diff --git a/include/qemu/osdep.h b/include/qemu/osdep.h
index 45c217aa28..0b1298b3c9 100644
--- a/include/qemu/osdep.h
+++ b/include/qemu/osdep.h
@@ -668,4 +668,16 @@ static inline void qemu_reset_optind(void)
  */
 char *qemu_get_host_name(Error **errp);
 
+/**
+ * qemu_get_host_physmem:
+ *
+ * Operating system agnostic way of querying host memory.
+ *
+ * Returns amount of physical memory on the system. This is purely
+ * advisery and may return 0 if we can't work it out. At the other
+ * end we saturate to SIZE_MAX if you are lucky enough to have that
+ * much memory.
+ */
+size_t qemu_get_host_physmem(void);
+
 #endif
diff --git a/util/oslib-posix.c b/util/oslib-posix.c
index d923674624..ad8001a4ad 100644
--- a/util/oslib-posix.c
+++ b/util/oslib-posix.c
@@ -841,3 +841,18 @@ char *qemu_get_host_name(Error **errp)
 
     return g_steal_pointer(&hostname);
 }
+
+size_t qemu_get_host_physmem(void)
+{
+#ifdef _SC_PHYS_PAGES
+    long pages = sysconf(_SC_PHYS_PAGES);
+    if (pages > 0) {
+        if (pages > SIZE_MAX / qemu_real_host_page_size) {
+            return SIZE_MAX;
+        } else {
+            return pages * qemu_real_host_page_size;
+        }
+    }
+#endif
+    return 0;
+}
diff --git a/util/oslib-win32.c b/util/oslib-win32.c
index 7eedbe5859..31030463cc 100644
--- a/util/oslib-win32.c
+++ b/util/oslib-win32.c
@@ -828,3 +828,9 @@ char *qemu_get_host_name(Error **errp)
 
     return g_utf16_to_utf8(tmp, size, NULL, NULL, NULL);
 }
+
+size_t qemu_get_host_physmem(void)
+{
+    /* currently unimplemented */
+    return 0;
+}