Configuration file for [vws], which uses standard .ini format.

There are following sections

[directories]
[create options]
[tools]

Directories section

Contain two parameters: SharedVMs and AutostartVMs. Both are directories where system-wide vms are stored.

Shared VMs are VMs which are accessable for all members of kvm group, but must be started or stopped manually.

Autostart VMs are started automatically on boot of host.

If you are using more or less sensible disk layout, i.e. create separate partitions for /usr and /var, you probably want to tune this parameters, because you don't want to store your vms in the /var/cache.

It is recommended to have both these directories on the same partition, so moving VM from autostart to shared and vice versa would not involve physically copying of the files.

NB autostart is planned for version 0.3

Create options

See #381a103023

This section list default values, used by vws create to create new virtual machines.

Following parameters can be used:

• net=user or net=inteface name - network type by default. Can be either user or name of existing brige interface. If you have set up bridge, you'll probably want to specify name of bridge interface here.

• size=_virtual disk size* - size of the disk image to create by default. 20G is probably big enough for most modern OS-es and small enough to fit on the modern disks. Note that we use qcow2 format, so all disk space is not preallocated. You can use G or M suffixes to specify size.

• mem=memory size - default memory size. Also can have M or G suffix.

• diskif=interface where interface can be ide, scsi or virtio. Disk interface. virtio offer best performance, but only if supported by quest operating system. ide offers best compatibilty. Windows vms must be created with ide, although it is possible to convert to virtio after installation.

• arch=architecture In most cases your choice is limited between i386 and x86_64. Although you probably have qemu binaries for many other architectures, and it is theoretically possible to use them, they would be emulated without hardware acceleration and require some queer QEMU parameters, which are not supported by vws now.

• sound=_list of sound cards) specify which sound cards are emulated in the virtual machine. In most cases hda is all you need. But qemu supports long list of sound cards which can be found out by typing:

  qemu-system-i386 -soundhw help
  

  You can specify several of them, separated by comma.

• vga=type Type of emulated videoadapter qxl offers best performance with spice, but have mouse glitches with some old versions of X11. If you encounter such a problem, try to use some other type of videoadapter, listed on the manual page qemu-system(1).