---
layout: docs
page_title: 'Drivers: QEMU'
description: The QEMU task driver is used to run virtual machines using QEMU/KVM.
---

# QEMU Driver

Name: `qemu`

The `qemu` driver provides a generic virtual machine runner. QEMU can utilize
the KVM kernel module to utilize hardware virtualization features and provide
great performance. Currently the `qemu` driver can map a set of ports from the
host machine to the guest virtual machine, and provides configuration for
resource allocation.

The `qemu` driver can execute any regular `qemu` image (e.g. `qcow`, `img`,
`iso`), and is currently invoked with `qemu-system-x86_64`.

The driver requires the image to be accessible from the Nomad client via the
[`artifact` downloader](/docs/job-specification/artifact).

## Task Configuration

```hcl
task "webservice" {
  driver = "qemu"

  config {
    image_path        = "/path/to/my/linux.img"
    accelerator       = "kvm"
    graceful_shutdown = true
    args              = ["-nodefaults", "-nodefconfig"]
  }
}
```

The `qemu` driver supports the following configuration in the job spec:

- `image_path` - The path to the downloaded image. In most cases this will just
  be the name of the image. However, if the supplied artifact is an archive that
  contains the image in a subfolder, the path will need to be the relative path
  (`subdir/from_archive/my.img`).

- `accelerator` - (Optional) The type of accelerator to use in the invocation.
  If the host machine has `qemu` installed with KVM support, users can specify
  `kvm` for the `accelerator`. Default is `tcg`.

- `graceful_shutdown` `(bool: false)` - Using the [qemu
  monitor](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QEMU/Monitor), send an ACPI shutdown
  signal to virtual machines rather than simply terminating them. This emulates
  a physical power button press, and gives instances a chance to shut down
  cleanly. If the VM is still running after `kill_timeout`, it will be
  forcefully terminated. (Note that
  [prior to qemu 2.10.1](https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/ad9579aaa16d5b385922d49edac2c96c79bcfb6),
  the monitor socket path is limited to 108 characters. Graceful shutdown will
  be disabled if QEMU is < 2.10.1 and the generated monitor path exceeds this
  length. You may encounter this issue if you set long
  [data_dir](/docs/configuration#data_dir)
  or
  [alloc_dir](/docs/configuration/client#alloc_dir)
  paths.) This feature is currently not supported on Windows.

- `port_map` - (Optional) A key-value map of port labels.

  ```hcl
  config {
    # Forward the host port with the label "db" to the guest VM's port 6539.
    port_map {
      db = 6539
    }
  }
  ```

- `args` - (Optional) A list of strings that is passed to QEMU as command line
  options.

## Examples

A simple config block to run a `qemu` image:

```
task "virtual" {
  driver = "qemu"

  config {
    image_path  = "local/linux.img"
    accelerator = "kvm"
    args        = ["-nodefaults", "-nodefconfig"]
  }

  # Specifying an artifact is required with the "qemu"
  # driver. This is the # mechanism to ship the image to be run.
  artifact {
    source = "https://internal.file.server/linux.img"

    options {
      checksum = "md5:123445555555555"
    }
  }
```

## Capabilities

The `qemu` driver implements the following [capabilities](/docs/internals/plugins/task-drivers#capabilities-capabilities-error).

| Feature              | Implementation |
| -------------------- | -------------- |
| `nomad alloc signal` | false          |
| `nomad alloc exec`   | false          |
| filesystem isolation | image          |
| network isolation    | none           |
| volume mounting      | none           |

## Client Requirements

The `qemu` driver requires QEMU to be installed and in your system's `$PATH`.
The task must also specify at least one artifact to download, as this is the only
way to retrieve the image being run.

## Client Attributes

The `qemu` driver will set the following client attributes:

- `driver.qemu` - Set to `1` if QEMU is found on the host node. Nomad determines
  this by executing `qemu-system-x86_64 -version` on the host and parsing the output
- `driver.qemu.version` - Version of `qemu-system-x86_64`, ex: `2.4.0`

Here is an example of using these properties in a job file:

```hcl
job "docs" {
  # Only run this job where the qemu version is higher than 1.2.3.
  constraint {
    attribute = "${driver.qemu.version}"
    operator  = ">"
    value     = "1.2.3"
  }
}
```

## Plugin Options

```hcl
plugin "qemu" {
  config {
    image_paths = ["/mnt/image/paths"]
    args_allowlist = ["-drive", "-usbdevice"]
  }
}
```

- `image_paths` (`[]string`: `[]`) - Specifies the host paths the QEMU
  driver is allowed to load images from.
- `args_allowlist` (`[]string`: `[]`) - Specifies the command line
  flags that the [`args`] option is permitted to pass to QEMU. If
  unset, a job submitter can pass any command line flag into QEMU,
  including flags that provide the VM with access to host devices such
  as USB drives. Refer to the [QEMU documentation] for the available
  flags.

## Resource Isolation

Nomad uses QEMU to provide full software virtualization for virtual machine
workloads. Nomad can use QEMU KVM's hardware-assisted virtualization to deliver
better performance.

Virtualization provides the highest level of isolation for workloads that
require additional security, and resource use is constrained by the QEMU
hypervisor rather than the host kernel. VM network traffic still flows through
the host's interface(s).

Note that the strong isolation provided by virtualization only applies
to the workload once the VM is started. Operators should use the
`args_allowlist` option to prevent job submitters from accessing
devices and resources they are not allowed to access.

[`args`]: /docs/drivers/qemu#args
[QEMU documentation]: https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/system/invocation.html
