Trick to launch a QEMU/KVM VM guest in full screen automatically?

Hi,
I have a QEMU/KVM Windows 11 guest which was set up using virt-manager. Everything goes well (except the 3D acceleration, which is the limitation with Nvidia graphic card I guess). I usually launch the guest VM with the virt-manager by clicking the image icon, and then go to view>full screen to use the VM. Just would like to know if there is any trick that I can launch the VM in full screen automatically without doing those separated steps? I’m thinking that maybe there is some tools in virsh or something like virt-qemu-run that can help me to achieve this, but I can’t find anything related in the menu, and to be honest, they all look like greek to me :sweat_smile:.

Here's the XML details of my VM
<domain type="kvm">
  <name>Windows_Home</name>
  <uuid>cfb4dfb0-aacb-45be-9e2c-f73d25c7155c</uuid>
  <metadata>
    <libosinfo:libosinfo xmlns:libosinfo="http://libosinfo.org/xmlns/libvirt/domain/1.0">
      <libosinfo:os id="http://microsoft.com/win/10"/>
    </libosinfo:libosinfo>
  </metadata>
  <memory unit="KiB">4194304</memory>
  <currentMemory unit="KiB">4194304</currentMemory>
  <memoryBacking>
    <source type="memfd"/>
    <access mode="shared"/>
  </memoryBacking>
  <vcpu placement="static">4</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch="x86_64" machine="pc-q35-6.1">hvm</type>
    <loader readonly="yes" secure="yes" type="pflash">/usr/share/edk2-ovmf/x64/OVMF_CODE.secboot.fd</loader>
    <nvram>/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/nvram/Windows_Home_VARS.fd</nvram>
    <boot dev="hd"/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic/>
    <hyperv mode="custom">
      <relaxed state="on"/>
      <vapic state="on"/>
      <spinlocks state="on" retries="8191"/>
    </hyperv>
    <vmport state="off"/>
    <smm state="on"/>
  </features>
  <cpu mode="host-model" check="partial">
    <topology sockets="1" dies="1" cores="4" threads="1"/>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset="localtime">
    <timer name="rtc" tickpolicy="catchup"/>
    <timer name="pit" tickpolicy="delay"/>
    <timer name="hpet" present="no"/>
    <timer name="hypervclock" present="yes"/>
  </clock>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>destroy</on_crash>
  <pm>
    <suspend-to-mem enabled="no"/>
    <suspend-to-disk enabled="no"/>
  </pm>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64</emulator>
    <disk type="file" device="disk">
      <driver name="qemu" type="qcow2" discard="unmap"/>
      <source file="/home/VM/Windows_Home.qcow2"/>
      <target dev="vda" bus="virtio"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x05" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </disk>
    <controller type="usb" index="0" model="qemu-xhci" ports="15">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x03" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="sata" index="0">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x1f" function="0x2"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="0" model="pcie-root"/>
    <controller type="pci" index="1" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="1" port="0x10"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x0" multifunction="on"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="2" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="2" port="0x11"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x1"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="3" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="3" port="0x12"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x2"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="4" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="4" port="0x13"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x3"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="5" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="5" port="0x14"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x4"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="6" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="6" port="0x15"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x5"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="7" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="7" port="0x16"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x6"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="8" model="pcie-to-pci-bridge">
      <model name="pcie-pci-bridge"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x01" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="pci" index="9" model="pcie-root-port">
      <model name="pcie-root-port"/>
      <target chassis="9" port="0x17"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x02" function="0x7"/>
    </controller>
    <controller type="virtio-serial" index="0">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x04" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </controller>
    <interface type="network">
      <mac address="52:54:00:2a:af:6e"/>
      <source network="default"/>
      <model type="virtio"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x02" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </interface>
    <serial type="pty">
      <target type="isa-serial" port="0">
        <model name="isa-serial"/>
      </target>
    </serial>
    <console type="pty">
      <target type="serial" port="0"/>
    </console>
    <channel type="spicevmc">
      <target type="virtio" name="com.redhat.spice.0"/>
      <address type="virtio-serial" controller="0" bus="0" port="1"/>
    </channel>
    <channel type="spiceport">
      <source channel="org.spice-space.webdav.0"/>
      <target type="virtio" name="org.spice-space.webdav.0"/>
      <address type="virtio-serial" controller="0" bus="0" port="2"/>
    </channel>
    <input type="tablet" bus="usb">
      <address type="usb" bus="0" port="1"/>
    </input>
    <input type="mouse" bus="ps2"/>
    <input type="keyboard" bus="ps2"/>
    <tpm model="tpm-tis">
      <backend type="emulator" version="2.0"/>
    </tpm>
    <graphics type="spice" autoport="yes">
      <listen type="address"/>
      <image compression="off"/>
    </graphics>
    <sound model="ich9">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x1b" function="0x0"/>
    </sound>
    <audio id="1" type="spice"/>
    <video>
      <model type="qxl" ram="65536" vram="65536" vgamem="65536" heads="1" primary="yes"/>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x00" slot="0x01" function="0x0"/>
    </video>
    <redirdev bus="usb" type="spicevmc">
      <address type="usb" bus="0" port="2"/>
    </redirdev>
    <redirdev bus="usb" type="spicevmc">
      <address type="usb" bus="0" port="3"/>
    </redirdev>
    <watchdog model="i6300esb" action="reset">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x08" slot="0x01" function="0x0"/>
    </watchdog>
    <memballoon model="virtio">
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x06" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </memballoon>
    <rng model="virtio">
      <backend model="random">/dev/urandom</backend>
      <address type="pci" domain="0x0000" bus="0x07" slot="0x00" function="0x0"/>
    </rng>
  </devices>
</domain>

Please let me know if I need to provide any system information. Any enlightenment would be much appreciated.

How to increase your chances of solving your issue:

I searched the forum and read the ArchWiki and none of them mentioned what I try to achieve, so that’s why there is this thread.

You can use a script to start your virtual machine in fullscreen by first starting it using virsh and then displaying it in fullscreen with virt-viewer using the -f option.
The script can be named “virtstart” for example and should be executed using the name of your virtual machine as argument (virtstart vmname), see:

#!/bin/bash

# Das Script startet eine lokale Maschine (kvm-qemu) und zeigt sie im Vollbild mit virt-viewer an
# arg1 = Maschinename
 
export LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI="qemu:///system"

/usr/bin/virsh start $1
/usr/bin/virt-viewer -f -w -a $1

1 Like

Thanks for your help. So it seems that I need virt-viewer as well rather than implementing it via virt-manager?
Cheers.

i use virt-manager to build and manage my vms but virt-viewer to interact with them, as shown above. Only one mouseclick to start any of my vms in fullscreen and a lot of possibilities to control the vm (attaching usb devices, sending keystrokes, changing window-size, shared clipboard …).
Yes, you also have to install virt-viewer from official repositories if you want to use it.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.