🖥️ Moving a Debian 12 VM to a Physical Machine via USB (V2P Guide)

If you’ve configured a Debian 12 system in virt-manager and want to install it on real hardware, this guide shows how to transfer the VM image to a USB stick and boot it on a physical machine.

🔧 Step 1: Locate Your VM Disk Image

Open a terminal and list your virtual machines (system-wide):

sudo virsh list --all

Then get the disk path:

sudo virsh dumpxml <vmname> | grep .qcow2

You should see something like:

<source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/debian12.qcow2'/>

Alternatively, if the VM was created in user session mode, look here:

~/.local/share/libvirt/images/

🔄 Step 2: Convert the Image to Raw Format

Most VM disks use qcow2 format. To write it to a USB stick, convert it to raw:

qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O raw debian12.qcow2 debian12.raw

To check the format:

qemu-img info debian12.qcow2

💾 Step 3: Write to USB (Be Careful!)

Plug in your USB stick and identify it: lsblk
Write the raw image to the entire USB device (⚠️ this erases it completely): sudo dd if=debian12.raw of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device (e.g., /dev/sdb, not a partition like /dev/sdb1).

🚀 Step 4: Boot the Physical Machine

Insert the USB into your target machine.
Boot from USB in BIOS/UEFI.
Debian should start up as if it were running inside the VM.

🛠️ Optional: Install to Internal Disk

If you want to move from USB to the internal disk:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=4M status=progress

/dev/sdX = USB stick
/dev/sdY = internal drive (check carefully!)

🧹 Post-Migration Tips

Reinstall GRUB (recommended): sudo grub-install /dev/sdY sudo update-grub
Check /etc/fstab for UUID mismatches.
Reconfigure networking if device names changed (e.g., eth0 vs ens3).

✅ Summary

This method gives you a quick and direct way to move a virtualized Debian system onto real hardware — ideal for system prototyping, quick deployment, or cloning a lab setup.