OpenWRT - qmeu virtual machine

• Brief
• Build openwrt image (armsr)
• Run openwrt image on qemu
  • CLI (qemu-system-arm)
  • GUI (UTM)
• References

Brief

This topic shared about the way how generate an arm-based openwrt image. OpenWRT provides build-in TARGET (armsr) that genearte arm-based images.

Build openwrt image (armsr)

# Download repository 
# commit 4ff02b46b9 @ 20250718 
$ git clone https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt.git 
$ cd openwrt/
$ ./script feed update -a 
$ ./script feed install -a
$ make menuconfig

# Configurate  
# Change Target System (Arm SystemReady (EFI) compliant)
# Check by ./script/diffconfig.sh
CONFIG_TARGET_armsr=y
CONFIG_TARGET_armsr_armv7=y
CONFIG_TARGET_armsr_armv7_DEVICE_generic=y

# compile
$ make

Run openwrt image on qemu

CLI (qemu-system-arm)

# Collect image and uboot
mkdir qemu-arm-virt-image/
cp openwrt/bin/targets/armsr/armv7/openwrt-armsr-armv7-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz .
cp openwrt/bin/targets/armsr/armv7/u-boot-qemu_armv7/u-boot.bin .

# Move to workspace folder
cd qemu-arm-virt-image/
gzip -d openwrt-armsr-armv7-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img.gz

# Activate
qemu-system-arm \
  -M virt \
  -cpu cortex-a15 \
  -m 512M \
  -bios u-boot.bin \
  -drive if=none,file=openwrt-armsr-armv7-generic-squashfs-combined-efi.img,id=hd0,format=raw \
  -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
  -netdev user,id=net0,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -nographic

qemu-system-arm \
  -M virt \
  -cpu cortex-a15 \
  -m 512M \
  -bios u-boot.bin \
  -drive if=none,file=openwrt-armsr-armv7-generic-ext4-combined-efi.img,id=hd0,format=raw \
  -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \
  -netdev user,id=net0,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -nographic

GUI (UTM)

todo: UTM GUI approach

Install UTM on macos via utm official website

Setup UTM virtual machine via openwrt utm tutorial page

# check openwrt LAN configuration
root@openwrt:~# uci show network.lan

# change LAN ipaddress for SSH connection
root@openwrt:~#  uci set network.lan.ipaddr='10.0.2.2'
root@openwrt:~#  uci commit
root@openwrt:~#  service network restart

user@mac $ ssh root@10.0.2.2

References

• 1 openwrt forum / Using utm (qemu GUI) to bring up openwrt image
• 2 markuta / Using qemu CLI to bring up openwrt image
• 3 utm / utm official website