diff --git a/meta/lib/oeqa/utils/qemurunner.py b/meta/lib/oeqa/utils/qemurunner.py
index e976fd0819..33f31852a7 100644
--- a/meta/lib/oeqa/utils/qemurunner.py
+++ b/meta/lib/oeqa/utils/qemurunner.py
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ class QemuRunner:
         # Set this flag so that Qemu doesn't do any grabs as SDL grabs interact
         # badly with screensavers.
         os.environ["QEMU_DONT_GRAB"] = "1"
-        self.qemuparams = 'bootparams="console=tty1 console=ttyS0,115200n8" qemuparams="-serial tcp:127.0.0.1:{} -serial tcp:127.0.0.1:{}"'.format(threadport, self.serverport)
+        self.qemuparams = 'bootparams="console=tty1 console=ttyS0,115200n8" qemuparams="-serial tcp:127.0.0.1:{}"'.format(threadport)
         if qemuparams:
             self.qemuparams = self.qemuparams[:-1] + " " + qemuparams + " " + '\"'
 
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ class QemuRunner:
             fcntl.fcntl(o, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NONBLOCK)
             return os.read(o.fileno(), 1000000)
 
-        launch_cmd = 'runqemu %s %s %s' % (self.machine, self.rootfs, self.qemuparams)
+        launch_cmd = 'runqemu tcpserial=%s %s %s %s' % (self.serverport, self.machine, self.rootfs, self.qemuparams)
         # FIXME: We pass in stdin=subprocess.PIPE here to work around stty
         # blocking at the end of the runqemu script when using this within
         # oe-selftest (this makes stty error out immediately). There ought
diff --git a/scripts/runqemu b/scripts/runqemu
index 09c507dc7a..82711606f6 100755
--- a/scripts/runqemu
+++ b/scripts/runqemu
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ SCRIPT_QEMU_OPT=""
 SCRIPT_QEMU_EXTRA_OPT=""
 SCRIPT_KERNEL_OPT=""
 SERIALSTDIO=""
+TCPSERIAL_PORTNUM=""
 KVM_ENABLED="no"
 KVM_ACTIVE="no"
 
@@ -150,6 +151,9 @@ while true; do
             SCRIPT_KERNEL_OPT="$SCRIPT_KERNEL_OPT console=ttyS0"
             SERIALSTDIO="1"
             ;;
+        "tcpserial="*)
+            TCPSERIAL_PORTNUM=${arg##tcpserial=}
+            ;;
 	"biosdir="*)
             CUSTOMBIOSDIR="${arg##biosdir=}"
 	    ;;
diff --git a/scripts/runqemu-internal b/scripts/runqemu-internal
index d743322037..b317358f94 100755
--- a/scripts/runqemu-internal
+++ b/scripts/runqemu-internal
@@ -620,6 +620,14 @@ if [ "x$QEMUOPTIONS" = "x" ]; then
     return 1
 fi
 
+if [ $TCPSERIAL_PORTNUM != "" ]; then
+    if [ "$MACHINE" = "qemuarm64" ]; then
+        QEMUOPTIONS="$QEMUOPTIONS -device virtio-serial-device -chardev socket,id=virtcon,port=$TCPSERIAL_PORTNUM,host=127.0.0.1 -device virtconsole,chardev=virtcon"
+    else
+        QEMUOPTIONS="$QEMUOPTIONS -serial tcp:127.0.0.1:$TCPSERIAL_PORTNUM"
+    fi
+fi
+
 PATH=$OECORE_NATIVE_SYSROOT/usr/bin:$PATH
 
 QEMUBIN=`which $QEMU 2> /dev/null`