Recently I installed Fedora 42 using Gnome Boxes, which serves as a lightweight graphical interface for KVM/QEMU, comparable to VMware Workstation.

Since Gnome Boxes functions primarily as a front-end for KVM, it is possible to leverage virsh for automation purposes, making it particularly suitable for laboratory environments. For graphical access, users may utilize either virt-viewer or the Boxes GUI.

These commands are generally compatible with other KVM-based platforms such as Proxmox, although networking configurations may vary. This setup is recommended for home lab use; it should not be deployed in production environments unless its appropriateness has been thoroughly evaluated, and you know exactly what you are doing

Setting up network

First, set up a bridged network. This step is optional, and much of the configuration can be skipped if it is not performed. With this setup, VBR will be accessible on the network (think VBR HA for example)

Use nmcli to display your current network adapter. Since the adapter will be moved, it is advisable to execute these commands locally rather than through SSH.

nmcli connection show
sudo nmcli connection add type bridge con-name br0 ifname br0
sudo nmcli connection modify br0 connection.autoconnect yes
sudo nmcli connection add type bridge-slave con-name br0-slave-eth ifname <yournetadapaterfromnmcli>  master br0
sudo nmcli connection modify br0-slave-eth connection.autoconnect yes

sudo nmcli connection delete "Wired connection 1"
sudo nmcli connection up br0

Disable bridge filtering on the bridge so VMs receive all traffic.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-netfilter-bridge.conf
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-ip6tables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-iptables = 0
net.bridge.bridge-nf-call-arptables = 0
EOF
cat <<EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/modules-load.d/br_netfilter.conf 
br_netfilter
EOF

You can either reboot to finish setting up the bridge, or load everything dynamically if you prefer not to reboot.

sudo modprobe br_netfilter
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/99-netfilter-bridge.conf

Now we need to allow qemu to use this bridge

echo "allow br0" | sudo tee -a /etc/qemu/bridge.conf 

We can now set up the network at the hypervisor level.

cat <<EOF | tee -a bridgenet.xml
<network>
    <name>br0</name>
    <forward mode="bridge" />
    <bridge name="br0" />
</network>
EOF
virsh net-define bridgenet.xml
virsh net-start br0
virsh net-autostart br0

Setting up the VM

The process uses the virt-v2v tool, which must be installed before converting the appliance. The import targets the gnome-boxes storage pool, Fedora 42's default as of September 2025.

sudo yum install virt-v2v -y
virt-v2v -i ova VeeamSoftwareAppliance_13.0.0.4967_20250822.ova -of qcow2\
 --os gnome-boxes --bridge br0 --on vbr

In Fedora 42, Gnome Boxes does not support the "VNC" protocol, and modifying this setting via virt-v2v appears to be unavailable. To address this, we will export the configuration, remove the virtual machine, update the configuration accordingly, and then redefine the VM.

virsh dumpxml vbr  > vbr.xml
xmllint vbr.xml --shell <<EOF
cd //graphics/@type
set spice
save
bye
EOF
virsh undefine --domain vbr --nvram

virsh define vbr.xml 
virsh start vbr

When you open Gnome Boxes, VBR will be running on your main network.

Finally you can now things like make screenshots. Perfect for documentation for example.

​​​​​​​virsh screenshot vbr

Or like I to do it with a numeric value for later documentation. $O will increase every running so you will get a filename like “vbr-0000x.png”

O=$(($O+1));virsh screenshot vbr --file $(printf "vbr-%05d.png" $O)

Screenshot saved to vbr-00001.png, with type of image/png