SBUILD-QEMU-UPDATE(1)

💖 SBUILD-QEMU-UPDATE 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the sbuild-qemu-update page, part of the Debian sbuild fam 🎀 this is, like, the sbuild-update analog for QEMU images — same energy, but for your cute little virtual machines ✨

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✨ NAME ✨

sbuild-qemu-update — the sbuild-update analog for QEMU images 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

sbuild-qemu-update [-h] [--snapshot] [--arch=ARCH] [--noexec] IMAGE

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so here's the vibe: sbuild-qemu-update boots a QEMU VM using IMAGE and then runs apt-get inside it, doing update, dist-upgrade, clean and autoremove. it's giving full glow-up for your image, no cap 🔥

and if you want, it can create a snapshot before updating. optional, but iconic for reproducibility purposes ffr.

now, the architecture? it gets auto-guessed bestie. the way it works: it strips any file suffix, then splits the image name on dashes ``''-'', and finally goes looking for a Debian architecture name. so sid-amd64.img, amd64-temporary.image, or even just plain amd64 would all be assumed to be amd64 images 💫 but not amd64.rebuild-tests.img — that one's built different and the guesser is not fooled. if this guesses wrong, just use the --arch option and move on 🫶

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -h, --help — show this help message and exit. the classic, the beloved 💖
• --snapshot — create a snapshot of the image before changing it. lowkey so useful for reproducibility purposes ✨
• --arch=ARCH — the architecture to use, instead of attempting to auto-guess. use this when the auto-guess fumbles 🌸
• --timeout=SECS — maximum time to wait for the command to finish with the expected result. mostly relevant for foreign architectures, where apt-get update can take quite a while 😭 default: 600s.
• --noexec — don't actually do anything. just print the command string that would be executed, and then exit. it's giving window shopping, and honestly? valid 👑
• --boot=auto,bios,efi,ieee1275,none — how to boot the image. default is BIOS on amd64 and i386, EFI on arm64 and armhf, and IEEE1275 on ppc64el. pick your fighter 💅

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

$ sbuild-qemu-update unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img

this will update the image unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img in the current directory. and bestie, if no such file exists there, then $IMAGEDIR/unstable-autopkgtest-amd64.img is tried instead 🦋

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

if $IMAGEDIR is unset, then ~/.cache/sbuild is used. that's the fallback home, periodt 💜

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright © 2020-2022 Christian Kastner <ckk@debian.org>

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

sbuild(1), sbuild-qemu(1), sbuild-qemu-create(1).

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! go update something and slay 💅✨

Version 0.91.10ubuntu1 · 29 June 2026 · Debian sbuild 🎀 mwah, bye 🫶