---
layout: docs
page_title: QEMU task driver
description: Nomad's QEMU task driver provides a generic virtual machine runner that can execute any regular QEMU image. Learn how to use the QEMU task driver in your jobs. Configure image path, driver interface, accelerator, graceful shutdown, guest agent, and port map. Review the QEMU task driver capabilities, plugin options, client requirements, and client attributes such as QEMU version. Learn how the QEMU task driver provides the highest level of workload isolation.
---

# QEMU task 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](/nomad/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`).

- `drive_interface` - (Optional) This option defines on which type of interface
  the drive is connected. Available types are: `ide`, `scsi`, `sd`, `mtd`,
  `floppy`, `pflash`, `virtio` and `none`. Default is `ide`.

- `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. This feature uses a Unix socket that is placed within
  the task directory and operating systems may impose a limit on how long these
  paths can be. This feature is currently not supported on Windows.

- `guest_agent` `(bool: false)` - Enable support for the [QEMU Guest
  Agent](https://wiki.qemu.org/Features/GuestAgent) for this virtual machine.
  This will add the necessary virtual hardware and create a `qa.sock` file in
  the task's working directory for interacting with the agent. The QEMU Guest
  Agent must be running in the guest VM. 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](/nomad/docs/concepts/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`]: /nomad/docs/drivers/qemu#args
[QEMU documentation]: https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/system/invocation.html
