#625716 kvm: cannot boot from USB

Package:
qemu-kvm
Source:
qemu
Submitter:
Michal Suchanek
Date:
2025-07-28 19:57:09 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
Tags:
#625716#5
Date:
2011-05-05 11:26:34 UTC
From:
To:
While kvm supports USB devices it does not support booting from USB mass
storage.
#625716#16
Date:
2011-05-05 11:42:05 UTC
From:
To:
tags 625716 + upstream wontfix
severity 625716 minor
thanks

05.05.2011 15:26, Michal Suchanek wrote:

Yes qemu-kvm 0.12.5 does not support booting from USB mass
storage devices.  Current git version (after 0.14 release)
has some provisions for that but these are not complete.
It wont be fixed for squeeze for sure.

Thanks,

/mjt
#625716#21
Date:
2011-05-05 12:57:04 UTC
From:
To:
A small followup.  While no released version of
qemu-kvm can flawlessly boot from a (emulated)
usb drive directly (using -boot menu or automatic
boot) -- this is because seabios as currently
available in Debian (even -testing) does not
have necessary support -- even 0.12 version in
squeeze can boot from usb device using external
boot rom method (extboot), like this:

 kvm -usb \
   -drive file=filename,if=none,id=b,boot=on \
   -device usb-storage,drive=b

(the key point is boot=on subparameter)

But either way, booting from a usb1.1 device
takes ages - base debian squeeze with only
minimal set of software (login prompt and ssh
with network support, no X) takes ~5 minutes
to boot this way.

/mjt
#625716#26
Date:
2011-05-05 13:41:01 UTC
From:
To:
Excerpts from Michael Tokarev's message of Thu May 05 14:57:04 +0200 2011:

Booting this way from an Ubuntu USB install media is also very slow but
at least I can confirm the media is bootable.

Thanks

Michal
#625716#31
Date:
2012-04-18 14:51:03 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Michal Suchanek wrote (05 May 2011 13:41:01 GMT) :

I'm going to file a wishlist bug about USB2 redirection soon,
that will be about performance matters.

#625716, though, is purely about ability to boot from USB at all,
which apparently works, so it should be closed, shouldn't it?

Regards,
--
  intrigeri
  | GnuPG key @ https://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/intrigeri/intrigeri.asc
  | OTR fingerprint @ https://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/intrigeri/otr.asc
#625716#36
Date:
2012-04-19 07:36:45 UTC
From:
To:
Doesn't usb2 redirection work already?

Note that #625716 is tagged with "squeeze", as in, 0.12 (squeeze)
version of qemu-kvm does not boot from an usb device, because the
bios it uses does not have proper usb support.  It is fixed in
more recent versions of qemu/bios, but it wont be fixed in
squeeze.

So it shouldn't be closed.

Thanks,

/mjt
#625716#41
Date:
2012-04-19 08:35:03 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Michael Tokarev wrote (19 Apr 2012 07:36:45 GMT) :

Oops sorry, I was very much confused.

What is missing is USB (2.0) redirection over the network (see #665379
and #667569).

OK, thanks for clarifying.

However, #625716 is actually not tagged "squeeze", and it has
currently no indication of what post-Squeeze version fixes
the problem.

Fair enough :)

Regards,
--
  intrigeri
  | GnuPG key @ https://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/intrigeri/intrigeri.asc
  | OTR fingerprint @ https://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/intrigeri/otr.asc