First I verified the test setup with 16.04 / 18.04 as is. I did hit the expected error: 2019-02-25T14:47:41.407008Z qemu-system-ppc64: error while loading state for instance 0x0 of device 'cpu' 2019-02-25T14:47:41.407312Z qemu-system-ppc64: load of migration failed: Invalid argument Then I upgraded to -proposed $ sudo apt install qemu-kvm/bionic-proposed qemu-block-extra/bionic-proposed qemu-system-common/bionic-proposed qemu-system-ppc/bionic-proposed qemu-utils/bionic-proposed Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Selected version '1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10' (Ubuntu:18.04/bionic-proposed [ppc64el]) for 'qemu-kvm' Selected version '1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10' (Ubuntu:18.04/bionic-proposed [ppc64el]) for 'qemu-block-extra' Selected version '1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10' (Ubuntu:18.04/bionic-proposed [ppc64el]) for 'qemu-system-common' Selected version '1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10' (Ubuntu:18.04/bionic-proposed [ppc64el]) for 'qemu-system-ppc' Selected version '1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10' (Ubuntu:18.04/bionic-proposed [ppc64el]) for 'qemu-utils' Suggested packages: samba vde2 openbios-ppc openhackware debootstrap The following packages will be upgraded: qemu-block-extra qemu-kvm qemu-system-common qemu-system-ppc qemu-utils 5 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 18 not upgraded. Need to get 8476 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic-proposed/main ppc64el qemu-utils ppc64el 1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10 [787 kB] Get:2 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic-proposed/main ppc64el qemu-system-common ppc64el 1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10 [662 kB] Get:3 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic-proposed/main ppc64el qemu-block-extra ppc64el 1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10 [38.4 kB] Get:4 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic-proposed/main ppc64el qemu-kvm ppc64el 1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10 [12.9 kB] Get:5 http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports bionic-proposed/main ppc64el qemu-system-ppc ppc64el 1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10 [6976 kB] Fetched 8476 kB in 4s (2067 kB/s) (Reading database ... 68341 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../qemu-utils_1%3a2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10_ppc64el.deb ... Unpacking qemu-utils (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) over (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.9) ... Preparing to unpack .../qemu-system-common_1%3a2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10_ppc64el.deb ... Unpacking qemu-system-common (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) over (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.9) ... Preparing to unpack .../qemu-block-extra_1%3a2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10_ppc64el.deb ... Unpacking qemu-block-extra:ppc64el (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) over (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.9) ... Preparing to unpack .../qemu-kvm_1%3a2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10_ppc64el.deb ... Unpacking qemu-kvm (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) over (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.9) ... Preparing to unpack .../qemu-system-ppc_1%3a2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10_ppc64el.deb ... Unpacking qemu-system-ppc (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) over (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.9) ... Setting up qemu-block-extra:ppc64el (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) ... Setting up qemu-utils (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ... Setting up qemu-system-common (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) ... Setting up qemu-system-ppc (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) ... Setting up qemu-kvm (1:2.11+dfsg-1ubuntu7.10) ... Retrying the migration case. Working fine now, from the log: $ virsh migrate --live --verbose b-x qemu+ssh://10.245.71.179/system Migration: [100 %] Setting verified