OpenWrt KVM ARM64

KVM-enabled kernel packages for ARM64 OpenWrt devices.

Stock OpenWrt kernels lack KVM support. This project provides:

• Kernel packages with KVM/vhost enabled
• UEFI firmware for ARM64 virtual machines
• APK repository for easy installation

Use case: Run VMs with hardware acceleration on ARM64 routers and SBCs (Home Assistant OS, containers with KVM isolation, etc.)

KVM requires ARMv8.1+ with Virtualization Host Extensions (VHE).

• ARM64 build host (native compilation)
• Docker (recommended) or gawk - OpenWrt requires gawk, not mawk
• docker-builder for the x wrapper

git clone --recurse-submodules \
    https://github.com/amery/openwrt-kvm-arm64.git
cd openwrt-kvm-arm64

x make rockchip-armv8  # Bootstrap config
x make prepare         # Ensure feeds are synced
x make                 # Build packages + index

The x wrapper (from docker-builder) runs commands inside a Docker container with the correct build environment. Submodules (openwrt and feeds/packages) are pinned to the OpenWrt release the target devices run, and checked out automatically during bootstrap.

openwrt/bin/targets/rockchip/armv8/packages/   # Kernel + kmods
openwrt/bin/packages/aarch64_generic/ours/     # qemu-firmware

Host the build output on a web server. The repository URL structure should be <repo>/rockchip/armv8/ (without bin/targets/ prefix).

# On device - add repository feeds
REPO="https://your-server/openwrt-kvm"
echo "$REPO/rockchip/armv8/packages.adb" \
    >> /etc/apk/repositories.d/kvm.list
echo "$REPO/aarch64_generic/ours/packages.adb" \
    >> /etc/apk/repositories.d/kvm.list

# Install signing key
wget "$REPO/keys/openwrt-kvm-arm64.pub" -O /etc/apk/keys/openwrt-kvm-arm64.pub

# Replace kernel and install kmods from this repo
apk update
apk add kernel qemu-firmware-edk2-aarch64
apk add kmod-vhost kmod-vhost-net  # From this repo, not stock!
reboot

Important: Install ALL kmods from this repo. Our kernel has different vermagic than stock OpenWrt - mixing kmods will cause module load failures.

Download signing key, then copy .apk files to device and install with apk add.

ls -la /dev/kvm    # KVM is built into the kernel
lsmod | grep vhost

openwrt-kvm-arm64/
├── Makefile              # Build driver
├── bootstrap.sh          # Sync submodule + restore config
├── feeds.conf            # Feed config (src-link)
├── feeds/                # Feed sources
│   ├── packages/         # Submodule - OpenWrt packages
│   └── ours/             # Custom packages
│       └── qemu-firmware-edk2-aarch64/
├── configs/              # Build configs per target
├── patches/              # Patches + kernel config fragments
├── keys/                 # Signing keys
│   └── openwrt-kvm-arm64.pub  # Distribute to users
├── openwrt/              # OpenWrt source (submodule)
└── docker/               # Build container

• Build scripts: MIT
• Custom packages: See individual package licences
• OpenWrt: GPL-2.0