If you have qemu installed (or in the SDK), you can start the image with: cd path/to/image ./flatcar_production_iso.sh -curses If you need to use a different ssh key or different ssh port: ./flatcar_production_iso.sh -a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys -p 2223 -- -curses If you rather you can use the -nographic option instad of -curses. In this mode you can switch from the vm to the qemu monitor console with: Ctrl-a c See the qemu man page for more details on the monitor console. SSH into that host with: ssh 127.0.0.1 -p 2222