feature: VirtIO block devices to provide a serial number #7332
Description
When using most Linux distributions, the default udev rules create aliases in /dev/disk/by-id containing information about a block device such as
- the connection type
- the serial number
This helps avoid scenarios where a device that is /dev/sda/ on one boot could become /dev/sdb on another, and is the recommended way to assemble things like ZFS pools.
UTM 4.6.5 on macOS 15.6 does not seem to provide serial numbers for the block devices, so they cannot replicate this common behaviour when emulating a Linux machine for testing. This is true of both Apple and QEMU backends
Debian 13, Virtualize (Apple)
root@debian:~# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Aug 6 08:36 usb-Apple_Virtual_Disk-0:0 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 6 08:36 usb-Apple_Virtual_Disk-0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 6 08:36 usb-Apple_Virtual_Disk-0:0-part2 -> ../../sda2
root@debian:~# lshw -class disk
*-virtio1
description: Virtual I/O device
physical id: 0
bus info: virtio@1
logical name: /dev/vda
size: 32GiB (34GB)
capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt
configuration: driver=virtio_blk guid=4ca559a0-4488-42d0-8cd0-37b15694c86b logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
*-disk
description: SCSI Disk
product: Virtual Disk
vendor: Apple
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 1
size: 703MiB (737MB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
configuration: ansiversion=6 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
root@debian:~# lshw -class disk | grep serial
root@debian:~#Debian 13, Emulate (QEMU)
root@debian2:~# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Aug 6 08:45 usb-QEMU_QEMU_CD-ROM_1-0000:00:04.0-4.1-0:0 -> ../../sr0
root@debian2:~# lshw -class disk
*-cdrom
description: DVD reader
product: QEMU CD-ROM
vendor: QEMU
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
logical name: /dev/sr0
version: 2.5+
capabilities: removable audio dvd
configuration: ansiversion=5 status=ready
*-medium
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/cdrom
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
*-virtio2
description: Virtual I/O device
physical id: 0
bus info: virtio@2
logical name: /dev/vda
size: 32GiB (34GB)
capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt
configuration: driver=virtio_blk guid=2a21b215-4d7b-4f61-932c-658c04111f20 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
root@debian2:~# lshw -class disk | grep serial
root@debian2:~#