Ubuntu – Add armhf as a suppoted architecture for guest KVM VMs (on a amd64 host)

armkvmqemuraspberrypivirt-manager

I have an Ubuntu Server 12.04 setup with about 6 KVM VMs running. Guests are all x86 or amd64, host is a 2-socket Westmere Xeon box.

Now I want to create a new guest VM but this time the guest VM should run an armhf image (a Raspberry Pi image).

What I was expecting would work: open Virt-Manager, go through the usual setup steps to create a new VM and then choose QEMU and armhf as the architecture of the guest.

Why it did not work: I can only see x86 and amd64 as options for the architecture of the guest.

Is there anyway I can install QEMU support for armhf so that I can easily create armhf KVM guests on my server using virt-manager?

I want to make as little changes as possible on the host. I do not want to use XEN or VirtualBox, it has to be KVM.

Thanks!

Best Answer

I found a potential solution.

Install qemu-system-arm and on virt-manager, choose "qemu" for Virt Type (instead of "kvm" which on my setup is the default selection) and then under "Architecture" you will find the option "armv7l".

I have not tested it yet, but at least the option is now there, should work fine.

Is there a better way to accomplish this?

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