Install Ubuntu on QEMU (RISC-V)

Prerequisites

To boot a RISC-V virtual machine you will need the following packages

and one of

installed.

The packages can be installed with the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install opensbi qemu-system-riscv64 qemu-efi-riscv64 u-boot-qemu

Using the pre-installed server image

Running via U-Boot

  • Next use U-Boot to boot the virtual machine. A working example with all the options is:

    qemu-system-riscv64 \
  -cpu rva23s64 \
  -machine virt -m 4G -smp cpus=2 \
  -nographic \
  -kernel /usr/lib/u-boot/qemu-riscv64_smode/uboot.elf \
  -netdev user,id=net0 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -device virtio-rng-pci \
  -drive file=ubuntu-*-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img,format=raw,if=virtio

    The important options to use are:

    -cpu

    controls the emulated CPU

    Note

    Ubuntu release 25.10 requires the RVA23S64 ISA profile, which is only available on QEMU 10.1 or later. If your QEMU version is preceding 10.1 (e.g. on Ubuntu 25.04 and below), you can only run Ubuntu 25.04 and below. In that case, remove -cpu rva23s64.

    -machine

    selects the platform emulated by QEMU.

    -m

    specifies the memory size

    -smp

    specifices the number of CPUs

    -bios

    This option can be used to select the first stage firmware by QEMU. Since QEMU 7.0 this defaults to OpenSBI. On earlier version of QEMU to have to explicitly specifify -bios /usr/lib/riscv64-linux-gnu/opensbi/generic/fw_dynamic.bin.

    -kernel

    Here the option is used load U-Boot as second stage boot-loader.

  • Watch the serial console output and wait for cloud-init to complete. It will show a line with the text ‘Cloud-init finished’ like:

    [   68.346028] cloud-init[703]: Cloud-init v. 22.2-0ubuntu1~20.04.3 finished at Thu, 22 Sep 2022 11:35:28 +0000. Datasource DataSourceNoCloud [seed=/var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net][dsmode=net].  Up 68.26 seconds

  • Login with the user ubuntu and the default password ubuntu; you will be asked to choose a new password.

Running via EDK II

EDK II may be used instead of U-Boot to run RISC-V virtual machines.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install qemu-efi-riscv64
cp /usr/share/qemu-efi-riscv64/RISCV_VIRT_VARS.fd .
qemu-system-riscv64 \
  -cpu rva23s64 \
  -machine virt,acpi=off -m 4G -smp cpus=2 \
  -nographic \
  -drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=0,file=/usr/share/qemu-efi-riscv64/RISCV_VIRT_CODE.fd,readonly=on \
  -drive if=pflash,format=raw,unit=1,file=RISCV_VIRT_VARS.fd,readonly=off \
  -netdev user,id=net0 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -device virtio-rng-pci \
  -drive file=ubuntu-*-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img,format=raw,if=virtio

Note

RISC-V virtual machines can be boot via device-tree (acpi=off) or via ACPI (acpi=on). If ACPI is supported, depends on the kernel version.

Cloud-init seed

Sample files for a cloud-init seed are present on the FAT partition labeled “CIDATA”. See Configure your board for headless use for more information.

Using the live server image

Installing live server image

  1. Download one of the supported images:

  2. Create the disk image onto which you will install Ubuntu; 16 GiB should be enough:

    truncate -s 16G disk

  3. Start the installer with (using U-Boot as example):

    qemu-system-riscv64 \
  -cpu rva23s64 \
  -machine virt -m 4G -smp cpus=2 \
  -nographic \
  -kernel /usr/lib/u-boot/qemu-riscv64_smode/u-boot.bin \
  -netdev user,id=net0 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -device virtio-rng-pci \
  -drive file=disk,format=raw,if=virtio \
  -drive file=ubuntu-*-live-server-riscv64.iso,format=raw,if=virtio

  4. Follow the installation steps in Ubuntu Server installation tutorial.

When rebooting we have to remove the installer image. Otherwise the installer may restart.

U-Boot gives you a 2-second time window to press the Enter key to reach the U-Boot console. In U-Boot’s console you can use the poweroff command to stop QEMU. Another option to exit QEMU is pressing keys CTRL-a followed by key x. You can get quick help by pressing keys CTRL-a followed by key h.

Running Ubuntu

To run your installed Ubuntu image use:

qemu-system-riscv64 \
  -cpu rva23s64 \
  -machine virt -m 4G -smp cpus=2 \
  -nographic \
  -kernel /usr/lib/u-boot/qemu-riscv64_smode/u-boot.bin \
  -netdev user,id=net0 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -device virtio-rng-pci \
  -drive file=disk,format=raw,if=virtio

Limitations

  • The number of virtual CPUs was limited to 8 before QEMU 7.0. The limit was raised in QEMU 7.0 to 512. OpenSBI is limited to 128 CPUs. U-Boot supports 32 CPUs.