https://github.com/sureshjoshi/alpine-kvm
Alpine-based KVM/QEMU host configuration and virt-install scripts with GPU passthrough
https://github.com/sureshjoshi/alpine-kvm
alpine alpine-linux alpinelinux gpu kvm qemu qemu-kvm
Last synced: about 2 months ago
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Alpine-based KVM/QEMU host configuration and virt-install scripts with GPU passthrough
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/sureshjoshi/alpine-kvm
- Owner: sureshjoshi
- License: gpl-3.0
- Created: 2024-05-07T20:06:04.000Z (over 1 year ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-06-10T20:12:17.000Z (4 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-06-10T21:29:18.008Z (4 months ago)
- Topics: alpine, alpine-linux, alpinelinux, gpu, kvm, qemu, qemu-kvm
- Language: Shell
- Homepage: https://sureshjoshi.com/development/alpine-kvm-host
- Size: 33.2 KB
- Stars: 7
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 1
- Open Issues: 4
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# alpine-kvm
Alpine-based KVM/QEMU host configuration and virt-install scripts
## Prerequisites
- A fresh install of Alpine Linux 3.22 (Extended) using 'sys' or 'cryptsys'
- Intel CPU
- Two GPUs (one for passthrough, one for host)
- A working internet connection
## What do I do
After a fresh install of Alpine, you can curl/wget the `configure-alpine.sh` and run it on your system.
```bash
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sureshjoshi/alpine-kvm/main/configure-alpine.sh
# Read through and closely examine the code in this file before running it
sh ./configure-alpine.sh
```
It is an interactive script which will best-effort setup your system as a QEMU/KVM host, allowing GPU passthrough to a Windows (or other) virtual machine.
The Alpine/Intel requirements are not necessarily dealbreakers, but this version of the script was only tested using those conditions. For example, this script could probably be modified for AMD by changing `intel_iommu` to `amd_iommu` in the configuration script, but that's untested.
Additionally, this script could theoretically work on a single-GPU system, but it would likely require some modifications and debugging/troubleshooting would be more difficult as this script binds the GPU at boot time, rather than on-demand (which a single-GPU system should prefer).
## System Info
Here is the setup I run this on:
```bash
CPU: 13th Gen Intel Core i5-13600K
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790I Aorus Ultra
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
```
And these are the installed software versions:
```bash
cat /etc/alpine-release
# 3.22.0
qemu-system-x86_64 --version
# QEMU emulator version 10.0.0
libvirtd --version
# libvirtd (libvirt) 11.3.0
virt-install --version
# 5.0.0
```
## Useful Reading
- [How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Alpine](https://sureshjoshi.com/development/alpine-kvm-host)
- [Interactively Configuring Alpine as a KVM Host](https://sureshjoshi.com/development/alpine-kvm-config-script)
- [Provisioning Linux virtual machines with virt-install](https://sureshjoshi.com/development/alpine-kvm-virt-install-linux)
- ...Provisioning Windows virtual machines with virt-install... Apparently I never posted that one
## License
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
See [LICENSE](LICENSE) to see the full text.