kudu - easily manage VMs on Linux

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tui vm-management linux qemu open-source developer-tool system-administration

Summary

Kudu is a terminal-based user interface for creating and managing virtual machines on Linux, using QEMU and not relying on libvirt.

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Cached at: 08/24/26, 09:35 PM

pythops/kudu

Source: https://github.com/pythops/kudu

Easily manage VMs on Linux

Description

kudu is a TUI for creating and managing VMs on Linux. It is an alternative to GUIs like virt-manager or GNOME boxes and as opposed to these, it does not rely on libvirt

Prerequisites

  • A Linux based OS.

  • qemu binaries, at least one of those:

    • qemu-system-x86
    • qemu-system-aarch64
    • qemu-system-riscv

  • xorriso for cloudinit

  • passt

  • uefi firmware package (Optional for x86_64)

    Debian/UbuntuArch (btw)Fedora
    x86_64ovmfedk2-ovmfedk2-ovmf
    aarch64qemu-efi-aarch64edk2-aarch64edk2-aarch64
    riscv64qemu-efi-riscv64edk2-riscv64-

Installation

Binary release

You can download the pre-built binaries from the release page release page

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/pythops/kudu
cd kudu
cargo build --release

On Arch Linux

pacman -S kudu

Usage

$ kudu

FAQ

Q: KVM shows Disabled or Unavailable.

Make sure the kvm kernel module is loaded if you have Intel/AMD processor.

if you run kudu as regular user, make sure your user belongs to kvm group. otherwise run kudu with sudo.

kudu still runs fine even if kvm is not available.

Contributing

  • Strict No LLM.
  • Only submit a PR after having a prior issue or discussion.
  • Keep PRs small and focused.

License

GPLv3

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