Too small argv limit Current kernels don't have a fixed argv/environ limit any more, but the user-space emulation of qemu is still using a fixed limit. This can cause execve to fail when it wouldn't on a real system. For example, the follwing command should not fail in the emulated environment: $ /bin/true $(yes | head -n 100000) -bash: /bin/true: Argument list too long This was fixed in QEMU 2.5.