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Tool

QEMU

Machine and user-space emulator that runs code built for one CPU architecture on another through its TCG dynamic translator. System emulation boots a complete emulated machine, such as an ARMv7 board on an x86_64 PC, and user-mode emulation runs Linux or BSD binaries built for another ABI by translating their system calls. For analysis, its gdbstub lets GDB stop the guest, examine registers and memory and set breakpoints and watchpoints, TCG plugins passively instrument execution down to single instructions and memory accesses (bundled examples count instructions, trace system calls and log execution), and system emulation supports deterministic record/replay debugging.

Targets
Binary · Firmware
Category
Debugging and dynamic analysis
Relationship
Foundation tool
Sources reviewed

Requirements & limits

  • Prerequisites: Builds on modern Linux, macOS, Windows through the Mingw64 toolchain and other Unix hosts (mkdir build, ../configure, make). The upstream repository is gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu; GitHub carries a read-only mirror that asks users to take release tarballs from the QEMU website. The newest tag at review was v11.1.3, on a commit dated 2026-10-28.
  • Limits: User-mode emulation covers only the Linux and BSD system-call interfaces and emulates no hardware, and each guest architecture supports system emulation, user mode or both. TCG plugins observe guest state without changing it, and the bundled syscall plugin works only in user mode. With KVM or Xen, the hypervisor runs the CPU while QEMU provides emulated hardware.
  • License: QEMU as a whole is released under GPL-2.0; the LICENSE file gives component details.

About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

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Primary sources

  1. https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/f71afb409a87c4ecd0f9d63a5963eb645dfab780/README.rst
  2. README.rst GitHub · qemu/qemu · Revision f71afb4
  3. https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/f71afb409a87c4ecd0f9d63a5963eb645dfab780/docs/system/gdb.rst
  4. https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/f71afb409a87c4ecd0f9d63a5963eb645dfab780/docs/about/emulation.rst
  5. https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/f71afb409a87c4ecd0f9d63a5963eb645dfab780/docs/user/main.rst
  6. https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/blob/f71afb409a87c4ecd0f9d63a5963eb645dfab780/LICENSE
  7. https://www.qemu.org/docs/master/

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