run the installer.
   
   The QEMU executable files are installed, e.g. C:\Program Files\qemu\
   

Download a Linux kernel

1. Go to the following web site https://github.com/dhruvvyas90/qemu-rpi-kernel and download a suitable kernel, e.g. kernel-qemu-4.4.34-jessie.
   
2. Place the kernel file in a folder e.g. D:/Temp/raspbian/kernel-qemu-4.4.34-jessie
   

Download an Raspbian OS image

1. Go to the following web site http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/ and download the latest image e.g. 2019-06-20-raspbian-buster.zip
   
2. Unzip the image file into a folder, e.g. D:/Temp/raspbian/2019-06-20-raspbian-buster.img
   
   

Create a Windows bat file

1. Run a text editor.
   
2. Type in the following lines.
   
   "c:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-arm.exe" ^
   -kernel kernel-qemu-4.4.34-jessie ^
   -cpu arm1176 ^
   -m 256 ^
   -M versatilepb ^
   -serial stdio ^
   -append "root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 rw" ^
   -hda 2019-06-20-raspbian-buster.img ^
   -net nic ^
   -net user,hostfwd=tcp::5022-:22 ^
   -no-reboot
   
   Note: rename the kernel and image file names (in bold) to match the downloaded file names accordingly.
   
   
3. Save as a bat file e.g. run_raspbian.bat and close the editor.
   

Run QEMU

1. Open up a Command Prompt.
    
2. Change directory to the folder containing the kernel and image files e.g. D:/Temp/raspbian.
   
3. Type in the command:
   
   D:\> run_raspbian.bat
   
   
   The QEMU window appears running Raspbian OS