An eas[y/ier] way to set up QEMU/Libvirt/Looking-Glass/Scream with VFIO passthrough.

This image and these scripts can connect directly to your x session (or xWayland session) via cookie it adds to your host system. It can also play audio directly on your host system by passing an ALSA audio device created by pulseaudio or pipewire.

These scripts are still far from perfect, and there are a lot of improvements that can be made to make setting up this environment easier! Pull requests are welcome.

This requires a linux OS. These scripts were tested and functional for me on Pop! OS, however given the nature of docker this should function on most distributions.

You must have docker installed. Build and start the environment with the following commands:

• git clone https://github.com/sihawken/dockerized_vm_tools.git && cd dockerized_vm_tools
• sudo chmod +x Build_Docker_Container_Image.sh
• ./Build_Docker_Container_Image.sh
• sudo chmod +x Create_and_Start_Container.sh
• ./Create_and_Start_Container.sh

The container named "vm" should now successfully be running.

The images that run in this environment have a few requirements.

• The shared Looking-Glass memory device must be named win10-looking-glass
• You must install Looking-Glass version B5.0.1 in the Windows guest
• You must install Scream version 3.9 in the Windows guest.

Only one VM can run at a time. Feel free to modify the environment for your own purposes if you plan on running multiple VMs at once.

This image has virt-manager on it. Start virt-manager by the following commands:

• sudo chmod +x Start_Virt-Manager.sh
• ./Start_Virt-Manager.sh

An example XML file can be found at example_xml/win10_rtx3060_muxless.xml, which is the configuration I personally use.

XML editing is not functional at this time in Virt-Manager for reasons I cannot determine. However, there is another script that will allow you to edit an xml file via the nano editor.

You can edit the XML files in the container with this simple script.

• sudo chmod +x Virsh_Edit_XML.sh
• ./Virsh_Edit_XML.sh

The XML files can be found in run/qemu_xml/. Since it is easy to access this way, you can manually edit or add any new xml files here.

If a new .xml is added, or an edited .xml is no longer listed on the list of VMs, the following scripts need to be run:

• sudo chmod +x Virsh_Define_XML.sh
• ./Virsh_Define_XML.sh

The hooks directory can be found at run/hooks/. This directory is mapped to /etc/libvirt/hooks/ inside the container. I recommend setting up https://github.com/PassthroughPOST/VFIO-Tools/blob/master/libvirt_hooks/qemu to make hooks easier.

You may need to make the hooks executable with a +x flag, such as the following for the VFIO-Tools scripts:

• sudo chmod +x run/hooks/qemu && sudo chmod -R +x run/hooks/qemu.d

Fake battery data can be found in run/acpi/SSDT1.dat. The run/acpi directory is mapped inside the container at /var/lib/libvirt/qemu/acpi/. Adding a fake battery to windows can sometimes be necessary for Nvidia drivers to start-up without the dreaded Code 43. View the example configs to see how I pass the fake battery data to Windows.

Once the previous steps have been done, running and viewing the display from a VM should be easy (assuming your XML and image are properly configured for your device).

• sudo chmod +x Start_VM.sh
• ./Start_VM.sh

Select a VM which you have previously defined. It will attempt to start it up. Alternatively you can start the VM with Virt-Manager.

Lastly, you just need to start Looking-Glass.

• sudo chmod +x Start_Looking-Glass.sh
• ./Start_Looking-Glass.sh

You should now have a display of your VM, with sound output.