How To Install qemu-guest-agent on Kali Linux

In this tutorial we learn how to install qemu-guest-agent on Kali Linux. qemu-guest-agent is Guest-side qemu-system agent

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install qemu-guest-agent on Kali Linux.

What is qemu-guest-agent

qemu-guest-agent is:

QEMU is a fast processor emulator: currently the package supports ARM, CRIS, i386, M68k (ColdFire), MicroBlaze, MIPS, PowerPC, SH4, SPARC and x86-64 emulation. By using dynamic translation it achieves reasonable speed while being easy to port on new host CPUs.

This package provides a daemon (agent) to run inside qemu-system guests (full system emulation). It communicates with the host using a virtio-serial channel org.qemu.guest_agent.0, and allows one to perform some functions in the guest from the host, including:

  • querying and setting guest system time
  • performing guest filesystem sync operation
  • initiating guest shutdown or suspend to ram
  • accessing guest files
  • freezing/thawing guest filesystem operations
  • others.

Install this package on a system which is running as guest inside qemu virtual machine. It is not used on the host.

There are three methods to install qemu-guest-agent on Kali Linux. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install qemu-guest-agent Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install qemu-guest-agent using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install qemu-guest-agent

Install qemu-guest-agent Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install qemu-guest-agent using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install qemu-guest-agent

Install qemu-guest-agent Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude on Kali Linux first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Kali Linux. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install qemu-guest-agent using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install qemu-guest-agent

How To Uninstall qemu-guest-agent on Kali Linux

To uninstall only the qemu-guest-agent package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove qemu-guest-agent

Uninstall qemu-guest-agent And Its Dependencies

To uninstall qemu-guest-agent and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Kali Linux, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove qemu-guest-agent

Remove qemu-guest-agent Configurations and Data

To remove qemu-guest-agent configuration and data from Kali Linux we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge qemu-guest-agent

Remove qemu-guest-agent configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove qemu-guest-agent configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge qemu-guest-agent

Dependencies

qemu-guest-agent have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install qemu-guest-agent package on Kali Linux using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.