Emulator Start-up Options

You can launch the Emulator with specific settings by defining start-up options in the command line:

# ./emulator-x86 --skin-args <skin options> --qemu-args <QEMU options>

Tizen provides 2 types of Emulator start-up options that you can set: skin options (such as width and height) and QEMU options (such as network and USB).

The following tables list the available options.

Table: Emulator skin options
Category Option Mandatory Description
Resolution width=x Yes This option makes the Emulator use a specific skin image width. The width value must be one of the video resolutions that the Emulator can support.
height=x Yes This option makes the Emulator use a specific skin image height. The height value must be one of the video resolutions that the Emulator can support.
Log log.level=x No This option determines which logs of the Emulator skin process have to be written in the emulator-skin.log file.

There are 4 log levels:

  • Trace
  • Debug
  • Warn
  • Error (default)
Heartbeat test.hb.ignore=x No This option is used to activate the Emulator debugging mode. Generally, a skin process for the Emulator periodically checks the heartbeat that an Emulator process sends.
When the Emulator is in the debugging mode using gdb, the skin process is terminated automatically, because the Emulator cannot send a heartbeat to the skin process. In that case, you can set the test.hb.ignore option as true to debug the Emulator.
If this option is true, the skin process does not check the heartbeat that the Emulator sends. The default value of this option is false.
Skin image file path skin.path=xxx No Emulator loads the skin image files in this path. If this option is omitted, the Emulator finds the image files in the installed 'skins' directory.
Table: Emulator QEMU options
Category Option Description
File system image -drive file=<IMAGE_PATH>/emulimg.x86 Sets an image path to the file to be used as a drive image.
Swap file system image -drive file=<SWAP_IMAGE_PATH>/swap.img Sets an swap image path to the file to be used as a swap image.
Network -net user Uses the user mode network stack, which requires no administrator privilege to run.
-net nic,model=virtio,macaddr=<MAC_ADDRESS> Creates a new network interface card and connects it to VIRTIO. <MAC_ADDRESS> is recorded in .tizen-vms-path (<USER_HOME>/tizen-sdk-data/.tizen-vms-path). For example: E8:11:32:33:38:81
USB -usb Enables the USB driver.
TouchScreen -device virtio-touchscreen-pci Uses the Maru Touchscreen device for display.
Kernel -kernel <KERNEL_PATH> Uses bzImage as the kernel image.
BIOS -vga <CARD> Sets the VGA card. maru is the standard VGA card with Bochs VBE extensions.
-bios bios.bin Sets the filename for the BIOS.
-L <BIOS_PATH> Sets the directory for the BIOS, VGA BIOS, and key maps.
Time -rtc base=utc Sets the real time clock with UTC.
KVM (in Linux) -enable-kvm Enables KVM (hardware virtualization support).
HAX (in Windows®) -enable-hax Enables HAX (hardware virtualization support).
Boot order -boot c Sets the boot order of the Emulator. The letter c indicates a hard disk.
Kernel parameters -append<parameters> Sets the kernel command line parameters from the Emulator to the kernel.
Kernel log -serial file:<LOG_PATH>/emulator.klog Writes the kernel log into the <LOG_PATH>/emulator.klog file.
Memory -m <MEMORY_SIZE> Sets the memory size in the Tizen platform to, for example, 512 or 1024.
Board -M maru-x86-machine Sets the Emulator machine as maru-x86-machine.
Sound -soundhw all Enables all sound cards.
Display booting status -device virtio-esm-pci Sets the display booting status of the Emulator.

The following command is an example of using the Emulator start-up options:

<TIZEN_SDK_HOME>/tools/emulator/bin/emulator-x86 --skin-args width=720 height=1280 
skin.path=<TIZEN_SDK_HOME>/tools/emulator/skins/emul-general --qemu-args -drive file=<USER_HOME>/tizen
-sdk-data/emulator-vms/vms/<VM_NAME>/emulimg-<VM_NAME>.x86,if=virtio,index=1 -boot c -append "console=ttyS0 
video=uvesafb:ywrap,720x1280-32@60 dpi=3160 ip=10.0.2.16::10.0.2.2:255.255.255.0::eth0:none 5" -serial file: 
<USER_HOME>/tizen-sdk-data/emulator-vms/vms/<VM_NAME>/logs/emulator.klog -m 512 -M maru-x86-machine -net nic,
model=virtio,macaddr=<MAC_ADDRESS> -soundhw all -usb -device virtio-touchscreen-pci -vga maru -bios bios.bin -L 
<TIZEN_SDK_HOME>/tools/emulator/data/bios -kernel <TIZEN_SDK_HOME>/tools/emulator/data/kernel/bzImage.x86 
-net user -rtc base=utc -drive file=<USER_HOME>/tizen-sdk-data/emulator-vms/vms/<VM_NAME>/swap-<VM_NAME>.img,
if=virtio,index=2 -enable-gl -max-touch-point 6 –enable-kvm –device virtio-esm-pci

<USER_HOME> varies between platforms:

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