[Slackbuilds-users] Qemu-kvm

[Sebastian Arcus]

On 06/05/13 13:36, John Yost wrote:
> On 05/05/2013 11:57 PM, King Beowulf wrote:
>> On 05/05/2013 12:14 PM, John Yost wrote:
>>> On 05/04/2013 11:37 PM, King Beowulf wrote:
>>>> On 05/04/2013 02:47 PM, John Yost wrote:
>>>>> I tried to upgrade to the latest Qemu version 1.4.0. The
>>>>> upgrade went fine. I did not use usbdir or spice, just the
>>>>> basic Qemu. When I tried to start the VM with my usual
>>>>> command line .....
>>>>>
>>>>> "qemu-kvm -usb -ctrl-grab -m 4096 -soundhw es1370 -localtime
>>>>> -vga std -cdrom /dev/cdrom /mnt/other/VM/winxp.img"
>
>>>> ---snip--------
>>> I thought there was supposed to be a simple default network
>>> connection without any needed setup. The qemu manpage seems to
>>> indicate there is a default automatic network connection. Any
>>> direction would be greatly appreciated. Don't know how many times
>>> Xp can be re-certified before I get refused.
>>>
>>
>> Since WinXP is dead its anyone's guess how long the activation
>> servers will be up.  There are ways to bypass activation.
>>
>> I dredged up my old WinXP CD and fired up a VM (I will never
>> forgive you foe that!).  Looks like qemu uses a default nic that
>> WinXP does not recognize, even after installing Service Pack 3.
>> Here is my command to have WinXP automagically detect and install
>> the NIC driver (adjust as needed)
>>
>> $ qemu-kvm -m 768 -hda winxp.img -cdrom /dev/dvd -net
>> nic,model=pcnet -net user
>>
>> Adjust as needed.
>>
>> For the future:
>>
>>  From the qemu manpage: "The NIC is an e1000 by default on the PC
>> target." Now check WinXP device manager, ooo! yellow ? for
>> ethernet controller; right click properties, update driver, etc etc
>> look at driver list....mmm no driver, lets try another nic ...
>>
>> Just sayin'...
>>
>> -Ed
> Please forgive me. I use xp once a month to access bank. Otherwise I
> retired windows in general before y2k.....
> Your solution worked fine. I did tread on that trail with the yellow
> ?, but apparently did not go far enough.
> I will investigate the bypass for future access. Any pointers?
> thanks
> john

I've had to deal with a similar issue few weeks ago when installing a 
Windows 7 guest. There are several factors at play:

1. Qemu uses an "old" and a "new" way of specifying network interfaces 
for the guest. The old way is just "-net nic,model=<model>". This is 
supposed to be obsolete, but still works. According to the manual, you 
can try to start qemu with:

-net nic,model=?

and you will get a list of all the models of network cards qemu can provide.

2. One option might be to do the above, then try one model at a time 
until you find one XP supports out of the box.

The following page has a list of NIC models supported by qemu - I'd say 
there is a very good chance that rtl8139 is supported by Windows XP 
without additional drivers.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QEMU/Devices/Network

Also, the ne2000 is a very old model, so I would be really surprised if 
XP doesn't have integrated drivers.

3. Failing the above, another option (which is what I did), is to 
download the iso cdrom image for the virtio drivers provided by RedHat:

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/

Download the iso image, and start kvm with it attached as an extra 
cdrom. The following option should do (using the index setting, in case 
you have another cdrom as well):

     -drive file=virtio-win-0.1-59.iso,media=cdrom,index=1 \

At the same time you would start your vm with a virtio NIC as well:

     -netdev user,id=mynic \
     -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=mynic \

When adding the three option lines from above to your qemu start 
command, it will start your vm with the RedHat drivers cd attached, and 
a virtio NIC. Then, in Windows, you can install the virtio NIC drivers 
from the attached CD - and you should have access to the Internet.

Sorry for the rather disjointed explanation - hope it helps.