agents-last-exam/ale-images-qcow2

ALE QEMU runner image

agentslastexam/ale-qemu is the container-side runtime used by the ALE qemu provider. It packages QEMU, KVM integration, NAT networking, noVNC, and process supervision. The Ubuntu or Windows guest is supplied separately as /storage/data.qcow2.

Docker is the container runtime. Dockur is the upstream QEMU-in-Docker project whose startup and networking stack this image inherits. ALE adds a stable runner contract around that upstream image.

The image is based on a digest-pinned trycua/cua-qemu-windows release. ALE replaces its inherited entrypoint because that script can remain alive forever after QEMU exits. The ALE entrypoint validates the mounted disk and executes the upstream VM process under tini, so Docker observes VM failures and signals correctly.

Build

From the repository root:

docker build \
  -f ale_run/environments/images/ale_qemu/Dockerfile \
  -t agentslastexam/ale-qemu:0.2.0 \
  -t agentslastexam/ale-qemu:latest \
  .

Publish

docker login
docker push agentslastexam/ale-qemu:0.2.0
docker push agentslastexam/ale-qemu:latest

Runtime contract

• /storage/data.qcow2 must be a non-empty pre-baked guest disk.
• The disk and every backing file must be readable when the container starts.
• /dev/kvm must be passed through.
• NET_ADMIN is required for the guest bridge and NAT rules.
• /shared may be bind-mounted to expose a per-run host exchange directory through Dockur's guest-only Samba share.
• Container ports 5000 and 8006 expose CUA and noVNC.
• VM_NET_IP defaults to 172.30.0.2.
• Docker health becomes healthy when the guest CUA /status endpoint responds.

The runner never downloads guest disks. Docker bind mounts are fixed when a container is created, so the host-side provider resolves and caches the qcow2, creates the per-run overlay, and only then invokes docker run.

Guest disk dataset

The pre-baked guest disks are published in the Hugging Face dataset agents-last-exam/ale-images-qcow2.

File	Guest
ale-win10.qcow2.manifest.json	Windows 10 qcow2 manifest
ale-win10.qcow2.parts/*	Verified 10 GB disk parts
ale-ubuntu22.qcow2.manifest.json	Ubuntu 22.04 qcow2 manifest
ale-ubuntu22.qcow2.parts/*	Verified 10 GB disk parts

Configure the provider with the logical qcow2 path:

snapshots:
  cpu-free:
    qemu:
      disk_source: hf://agents-last-exam/ale-images-qcow2/ale-win10.qcow2
  cpu-free-ubuntu:
    qemu:
      disk_source: hf://agents-last-exam/ale-images-qcow2/ale-ubuntu22.qcow2

The provider automatically discovers the multipart manifest, downloads and verifies each part, reconstructs the selected qcow2 in the host cache, verifies the complete disk SHA-256, and removes the temporary part files.

Ubuntu disk maintenance

The Ubuntu qcow2 is derived from the GCE image, but its QEMU source image is a separate artifact. Before creating that source image, mount the guest root filesystem offline. Generate the validation manifests from the current task allowlist and canonical GCS inventory:

gcloud storage ls \
  --recursive \
  --billing-project PROJECT \
  gs://ale-data-public \
  > /tmp/ale-data-public-list.txt

python scripts/prepare_qemu_ubuntu22_image.py manifests \
  --task-list selected_tasks/qemu_support.txt \
  --gcs-listing /tmp/ale-data-public-list.txt \
  --extra-variant demo/hello/base \
  --extra-variant demo/seecheck/base \
  --extra-variant demo/tool_smoke/base \
  --output-dir /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests

Then clean and validate the offline filesystem:

python scripts/prepare_qemu_ubuntu22_image.py clean \
  --root /mnt/ale-ubuntu22 \
  --expected-variants /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests/expected-ubuntu-all-variants.txt \
  --hg002-reference /tmp/hg002-reference \
  --disable-gce-services

python scripts/prepare_qemu_ubuntu22_image.py validate \
  --root /mnt/ale-ubuntu22 \
  --expected-variants /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests/expected-ubuntu-all-variants.txt \
  --expected-visible-files /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests/expected-ubuntu-visible-files.txt \
  --expected-reference-variants /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests/expected-reference-variants.txt \
  --expected-reference-files /tmp/ale-ubuntu22-manifests/expected-ubuntu-reference-files.txt \
  --verify-reference-archives \
  --expect-gce-services-disabled

Run the cleanup without --disable-gce-services on the canonical GCE source disk. Clone that cleaned disk for QEMU export, then run the commands above on the clone. Never mask the GCE services in the canonical GCE image.

The cleanup removes task outputs, plaintext top-level references, stale agent state, credentials, histories, system logs, GCE runtime state, and old machine identity. It restores the HG002 input reference directory from the canonical task-data source, regenerates SSH host keys, and masks GCE-only services in the QEMU derivative.

After offline validation and a successful boot test, label the versioned GCE image:

gcloud compute images add-labels IMAGE \
  --project PROJECT \
  --labels=ale-image-role=qemu-guest,ale-validation=passed

Export only to a versioned object. The export script verifies the labels and refuses to overwrite either an existing object or the canonical path:

scripts/export_qemu_gce_image.sh \
  IMAGE \
  gs://BUCKET/images/ale-ubuntu22-YYYYMMDD.qcow2 \
  PROJECT \
  gs://NON_REQUESTER_PAYS_STAGING_BUCKET

Run qemu-img check and a local QEMU cold-boot task against the downloaded versioned object before copying it to the canonical GCS path or publishing it to Hugging Face.