Qemu on Damien Dye's Blog https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/tags/qemu/ Recent content in Qemu on Damien Dye's Blog Hugo en-GB Sun, 04 Oct 2026 10:30:00 +0100 Moving an OEM Licence Into a Proxmox VM, and What Moves With It https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/moving-an-oem-licence-into-a-proxmox-vm/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 10:30:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/moving-an-oem-licence-into-a-proxmox-vm/ How the OEM licence in a PC's firmware, the ACPI MSDM table, gets into a Proxmox VM: reading it, validating it before QEMU fixes up a broken one, storing it root-only in pmxcfs, and Microsoft's own terms on moving it, including one VM on the licensed machine and why volume licences never use it. Branding a Proxmox VM, and Keeping It Branded Through the Next Upgrade https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/branding-a-proxmox-vm/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 10:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/branding-a-proxmox-vm/ Five places a stock Proxmox VM shows somebody else's name, and how to replace each so apt cannot undo it: SMBIOS strings filled from the VM's own config, the SeaBIOS splash, a rebuilt OVMF logo or an option ROM that leaves the firmware alone, and the web UI logo, all read from source. Proxmox VE Is Not a Hypervisor — KVM Is, and You Are Already Running It https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/kvm-the-hypervisor-inside-proxmox-ve/ Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/kvm-the-hypervisor-inside-proxmox-ve/ "Is Proxmox enterprise grade?" is a question about the hypervisor, and Proxmox VE does not contain one. The hypervisor is KVM, the same kernel module under EC2, Google Cloud, Nutanix AHV and OpenShift Virtualisation. What Proxmox actually maintains, why the type 1 argument aims at the wrong line, and what the shared foundation does not buy you. A Virtual NVMe Device in Proxmox — and the Three Things You Give Up https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/virtual-nvme-proxmox/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/virtual-nvme-proxmox/ QEMU can emulate a real NVMe controller, so the guest uses its own in-box NVMe driver with no VirtIO media required. It is also unmigratable by design, invisible to Proxmox backups, and no faster than VirtIO SCSI. Here is how to add one and when it is worth it. A VM's Clock Cannot Be Trusted — and the ptp_kvm Fix for QEMU/KVM https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/vm-time-ptp-kvm/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/vm-time-ptp-kvm/ A virtual machine's clock is built on an assumption virtualisation breaks: that the CPU keeps counting. Why guest time drifts on every hypervisor, what the skew actually breaks — Kerberos, TLS, Ceph, Windows — and how ptp_kvm fixes it properly on QEMU/KVM. Always Use Q35, Not i440fx — Why It Matters on Proxmox VE https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/q35-not-i440fx/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:45:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/proxmox/q35-not-i440fx/ The two QEMU virtual chipsets are not interchangeable. Q35 provides a proper PCIe topology that passthrough, modern Windows, and the wider KVM ecosystem all depend on.