# Step 2: Configuring V2Ray Core

After a correct and successful installation of Qv2ray onto your system, it is necessary to configure V2Ray Core before actually using it.

# Download V2Ray Core Files

Qv2ray itself does not include a distribution of V2Ray executable files, namely the v2ray-core, and most of the time required for users is to download them.

Check out V2Fly Installation Guide (opens new window) for more details.

Core Management: Manual vs Automatic

If you are using a distribution with V2Ray core and assets packages, it'll be the best to install through package manager since the system will handle the automatic upgrade of v2ray core. For Arch Linux users, installing only one package v2ray is enough. For other distributions, please read below.

For Windows 10 ARM64 users

From V2Ray Core 4.27, the V2Ray project team has provided an ARM32 (armv7)-based kernel for Windows 10. It is recommended that Windows 10 ARM64 users use this version of the kernel to obtain better performance.

Sharpen Your Eyes

Do not download v2ray-linux-arm64.zip if you are running Qv2ray on x86_64 (amd64) platform. To make it clear, arm64 is completely different from amd64.

# Manual Download

Official Download Link: https://github.com/v2fly/v2ray-core/releases (opens new window)

Extract the v2ray core files into a fixed path. It is suggested to extract the files into $QV2RAY_CONFIG_PATH/vcore, where $QV2RAY_CONFIG_PATH is the directory where Qv2ray store its data.

The directory vcore could be in one of these locations:

  • ./config/ (config subdirectory aside Qv2ray executable, recommended for Windows Users)
  • ~/.qv2ray/ (in a dedicated directory of your home folder)
  • ~/.config/qv2ray/ (standard XDG configuration path)

Please make sure that these files exists directly in your vcore directory:

  1. v2ray / v2ray.exe: core executable file
  2. v2ctl / v2ctl.exe: core controlling program
  3. geoip.dat: IP rules database
  4. geosite.dat: domain rules database

Special Hint for Linux / macOS Users

You should always grant executable permission to v2ray and v2ctl. This is usually done by executing chmod +x on these files.

On macOS, if you use Homebrew to install v2ray-core, you can ignore this tip.

# Configure V2Ray Core in Qv2ray

Open Qv2ray and go to Preference Window. In Kernel Settings, configure the following options:

  • Core Executable Path: Set this to where your V2Ray executable exists. This can be the full path of your v2ray.exe on Windows, or that v2ray executable file on Linux / macOS.
  • V2Ray Assets Directory: Set this to where geoip.dat and geosite.dat are located.

After configuring, you can click on Check V2Ray Core Settings button to validate your V2Ray core settings. Repeat trying until you get the check passed.

No Matryoshka!

Never ever point Core Executable Path to Qv2ray Executable! This will not cause a fork bomb since Qv2ray is single-instanced. Do note that V2Ray Core Executable is like v2ray , v2ray.exe or wv2ray.exe, instead of qv2ray or qv2ray.exe, v2rayN.exe!