Daniel P. Berrange | 0a3c190 | 2015-10-12 18:41:19 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | QEMU README |
| 2 | =========== |
bellard | 3ef693a | 2003-03-23 20:17:16 +0000 | [diff] [blame] | 3 | |
Daniel P. Berrange | 0a3c190 | 2015-10-12 18:41:19 +0100 | [diff] [blame] | 4 | QEMU is a generic and open source machine & userspace emulator and |
| 5 | virtualizer. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | QEMU is capable of emulating a complete machine in software without any |
| 8 | need for hardware virtualization support. By using dynamic translation, |
| 9 | it achieves very good performance. QEMU can also integrate with the Xen |
| 10 | and KVM hypervisors to provide emulated hardware while allowing the |
| 11 | hypervisor to manage the CPU. With hypervisor support, QEMU can achieve |
| 12 | near native performance for CPUs. When QEMU emulates CPUs directly it is |
| 13 | capable of running operating systems made for one machine (e.g. an ARMv7 |
| 14 | board) on a different machine (e.g. an x86_64 PC board). |
| 15 | |
| 16 | QEMU is also capable of providing userspace API virtualization for Linux |
| 17 | and BSD kernel interfaces. This allows binaries compiled against one |
| 18 | architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux PPC64 ABI) to be run on a host using a |
| 19 | different architecture ABI (e.g. the Linux x86_64 ABI). This does not |
| 20 | involve any hardware emulation, simply CPU and syscall emulation. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | QEMU aims to fit into a variety of use cases. It can be invoked directly |
| 23 | by users wishing to have full control over its behaviour and settings. |
| 24 | It also aims to facilitate integration into higher level management |
| 25 | layers, by providing a stable command line interface and monitor API. |
| 26 | It is commonly invoked indirectly via the libvirt library when using |
| 27 | open source applications such as oVirt, OpenStack and virt-manager. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License, |
| 30 | version 2. For full licensing details, consult the LICENSE file. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | |
| 33 | Building |
| 34 | ======== |
| 35 | |
| 36 | QEMU is multi-platform software intended to be buildable on all modern |
| 37 | Linux platforms, OS-X, Win32 (via the Mingw64 toolchain) and a variety |
| 38 | of other UNIX targets. The simple steps to build QEMU are: |
| 39 | |
| 40 | mkdir build |
| 41 | cd build |
| 42 | ../configure |
| 43 | make |
| 44 | |
| 45 | Complete details of the process for building and configuring QEMU for |
| 46 | all supported host platforms can be found in the qemu-tech.html file. |
| 47 | Additional information can also be found online via the QEMU website: |
| 48 | |
| 49 | http://qemu-project.org/Hosts/Linux |
| 50 | http://qemu-project.org/Hosts/W32 |
| 51 | |
| 52 | |
| 53 | Submitting patches |
| 54 | ================== |
| 55 | |
| 56 | The QEMU source code is maintained under the GIT version control system. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | git clone git://git.qemu-project.org/qemu.git |
| 59 | |
| 60 | When submitting patches, the preferred approach is to use 'git |
| 61 | format-patch' and/or 'git send-email' to format & send the mail to the |
| 62 | qemu-devel@nongnu.org mailing list. All patches submitted must contain |
| 63 | a 'Signed-off-by' line from the author. Patches should follow the |
| 64 | guidelines set out in the HACKING and CODING_STYLE files. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | Additional information on submitting patches can be found online via |
| 67 | the QEMU website |
| 68 | |
| 69 | http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/SubmitAPatch |
| 70 | http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/TrivialPatches |
| 71 | |
| 72 | |
| 73 | Bug reporting |
| 74 | ============= |
| 75 | |
| 76 | The QEMU project uses Launchpad as its primary upstream bug tracker. Bugs |
| 77 | found when running code built from QEMU git or upstream released sources |
| 78 | should be reported via: |
| 79 | |
| 80 | https://bugs.launchpad.net/qemu/ |
| 81 | |
| 82 | If using QEMU via an operating system vendor pre-built binary package, it |
| 83 | is preferable to report bugs to the vendor's own bug tracker first. If |
| 84 | the bug is also known to affect latest upstream code, it can also be |
| 85 | reported via launchpad. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | For additional information on bug reporting consult: |
| 88 | |
| 89 | http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/ReportABug |
| 90 | |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Contact |
| 93 | ======= |
| 94 | |
| 95 | The QEMU community can be contacted in a number of ways, with the two |
| 96 | main methods being email and IRC |
| 97 | |
| 98 | - qemu-devel@nongnu.org |
| 99 | http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel |
| 100 | - #qemu on irc.oftc.net |
| 101 | |
| 102 | Information on additional methods of contacting the community can be |
| 103 | found online via the QEMU website: |
| 104 | |
| 105 | http://qemu-project.org/Contribute/StartHere |
| 106 | |
| 107 | -- End |