There are two main ways to set up networking on OS X / macOS, as it does not function with what QEMU defaults to for network settings: ----------------------------------- User Mode Networking (Easier Setup) ----------------------------------- By default, QEMU uses user mode networking (SLiRP). This networking mode is the slowest and is not visible via the outside network, but requires no host-side setup, so it's perfect if you just want internet but don't care about latency or about connecting to the VM from an external source. The problem that we run into here is that OS X is nitpicky about what emulated networking devices it is willing to accept, so we need to specify the network configuration to use the e1000 emulated card with SLiRP networking. In order to do this, change the line in your qemu-system-x86_64 command (found in boot.sh or boot-macOS.sh) to the following: -netdev user,id=net0 -device e1000-82545em,netdev=net0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:c9:18:27 \ No further setup is required; your internet should Just Werk™ in your virtual machine! For further information on detailed configuration options, see QEMU's documentation on networking ( http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/Networking ) ----------------------------------- Tap Networking (Better Performance) ----------------------------------- Installing "virt-manager" automagically creates the "virbr0" local private bridge :-) sudo apt-get install uml-utilities sudo ip tuntap add dev tap0 mode tap sudo ip link set tap0 up promisc on sudo brctl addif virbr0 tap0 Add "-netdev tap,id=net0,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no -device e1000-82545em,netdev=net0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:c9:18:27 \" to your qemu-system-x86_64 command. QEMU networking tip ------------------- # printf 'DE:AD:BE:EF:%02X:%02X\n' $((RANDOM%256)) $((RANDOM%256)) # generates QEMU compatible mac addresses!