---
name: "debefivm-create"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "debvm"
version: "0.4.5+deb13u1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/debefivm-create"
---

# debefivm-create(1)

Create an EFI-bootable VM image for various Debian releases and architectures

## NAME

debefivm-create - Create an EFI-bootable VM image for various Debian releases and architectures

## SYNOPSIS

**debefivm-create** \[**-h** *hostname*\] \[**-k** *sshkey*\] \[**-o** *output*\] \[**-r** *release*\] \[**-s** \<task\>\] \[**-z** *size*\] \[**--** *mmdebstrap options*\]

## DESCRIPTION

Create an EFI-bootable disk image image booting into Debian. This essentially is a thin wrapper around **mmdebstrap** much like **debvm-create**. The resulting image contains a GPT partition table with an EFI system partition. A Unified Kernel Image is constructed from the installed kernel and initrd and placed into said partition. As a result, such an image may be booted with a variety of virtual machine emulators such as incus, libvirt or VirtualBox. It may also be booted using **debefivm-run**. No user account is created and root can login without specifying a password.

## OPTIONS

- **-a** *architecture*, **--architecture**=*architecture*

  Set the architecture of the virtual machine. This option is forwarded to **mmdebstrap** and multiple architectures may be supplied. The first architecture is used to assemble the Unified Kernel Image. It defaults to the native architecture of the installation.

- **-h** *hostname*, **--hostname**=*hostname*

  Set the hostname of the virtual machine. By default, the hostname is **testvm**.

- **-k** *sshkey*, **--sshkey**=*sshkey*

  Install the given ssh public key file into the virtual machine image for the root user. This option also causes the ssh server to be installed. By default, no key or server is installed. To connect to the vm, pass a port number to **debefivm-run** with the **-s** option.

- **-o** *output*, **--output**=*output*

  Specify the file name of the resulting virtual machine image. By default, it is written to *vm.img*.

- **-r** *release*, **--release**=*release*

  Use the given Debian release. By default, **unstable** is being used. If you pass a complete *sources.list* that includes release names to **mmdebstrap**, you may pass an empty string here.

- **-s** *task*, **--skip**=*task*

  Skip a particular task or feature. The option may be specified multiple times or list multiple tasks to be skipped by separating them with a comma. By default, no tasks are skipped. The following tasks may be skipped.

  - **autologin**

    Do not setup the machine for automatic password-less root login on the console. This comprises the following changes that would normally be performed. Automatic root login is configured for the init systems **finit**, **runit**, **systemd** and **sysv**. Forwarding of the `"TERM"` kernel command line to **agetty** is configured. The root password is deleted such that a login does not ask for it and the system directly boots to a shell prompt.

  - **kernel**

    skips installing a linux kernel image. This can be useful to install a kernel without a package. If a kernel is installed via **mmdebstrap** option `"--include"`, automatic kernel installation is automatically skipped.

  - **packagelists**

    reduces the package lists inside the image. The **available** database for **dpkg** is not created. The package lists used by **apt** are deleted. This generally produces a smaller image, but you need to run **apt update** before installing packages and **dpkg --set-selections** does not work.

  - **systemdnetwork**

    skips installing **libnss-resolve** as well as automatic network configuration via **systemd-networkd**.

  - **usrmerge**

    By default **debefivm-create** adds a hook to enable merged-/usr without the **usrmerge** package given a sufficiently recent Debian release. Without the hook, dependencies will pull the **usrmerge** package as needed, which may result in a larger installation.

- **--rootsize**=*size*

  This option may be used as an alternative to **--imagesize** to determine the size of the output image. It is also composed of an integer with optional unit. Unlike **--imagesize** it determines the size of the root filesystem partition and the resulting image will be slightly larger than the size given here.

- **-z** *size*, **--imagesize**=*size*

  Specify the total image size as an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10\*1024). Units are K,M,G,T (powers of 1024). The disk image contains an EFI system partition and an ext4 root filesystem. The EFI partition has a static size of about 128MB and the remaining space will be allocated to the root filesystem. The default is 10 GB.

- **--** *mmdebstrap options*

  All options beyond a double dash are passed to **mmdebstrap** after the suite and target specification. This can be used to provide additional hooks for image customization. You can also request additional packages to be installed into the image using **mmdebstrap**'s **--include** option. Any positional arguments passed here will be treated as mirror specifications by **mmdebstrap**. The **--architecture** option should not be given here as **debefivm-create** needs to know its value to construct a Unified Kernel Image.

## EXAMPLES

Create an image suitable for use with **autopkgtest-virt-qemu** **--efi**.

```
    debefivm-create ... -- --include=linux-image-generic,libpam-systemd,passwd,python3 --hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/useradd --customize-hook=/usr/share/autopkgtest/setup-commands/setup-testbed
```

## SEE ALSO

```
    debefivm-run(1) debefivm-ukify(1) debvm-create(1) mmdebstrap(1)
```